Penguin gains power as he narrows in on the nomination for Mayor of Gotham. Meanwhile, Gordon turns Alice (guest star Naian Gonzalez Norvind) into the GCPD for the bounty. Also, Bruce and Alfred race to find Bruce’s doppleganger after learning he’s assumed Bruce’s identity.

Gotham is a bit mixed in tonight’s episode. There’s the election, there’s the Mad Hatter, there’s Bruce’s doppleganger, it’s all packed in to an hour of television and the various plotlines make things very uneven.

Lets start with the Madhatter story which has him recruiting some help to retrieve his sister, plus Gordon is still under his influence too. There’s just a creepiness to this whole story that in today’s climate comes off horribly. The end of the episode doesn’t help matters at all only making things worse in many ways.

Benedict Samuel as Jervis Tetch/Mad Hatter is solid in the role though. He brings a really interesting style to the classic character, I just wish he was given something a bit more interesting and not so abusive.

Bruce’s doppleganger continues to be the weakest part of the series mainly due to lack of acting and the story as a whole is just silly. Who knows where it’s going, but I just don’t care as it feels so much more at home in the X-Men universe than it does in Batman. I’m positive that the plot line will intersect with Fish Mooney and Hugo Strange again, but at this point I just want it to wrap up.

Finally there’s the election which actually has some payoff this episode. My biggest gripe is there wasn’t more of this! This is seriously the quickest election I’ve ever seen and there’s not enough done with the ramp up. It’s the most interesting thing going on with the show and the election is decided tonight. What’s weird is if you put it together with the timeline of other events it’s maybe been a day or two since the announcement that Oswald was running… um, k, that doesn’t work.

This is an episode where things needed to be stretched out and others sped up because they’re so bad. As I said, a mixed bag that shows the good and bad of an uneven series.

Overall Rating: 6.95