The team of amateur crime fighters had a narrow escape from the Court of Owls and came across a bitter revelation in the fourth episode of “Gotham Knights.” In the last episode, we saw the team rescue Gotham’s elite from a hostage situation orchestrated by the Mutant Gang and race against time to defuse a toxic gas bomb planted by the aforementioned ruffians. However, Harvey Dent ends up getting the credit for neutralizing the situation at the end, which boosts his image in his mayoral campaign, and the bomb—which the police were unable to locate at the end—was seen to have been used to kill Mayor Hill inside his Limo. Meanwhile, Cullen Row successfully retrieved Bruce Wayne’s great-great-grandfather Alan Wayne’s death report case files from the GCPD by infiltrating with a disguise and fake paperwork he’d forged. The reason is that Turner speculated about the Court of Owls’ connection to the generational killing of the Waynes, and Bruce’s murder might be solved if the first mention of the Court in a Wayne family death can be explored properly.
Spoilers Ahead
A Death In The Park
The fourth episode of “Gotham Knights” begins with an aerial shot of Robinson Park and closes by showing a middle-aged white-collar man running through the park frantically, apparently afraid of someone or something. The person, with visible small ‘x’ wounds across his body, tries to warn people about some impending danger. Local authorities arrive and try to calm him down, but he snatches a firearm and fires in the air, presumably to stop this unseen enemy from chasing him. Moments later, the person claims that ‘they’ are already there and shoots himself in the head, dying instantly.
Wayne’s Murder Investigation Continues
The team of amateur vigilantes joins Gotham Academy’s teacher lounge and goes through the case file on Alan Wayne’s death. Turner is unable to find anything substantial there to indicate that he was murdered by the Court, even though before his death, a frantic, paranoid Alan had shouted about the presence of the owls in his house. Harper notices some minor wound marks, particularly those in the shape of an x’, pictured in Alan’s death report, although those weren’t related to the cause of death according to the report, which claims the cause to be drowning after a sudden bout of dementia. Turner gets frustrated over the apparent failure and ponders whether they are ever going to return to their normal life again. Almost at the same time, Cullen brings the throwing knife used by the Talon, whom the team encountered previously, to cut a cake he has managed to steal from somewhere. The knife fell, gravitating towards its pointy tip, and made an ‘x’ mark on the floorboard, confirming the Court’s involvement in the death of Alan Wayne.
As the team returns to their hideout, the clock tower, Carrie speculates whether the throwing knife is a signature weapon of the Talons, and like the Waynes, they have hunted others in a similar manner too. Stephanie suggests latching a rubber ducky, a USB hacking device, to the GCPD’s main server, which can provide the team remote access, and once again, Cullen uses his disguise to infiltrate the GCPD and successfully install the device. Police remain inept irrespective of the fictional or real world. However, by accessing the mainframe of the GCPD directory, Stephanie found out the throwing knife wound marks appeared in the bodies of hundreds of other deceased persons whose causes of death were not specified. While searching for the most recent instance, the team comes across the death of the person in Robinson Park, which happened two weeks ago, almost at the same time when Turner was arrested, and showed similar symptoms of paranoia before taking his own life, as Alan Wayne did. Turner identifies the person as his father, Bruce Wayne’s most trusted lawyer, Pericles Jones. Turner decides to break into Jones’ house to search for clues, and Harper offers her assistance to avoid Stephanie’s presence. Cullen states that he is willing to help Stephanie discover more information about the throwing knife.
Disturbing Discoveries
Duela provides her assistance to Cullen and Stephanie as she identifies the throwing knife from a particular instance she had read about previously, and she brings out the book title ‘Morbid and Morose,’ sort of a directory of serial killers. It seems like being the daughter of the Joker comes with its typical perks, after all. Duela points out an individual named Felix Harmon, a knife thrower who used to operate in the famous Haley’s Circus during the 1900s and became known as the Butcher of Gotham due to his psychopathic tendencies that claimed the lives of numerous victims, whom Felix used to carve up in pieces. Cullen identifies the knives as similar to the one they had found. However, Felix died a century ago when he was executed in public, and Stephanie finds out that, as his next of kin, his daughter is still alive, going by the name Eunice Monroe, and has been admitted to the Robinson Park nursing home. Carrie and Duela decide to pay her a visit.
Harper and Turner break into Pericles’ household and find his belongings to have been rummaged through. Suddenly, Pericles’ son appears and holds both of them at gunpoint, but eases after realizing Turner’s identity as Bruce’s son. A mention of the Court of Owls by Turner visibly shocks him, and he lights the darkroom to show the walls are filled with inscriptions made by Pericles, repeatedly mentioning the Court of the Owls. The son says Bruce Wayne indeed changed his will before his death, as the police reported, but the information that they purposefully omitted was that Bruce never cut Turner off the will. Turner speculates that corrupt Detective Ford is the reason. The son also mentions that the change of will happened a couple of days before Bruce’s death, and there was only one copy of the will, which was with Bruce. Although he does not know what was written in the will, he heard his father, Pericles, say that the content in the will would have been a game changer and that it would have made Bruce the greatest person in Gotham’s history. A day after Bruce’s visit, Pericles started acting like a maniac and scribbling all over the walls. Also, the son mentions during his father’s ramblings the mention of Owls in the house was heard. Turner speculates that the changed will was the reason both Bruce and Pericles were murdered by the Court.
