‘Gotham’ season 2, episode 14 review: Did Bruce Wayne kill Matches Malone?

Sometimes, shows are best when they keep things simple. Going into Monday night’s episode of “Gotham,” it felt almost like someone was speaking this message over and over again and almost willing it to be true. What we had as a result of that was one of the stronger episodes of the season.

Through the majority of this episode, the question that we were forced to ponder was this: Would Bruce Wayne really pull the trigger on Matches Malone? We got the sense for the majority of the hour that he really wanted to do it, but upon actually tracking down the man and meeting him, he was almost disappointed. Rather than being one of the most brutal and vile killers that we have ever seen, he was actually just a relatively-normal person burdened by some of the deaths that he had caused in the past. He really wanted to die, and Bruce did not want to fulfill this request. Matches instead took care of the matter on his own.

After not killing Matches, Bruce still made a shocking decision: He wanted to live on the streets for a while in order to discover himself, and figure out exactly what the city was made of. Alfred is CLEARLY not thrilled with the decision, but it feels clear that we’re setting up the Batman story in a big way.

Plans for Penguin – The B-story for the episode was fascinating in its own right, given that Hugo Strange revealed that he had “plans” for Oswald Cobblepot after allowing him to be released onto the streets of Gotham. He made this key decision, and then we got to see where the story went from there.

Edward’s enigma – Unfortunately for the soon-to-be-Riddler, there is starting to be plenty of suspicion when it comes to Kristen’s death. With the investigation into what happened to her heating up, he is starting to realize that trouble is afoot. He ended the story with a question mark around Jim’s head. Couldn’t this be trouble? Episode Grade: A-.

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