[00:00:00] This is Gotham TV Podcast talking about Pennyworth Season 2 Episode 6 The Rose And Thorn
[00:01:03] Welcome back fellow governors, fellow Gothamites to this episode of Gotham TV Podcast over on TV Podcast Industries where we're looking at Pennyworth Season 2 Episode 6 The Rose And Thorn. I am one of your hosts, John. I'm your host, Derek. Welcome back fellow governors.
[00:01:41] It's a dark and stormy night here in Dublin as we record this so you may get some wind noises on the podcast. I promise it's the wind outside. Well it's getting dark and stormy in Pennyworth as well, certainly with a trippy end sequence
[00:01:58] and certainly the dark actions of Alfred coming to sort of catch up on him a bit here in this episode. Yeah absolutely. We knew that wasn't going to last too much longer, the honeymoon period before he leaves for America.
[00:02:14] It's definitely not going to last too long is it? No not at all. Thanks so much to all of you who are subscribing to The Pennyworth Podcast and joining us for these episodes has been really good chatting about Pennyworth as it's returned to the
[00:02:25] US on Epics and is now broadcasting on StarzPlay in the UK as well so really good getting you guys listening along with us. It's been really enjoyable so far. Yeah absolutely. And if you haven't already subscribed please head on over to TVpodcastindustries.com to connect
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[00:03:13] coverage of all the other shows that we talk about. Just finished one division over on Disney Plus and starting up Falcon and the Winter Soldier from March 19th over there in Disney Plus as well so lots and lots of comic book
[00:03:25] TV going on at the moment so check it out. We'd also love to hear from you about Pennyworth or anything else. You can email us to feedback at TVpodcastindustries.com and we'll include your thoughts in our feedback section for Pennyworth. John, should we get into it?
[00:03:39] Yeah let's get into the spoiler filled review of this episode, The Rose and Thorn Episode 6 of Season 2 of Pennyworth. Yeah this episode was written by Bruno Heller, the showwriter for the show, written many of the episodes of the first season and many many episodes of Gotham so we've
[00:03:56] spoken about him a lot over the last six years of broadcasting. Their episode was directed again by John East, he directed the last episode as well, episode 5 so both being involved in this. You can always tell when Bruno Heller's hand is behind the writing of an episode
[00:04:10] because everybody seems to get a moment don't they? Beth is the only person that doesn't get a moment in this episode but she had a nice big episode, big moment in episode 5. This episode seems to really tie together all of the big storylines and big characters here right?
[00:04:24] It really does begin to sort of bundled them up and place a nice bow on it. I think you can see where this is leading to in the final sort of three or four episodes of Pennyworth Season 2. Yeah.
[00:04:40] But certainly yeah we missed Beth Sykes here in this episode but no doubt she will be back with Evangence. And great to see Bruno Heller doing the writing for this episode and yeah great to see Johnny's back.
[00:04:53] Yeah absolutely, Beth's probably just cuddled up on the couch watching Telly still. I guess in that shop that might be the least of what she's doing. Well maybe yeah but that's where we last left her Johnny's element.
[00:05:05] Do you want to tell us where everybody is with your synopsis for this episode of Pennyworth John? Sure. As Thomas Wayne rushes to extract Lucius Fox from the Raven Union headquarters he enlists the assistance of the English League and specifically Martha who is feeling sick.
[00:05:22] In return for their help Aziz asks that the CIA warn Alistair Crowley that John Ripper is out for revenge for the death of Archbishop Potter. Meanwhile the imprisonment of Francis Gawnt has seen tensions fester in the top brass at the Raven Union headquarters and Harwood increasingly
[00:05:39] becomes unhinged seeing betrayal everywhere through a cocktail of medicine, alcohol and the plotting of Captain Salt. Alfie and Dave Boy are roped in to the rescue of Lucius Fox who has returned safely to the CIA where he warns of the threat from Project Storm Cloud.
