Gordon and Bullock set out to stop Gerald Crane, a biology teacher who has been harvesting the glands of his murder victims. Meanwhile, after finding herself in an unusual setting, Mooney continues plotting to gain power, and Falcone attempts to change Maroni’s plan for the Penguin. Then, Bruce takes a treacherous hike.

Gotham bounces back a bit from last week’s slight dip in quality, though this episode isn’t as solid as some previous ones. The big theme is fear, and overcoming it. You’d think this could lead to one rather iconic moment of a certain someone’s origin to keep the theme going, but not so much. Instead, tonight we get the origin of a whole other villain, which seems to be when the series falters.

Gordon and Bullock continue to pursue Crane who is still experimenting with fear. We all know this will somehow turn into the origin of his son’s alter-ego the Scarecrow, and it happens as expected, but in a rather odd way.

But as usual, the episode shines when not focused on its villains and their interesting personalities.  Instead the most important moments are when Edward Nygma meets the Penguin, Leslie Thompkins joins the GCPD, and the Penguin takes over his first business. These are the highlights, but even then, these moments aren’t nearly as good as previous ones featuring all of these characters.

The episode isn’t a bad one, but seems more like filler whose role is to move numerous plotlines forward, and none of them in a super exciting way.

Overall Score: 7.9