Harvey Gets Framed
In the wake of Mayor Hill’s murder, Lincoln March announces his entry into the race for Mayor, opposing the candidacy of Harvey Dent, who now has been regarded as a public hero after getting undeserving credit for capturing the Mutant Gang. Harvey finds a peculiar key in his pocket that doesn’t belong to him. Upon asking Commissioner Soto about the particulars of the Mayor’s death, Harvey comes to know that the owl motif coin has been found beside his body, similar to the coin that was recovered earlier from Bruce Wayne’s murder scene. Harvey goes to the evidence directory to run a match but learns that someone has used his ID to retrieve the coin previously. Later, Lincoln March comes to Harvey and asks about the coin found in Bruce and the Mayor’s murder scene, as he has received one too. As Harvey looks for evidence in the confiscated limousine of Mayor Hill, the Commissioner remarks that the gas bomb that caused the Mayor’s death was put inside by opening the door lock, and conveniently one set of keys is missing. Unbeknownst to her, Harvey tries to unlock the door using the keys that were placed in his pocket and find them to be the same.
Like Father, Like Daughter
Carrie and Duela gain access to Eunice’s room in the hospital on the excuse of community service. While Carrie hesitates to start the conversation as the topic might be sensitive, Duela uses her psycho-father cred to instantly hit it off with the decrepit old lady. Initially, the conversation about Felix’s belongings goes well, with Eunice getting nostalgic over circus music and the fact her father used to bring her music boxes and still does. When Duela decides to push the conversation a little further by asking whether Felix gave away his knives to someone else too, Eunice gradually starts explaining morbid details about how her father worked with precision to horrifically dismember his victims, and it soon gets revealed that, at least mentally, both the father and the daughter are on the same page. As the girls run off from the psychotic old lady, Eunice decides to greet the farewell by loudly shouting the ominous poem of the Court of the Owls.
Friendship And Betrayal
Stephanie and Cullen deduce that the psychotic episode just before the deaths of the victims murdered by the Court of the Owls might be due to the use of some kind of undetectable toxin used in the throwing knives. The duo bonds over their mutual misfortune of having addicts for parents. Later, Harper teases her brother about befriending Stephanie and expresses her dislike for Steph, arising from the fact that they are much alike except for the fact that Stephanie is much, much more privileged. Cullen assures her sister that everybody suffers from demons of their own, and if she gets to know Steph a bit, she will get that too. He adds that she shouldn’t judge people on the basis of their assumptions like they themselves have been their whole lives.
Turner decides to go back to Wayne Manor to search for the changed will, and the team expresses their concerns about the dangers he might face in doing so. Turner assures them that Cressida, the attaché of Bruce, is a loyal and trustworthy ally and basically a part of their family, and he goes to visit her. Meanwhile, after returning to the hideout, Duela and Carrie share their experience and find out that Cressida was frequenting Eunice and possibly keeping her under the assumption that her father is still alive.
In “Gotham Knights” Episode 1, we saw Cressida burning the last will of Bruce Wayne, and it was indication enough that she was with the Court, and the suspicion was confirmed later when she acted as a messenger of the Court to the Mayor. Turner meets her at the Manor and greets her warmly, but makes the mistake of letting her know that he has been able to deduce that Bruce’s last will was significant for some reason. Just as the team manages to hurriedly inform Turner about Cressida’s real intentions, Turner finds himself at her gunpoint. Cressida lauds Turner about the extensive detective work he has done to reach this point, something that’d have made Bruce proud. However, an aggrieved Turner manages to turn the tables by snatching the gun off of her and asks whether she killed Bruce on her own.
Cressida remarks she poisoned Bruce’s food to make his senses weak enough for the Talon to do the rest. Cressida doesn’t plead for her life, but lets Turner know that she had no choice but to comply with the dictates of the Court, and that she has always cared about him. Their conversation gets interrupted as the elite members of the Court suddenly enter the room wearing the signature owl masks and offer Turner release from the life of a fugitive if he swears his fealty and gives up his friends. Turner refuses their offer, and the Court summons the Talon before leaving, to kill him. Carrie breaks in through the window in the nick of time and drags Turner into the Batcave, where she uses her incendiary bolts to collapse part of the cave on the Talon, and they both manage to escape. After returning to the hideout, Turner feels emotionally crushed over Cressida’s betrayal, as the fact dawns on him that with her act, the last semblance he had of something called family got severed. Duela has managed to steal the music box from Eunice, and Cassie runs a print check on it which reveals Felix Harmon to be one of the people who touched it recently.
‘Gotham Knights’ Episode 4: Ending Explained: Who Is The Gotham Butcher?
As the episode ends, the team gets to know about the possibility of Felix Harmon, aka the Gotham Butcher, being alive, which dumbfounds them considering the fact the person had died a century ago and even if his death was faked, living up to this point simply isn’t possible. This surprise reveal is showcased with the Court gathering around the Talon, which had been crushed and mangled under the Batcave, and we see the Talon’s body to be twitching, moving on its own to set the body in position and heal itself, clearly indicating the Talon is the Gotham Butcher. In comics, Felix Harmon was a late 19th-century serial killer who had an astoundingly high body count and was captured by the Court of Owls to do their bidding. The reason we see the Talon regenerating is that in the comics, the Court used to preserve their bodies using several compounds, and even after being dead, they could come back to life. It was nice to see the series honoring the undead legacy of the Talons, even though the Gotham Butcher is a couple of feet shorter and less hulking than his comics counterpart.
