Barbara Became a 'Gotham' Bad Guy For an Episode

Okay, so serious spoilers for the penultimate Gotham episode ahead, but I just can't wait to discuss this for longer than one sentence... Barbara KILLED her PARENTS. Like what the hell was that about? I understand that she'd spent the day with a crazy man and did what she had to in order to survive, but the implication was that she was the one who had murdered her parents, not Jason, so I think it might be time for her to spend some time in Arkham Asylum. I understand that this is supposed to be where we reevaluate Barbara as a character, but I just don't really see how this made a convincing turn for the girl. Let's break it down bit by bit and see how it tracks, and judge once and for all whether this was a mistake by the writers or just a character we've only seen as "meh" go for the full "cray." Cool?

She flipped wildly every few scenes. At the end of last week's episode, she was all coy and even shared a smile with Jason at the sight of his soundproof sex/torture chamber. Then, immediately she switched to terrified, which makes sense because I think the implication was supposed to be that they'd had great kinky sex the night before (get it!) but then Jason took a hard turn into kidnapping territory.

Then, the strange moment where Jason admits that he's a serial killer and shows Barbara all of the evidence, while making her drink a sedative of some kind. All throughout these parts, she's a scared captive, and doesn't want to be with him, but is smart enough to not try to escape. Checks out.

Then, there's a brief scene where the two embrace, and it seems like Jason is really comforting her... until he makes her promise to pick someone that he can kill instead of her. Personally, I thought this whole part was pretty successfully creepy. Barbara is so starved for love that she'll accept it from a clearly crazy man, and yet also desperate to stay alive — the tension was palpable!

Now we get to cuckoo-wacko-weird-bizarre territory. Barbara chose her parents as her victims! Very Freudian. But then, when Jason goes to kill them, it seems like she asks to kill them instead, and the blood on her dress seems to back that up. And yet, when Jim barges in, he acts like this was all Jason's doing. I think we needed to see way more of that murder scene, just to parse out what really happened.

But if there are prizes handed out for WTFery in network shows, Gotham just won a thousand of them for taking what was always a pretty boring character and breathing new life into her... by making her a murderer.

Image: Jessica Miglio/FOX; Giphy