[00:05:57] Back at Delaney's, Alfred and Dave Boy's friendship becomes strained as Alfred's lies to Sandra and his infidelity with Melanie begin to catch up on him. Out in jolly old London town Crowley is picked up by John Ripper but
[00:06:11] some well laced lip gloss allows Crowley to get the better of Ripper. Dropped off at the English League headquarters John Ripper is drugged, hallucinating and fearful but a demonic Aziz in his dreams quietly whispers that he manufactured the events to rid himself of his main
[00:06:27] competition in the English League. Back at Martha's apartment, Patricia Wayne is serially painting the buttock of a naked man but she has the answer to Martha's sickness. She is pregnant. Mm-hmm. Yes. There's a lot of a lot of nakedness that goes on in Martha's house, isn't there?
[00:06:46] Yes, that was both the weirdest, most surreal and also excellent moments ever that yes a naked man standing in Martha's apartment having his buttocks sort of painted by Patricia in a nonchalant way. It all seems quite normal in that hipster apartment that is Martha's.
[00:07:10] I guess it never happened in Wayne Manor. Maybe it did though. I remember with a person like Patricia Wayne has as much money as she does. Everything's a canvas, I suppose, if you have that kind of money. Well, exactly.
[00:07:21] I mean, I just love this is just so off the wall out there. But it is absolutely fantastic. And I guess, you know, we say there's not really any time here. You know, it borrows from a lot of different eras, certainly the swinging sixties.
[00:07:40] I guess buttock painting would have been pretty high up in the list of many people in that time. You know, free love, frolicking around flowers and a bit of extracurricular buttock painting. Absolutely. Hey, if you're up for it, why not?
[00:07:55] Why not? Speaking of timelines, John, actually, we got a piece of feedback from Patrick Lemke over on Twitter who noticed last week there was a moment where we saw the front page of a newspaper which indicated that we do actually have a year and month
[00:08:10] when that episode took place. That's the first time we've had that in the two seasons of the show. Patrick pointed out that the the month was March and the year is 1962, a bit earlier than I thought, actually.
[00:08:20] I thought that we were kind of if we were looking at a year, we'd be looking around 66, 67 kind of time. Yeah. Later 60s. Yeah, it's interesting. I guess the timeline seems about right for me, sixties. It could have been a bit earlier, but I think
[00:08:34] in that in the timeline, if there is one, sort of the background one for this show, it's post World War Two. Oh, yeah. And I guess because of the jungle either from some of the flashbacks out with Alfred Bazaar and Dave Boy in previous episodes,
[00:08:54] you know, either that's in the fighting in World War Two or it could be more reminiscent of, say, the Korean war or some war just after World War Two. Yeah, we kind of set it as a war during the late 50s, early 60s.
[00:09:09] And that would seem to play in there. But in respect to the the Botic painting it's spot on. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Thanks very much, Patrick, for putting that out. If there's anything we missed on our episodes, guys, please send us an email at twofeedbackattvpodcastindustries.com
[00:09:23] or go on to Twitter and find us there at Gotham TV podcast and let us know anything we miss. Let's go on to the way we normally break down our episodes into our main three kind of points. Our first one being Alfie, the boys and the job.
[00:09:35] This has worked for the last two episodes, Alfie and Dave Boy going on a job. Let's have a chat about what's going on with Alfie and Dave Boy, John. Yeah, well, there's certainly a reoccurring theme here that they think
[00:09:45] that they're kind of done with the jobs, but OK, one last job. Oh, it's always one last job to do. It never ends. It's such a trope of crime dramas from the 60s and 70s where you always meet the characters in the movie going on one last job.
[00:10:01] And here we have a weekly TV show with Alfie and Dave Boy trying to get to America and they can never get past that just one last job for this person. At last week, it was Gully. This week, it's one last job for Aziz before we go.
