Batman: Caped Crusader — Episode 7 Review

Commissioner Gordon and his defense lawyer daughter are bickering. Barbara just won a victory for her client — a client Gordon is convinced was guilty. He insists he belongs in prison; she insists he deserves a second chance. As they’re walking down the front steps of the courthouse, Renee and some other dude who will only appear in this episode tell them they’re not safe. “You need to come with us! We just got a tip that….”

They’re interrupted by the thing they got a tip about. A man from below shouts “HEY GORDON!” and lifts up a gun. Before he can fire, though. Guy Who Will Only Appear In This Episode whips out his own pistol and fires first. Renee could elaborate on the point she was about to make, but it’s clear: someone in the criminal underworld has put a hit out on the Commissioner, and bad guys will be hunting him down to collect.

Gordon’s co-workers have varied ideas on how to handle this. Bullock and Flass want the blunt approach, taking dozens of cop cars to swarm the streets until they find the man who ordered the hit. Barbara wants Gordon to hide in a safe house while a more quiet investigation goes underway. Gordon refuses both solutions. He “won’t let our streets turn into a war zone” and he’s not the type to hide either — he insists this is further proof Gotham needs him, right now, at his desk. Barb, who’s worried for his safety, is unhappy.

Later that evening, she’s trying to come up with solutions when Batman just sneaks into her office and surprises her, as is his style. He’s got the information she needs, even if he had to rough up a few guys to get it: the man who ordered the hit is currently serving time in Blackgate Prison.

And the very next scene is AT that prison, where Batman is just…there, taking out security guards and slamming a crook against the wall until he rats on who the man is. I love how the show doesn’t go into any details on how Batman got in this high-security area or how he plans to get out. How’d he sneak into prison? He’s Batman. How will he get out? He’s Batman. That’s all you need to know.

Anyway, the man behind the hit is someone named Mueller, who’s mad the first hitman failed at the job and has now doubled his price. A team of professionals is now arriving by train in Gotham, led by one of the world’s most expert assassins, Onomatopoeia. “BUM..BUM…BUUUUUMMMM,” he says dramatically.

This guy has the very campy gimmick of yelling his own sound effects, as literal words, and those are also his only lines of dialogue — I suppose it’d translate better in the comics. According to the credits Onomatopoeia was co-created by Kevin Smith. Since Smith loves to flatter himself, I then had to check if he was the one who wrote this episode — he did not. I suppose if he had, Harley Quinn Smith would be playing one of the bit parts.

After a hard day at work, Gordon drives back home to find…Renee, Barbara and Guy Who Will Only Appear In This Episode blocking his front door. “Aw, hell,” he mutters. He realizes they won’t take no for an answer and that he’s headed to a safe house whether he likes it or not. Meanwhile, Batman grilled Mueller and found out some additional info…which he is JUST too late to share with Gordon. The phone rings in his empty house as they all leave.

As Gordon’s friends and family are driving him down a remote road on the side of a hill, he feels headlights behind him and looks back around. “You got me an escort too?” he gripes. “Uh, not me…..” replies Renee. The car speeds up, pulls alongside them and begins firing. Some plan….Gordon couldn’t even get to the house to be safe in the first place!

Thanks to some fancy driving, our heroes are able to dodge the gunfire and evade the car….well, most of them. Guy Who Will Only Appear In This Episode (whose name is Corgan, I should probably start calling him that) notices a bullet winged their driver’s arm. The car’s also in no shape to travel much farther. They need a place to hide, and conveniently, an in-development row of houses is just up the hill.

Batman is monitoring police chatter in the Batmobile, and when he hears “vehicle collision and officer down on Dozier Road, Route 2,” he has his lead. He makes a dramatic U-Turn and heads in their direction….but Onomatopoeia and his thugs are going to get there first.

They surround the model home Gordon is in and start firing Tommy guns into the windows. Being policemen, Gordon’s posse is not unarmed, and the next few minutes are a tense shootout with Renee, Barbara and others trading bullets. As Gordon is reloading, he asks Renee how many are left. “I counted seven,” she tells him. They’re closing in, though; they can’t hold off this many — until Batman appears at that moment, throwing Batarangs and slugging criminals from behind as he doesn’t really “do” guns.

It’s time for the big Batman / Onomatopoeia confrontation. “Swish! Swish!” Onomatopoeia says as he skillfully dodges Batman’s right and left hooks. “Crack!” he spouts when he connects a punch on Bats’s jaw. “Whoosh!” he shouts when he tries to blow dirt in Bat’s face. You can’t hold the upper hand against Batman forever, though. and when he finally lands in a solid hit — striking Onomatopoeia’s vocal cords so he can’t speak — Batman simply quips “Pow” before slugging the man’s lights out.

Oh, guess what — the reason the bad guys always knew where Gordon was, was because they had a man on the inside….and if you guessed it’s Guy Who Will Only Appear In This Episode, you are correct! Corgan suddenly aims his gun at Barbara, confirming his role…..and the surprise reveal that SHE was the target all along (that, I did not guess). “You got a real unhappy former client up in Blackgate,” he tells her. Just as he’s about to shoot, Gordon comes from behind, firing his own gun and stopping his plan for good.

The following day, Barbara meets with Mueller at Blackgate Prison. “Look, I took the hit off ya, so….you can tell your friend that,” he says, clearly shaken by his encounter with Batman. But Barbara looks even more shaken in these closing shots, unsure of what she believes anymore.

“I did the best I could for you….”
“This was the best you could do? I know I made some mistakes, but I don’t deserve to be here!”
“Actually….I think you do….”

Outside of the meeting cell, Barbara just stares at the ground sadly.