[00:10:13] Exactly. Alfie's got his money from the previous job with Gully at the wrestling arena. He's gone to Thomas. He's got his tickets for America. And, you know, that's it. It doesn't need to do another job for Thomas. But ultimately, Thomas Wayne gets his own way here
[00:10:33] and sort of ropes him into the the job that has been asked of the English League. It's him and Martha really, I guess, with this. But I think the interesting thing is like literally, you don't know how much money they got from the wrestling job.
[00:10:54] But I guess that's most of it because he lost 20,000. He gives 15. So he's only got 5,000 for America. And I still think that the money that they were trying to get together was so that effectively they didn't have to hustle when they got over there
[00:11:11] that they they didn't they could just relax. You know, and maybe that's just coming from Dave Boy's and dreams and, you know, what he wants from that, which is sitting by the pool. But remember, that's like a thing to all the trouble Dave Boy's assertion
[00:11:25] that they would have loads of money to go over there. And that's how they lost their first 20 grand. But if he does have his tickets now, he bought the tickets with 15 grand from the money that he got at the wrestling fight, as you said.
[00:11:36] It seems like he doesn't have a huge amount more money than that. Although, as we said before, Dave Boy was saying that he they have loads to go over there. But that's been a while now. They lost the 20 grand. They have nothing else really.
[00:11:52] And we see Alfie basically say when they get over there, he's going to have to duck and dive when he gets over there. So Sandra can't come with them. So that would seem to be it. I do like the kind of piece of Thomas where he said,
[00:12:03] I didn't think you're actually going to get the money. So I had a job all lined up for you. And Alfie doesn't even ask him what the job is. We find out later that actually he was going to give the job
[00:12:12] to get of getting Lucius Fox out of the Ravenhage Q to Alfred. But Thomas still gets his own way effectively, even though he never actually asked Alfred. He asked in a roundabout way and it all came back to Alfred again. Yeah, exactly through the English League.
[00:12:25] Yeah. It's interesting as well as quickly that he gets the three tickets. Obviously, his mother doesn't want anything to do with him. But he still gets three tickets. And I know with the whole opening with Alfie and Melanie in bed after the dirty evening together,
[00:12:43] that there was the suggestion that she wouldn't be coming. You know, he liked the way it was. Perfectly happy with how it was working out. And that's why he likes Melanie when she asked him
[00:12:56] that she had her own life and she was happy just to go back to that. And, you know, there was not really any deep emotional attachment between the two, but that was something that. Alfred really liked. But there was still this idea that I was wondering
[00:13:15] whether he was going to offer it to her, you know, maybe almost like get her to safety, get her out of Gully's grasp, I guess. But anyway, I think, yeah, we get to see the Queen here again, which was really good and effectively blackmailing Alfie.
[00:13:33] Alfie should have just taken the money that both her and Aziz, the now the prime minister, were offering right at the start. But he says, I don't need any money. So they threaten to expose his relationship with Melanie Gully unless he does this one last job.
[00:13:50] So he's forced to recover Lucius Fox here with with Martha, who they team up with both him and Dave Boyd. Yeah. And to recover Lucius from the headquarters there of the Raven Union. So he ends up, you know, getting no money,
[00:14:09] but he protects in a sense his reputation. But how protected that is going to be because we do hear from Dave Boyd that actually it's the gossip of Delaney's club. Yeah. And there's no real hiding from it. Yeah. But I don't think it's his reputation. That's the problem.
[00:14:26] I think he knows that if Gully finds out that he's been cheating with with Melanie, Melanie's dead. Oh, no. Yeah. So it was both. They're both dead probably. Yeah, absolutely. But it's his reputation is definitely not not on the line here.
[00:14:39] Whereas Melanie's life does seem to be as we see a bit later on in the episode. She does seem very threatened by the fact there's a lot of people that know about this secretive relationship.
[00:14:51] But it is the kind of section itself where we have the extraction of Lucius. I thought that was really interesting. I love the scene. It's a really good, really good setup where we have effectively Lucius going out under armed guard to go and get himself a cheeseburger.
[00:15:05] The most perfect sending cheeseburger I've ever heard. It's fantastic. I wonder that come from Bruno Heller's experience living in the US, coming back to the UK and trying to get a good cheeseburger in local diners.
[00:15:17] This is this idea where Lucius tells her exactly how to cook the burger. And the look on her face is like, yeah, if you're lucky, you might. Exactly. I might be able to deliver that for you. But it is interesting.
[00:15:29] You know, they talk about Lucius as being a very low level back office person, but he is still surrounded by how many guards there's three in their with them and three more outside as well. So quite a lot of people on Lucius.
[00:15:39] But I presume that's even though he's low level, the fact that he's working on Project Storm Cloud would mean that he would be a high value target for anybody. Right? Yeah. But once again, as with all of their plans that we've seen most
[00:15:50] most of the last two seasons really things go awry, shockingly enough, ending off in a massive blood bath in the in the diner. Yeah. And again, like Alfred's trying to prevent all out bloodshed. But in the end, it's the the Raven Union guy that pulls the trigger.
[00:16:10] And he's like, I wanted to avoid this. It does feel like it's, you know, it's relating to the death of the wrestler. And and that plus everything, all the PTSD from his war days, you know, the death of Bazaar.
[00:16:25] There's quite a lot of death has happened recently with his dad with Bazaar. There's quite close to to Alfred. And I think as well, the the death of an innocent in last week's episode with the wrestler, you know, he really wasn't down for that.
[00:16:43] So again, it's just trying to avoid bloodshed. Yeah. And it doesn't pan out and they they have to take out the the three Raven officers in the diner and also the the three that are racing from the cars outside.
[00:17:00] And so I love that tension between them being paramilitary troopers versus the Catering Corps as Dave Boy and Alfie refer to the SAS. Love that kind of back and forth, especially Dave Boy's anybody can fall out of a plane kind of attack on the paramilitaries.
[00:17:18] I think he ratchets up the tension even as Alfie's trying to calm it down. Dave Boy does ratchet up the tension. And once again for I'm trying to keep counting this I'm losing count. I think it's about the eighth time in the series that we have Dave Boy
[00:17:30] taking another bullet this time to the shoulder, just a flesh wound as every single other bullet has been since the start really makes me feel there's some kind of Batman villain or Batman ally inside Dave Boy here. It really does, doesn't it?
[00:17:46] Or is going to end in a gunshot that is a little more serious than a flesh wound? I feel like his last words might be it was just a flesh wound. As he dies from multiple bullets.
[00:17:59] But I don't know, it just feels like he's more of a comic book character than a lot more. A lot of the other characters that we've seen in the show, the show is very serious and very dramatically played for the most part.
[00:18:08] And then the overlay, just like they did with Gotham, with Brunner Heller and Danny Cannon, there's an overlay of a type of comic book styling to it. Yeah. And particularly with Dave Boy getting shot almost every single episode almost every single attack.
[00:18:21] I think the only time he didn't get shot recently was at the the wrestling event or the wrestling job. So it's interesting that once again he shot here. Yeah, he made it out of the infine fattle, I think.
[00:18:35] Another aspect here, as I mentioned, is a bit of strain between Alphie and Dave Boy because of what Alphie has been doing, especially with two ladies, both with Sandra, the lying to her and also then the while it was consensual,
[00:18:55] it's the infidelity to Gully with his wife Melanie. Dave Boy is rightly going, you know how bad Gully is. You know what he did in the war, you know the kind of punishment he sets on people in a war situation.
[00:19:07] Can you imagine what he would do if he finds out you're sleeping with his wife? Yeah. And we saw in the last episode him taking out one of his fighters from the wrestling job. So we come back, but Alphie has finally
[00:19:22] gotten enough courage to tell Sandra the day before he flies. Yeah, that effectively he's going to America. He's sorry he couldn't make a recording, but I think here Sandra is played absolutely excellently. I love the reaction here. And even with the gift of cash in an envelope,
[00:19:47] I love that she leaves it on the stage. She doesn't want it. She's like, you know, it's almost like she doesn't come as a surprise. It's just that's what he does. He has this detachment that only at the moment Melanie can
[00:20:05] fulfill because she is equally detached from her loveless marriage with Gully and Sandra is full of life, full of hope, full of that love that isn't really there. In Alfred, I think this is a really interesting way of painting him
[00:20:23] as well, because, you know, the cash envelope thing feels like buying her off. His treatment of is pretty grim. Even Dave Boy calls that out. And I think what her response to it all is like,
[00:20:40] you know, just leaves him and leaves his cash importantly, which is really, really good. That's really insulting. It's almost like he's reading a prostitute or paying to have the relationship where they are here's a bit of cash that should smooth over the issues
[00:20:53] like he generally does, I suppose, in his normal life outside of this. Once again, you're right, John. We complimented Johnny's last week for the wonderful scene with Sandra singing at the end of the episode. And this scene is my favorite of the episode as well.
[00:21:08] I love that while really hurt, while Sandra's really hurt. And you can tell that she's about to start crying and Alfie tells her not to cry. And she's kind of, you know, you don't get to tell me what to do.
[00:21:18] But I love in her response is, well, at least you told me. Most of the men would just run away. Yeah. And I'd be sitting here left behind wondering what happened to you, wondering what I did, wondering what caused it, wondering whether you're alive or not.
[00:21:31] At least you told me that you're leaving. At least that's some solace for this breakup. Yeah, I guess her expectation of what Alfie would be to her has just gradually been eroded with every time he's never showed up
[00:21:46] or he's given the excuse that I'm too busy with work to do anything with her. That over time, maybe she felt this was the inevitable way it was going to go ultimately. And so she's that little bit of solace that comforts her.
[00:22:04] She's kind of plucking from thin air. But it's the low expectation that she has for Alfie in this moment. And I think that's what's really good about that scene is she doesn't have high expectations of him. She would be happy just with some time with him.
[00:22:25] And to the point where he didn't just disappear. So she's glad of that at least. And that's just the way she frames it to kind of move on. But certainly, you know, she bowled her eyes out and was deeply upset by this
[00:22:42] because her father comes around and gives him a good right hook. You know, he's not happy at all. And I think there's an element that it just deserves. That's what I was going to say, you know, for a show that has the name Pennyworth
[00:22:56] written right there in the main titles. I've never wanted a main character to get punched in the face by somebody by his lover's father more. This is a great moment when Sid comes in and gives gives gives him a right what for as I say. But he doesn't.
[00:23:10] It isn't every woman in his life that's that's unhappy with Alfie. We do have his mother looking on here, sees what's going on, sees this punishment that Alfie goes through. And we do get the reconciliation. Pretty quickly, actually. Yeah, it is pretty quickly. I kind of get it.
[00:23:26] She's that's his mother and she's very used to this type of situation with Alfie. She speaks about sometimes in the past all the way back from when he was a kid, tried to kiss a girl that didn't want it and got beaten up by her.
[00:23:38] And she just kind of says, well, that's just been the pattern of your whole life has just been trouble follows you no matter what you're trying to do, trouble follows you. And I'll now be here regardless of my own feelings, regardless of what I want.
[00:23:50] Your father would have wanted me to take care of you. So I'm going with you to America. Yeah, it's a mother's love, isn't it? Because only she could do that in that moment to reconcile both herself
[00:24:01] with her son, which is you can understand, but also to put aside what she's just witnessed, what she knows to kind of forgive him in order to go and help him. What's another great line from her where she says,
[00:24:18] I can always take solace in the fact that you're sorry for the things that you've done. So at least I know you apologize for the things you've done even when you don't even when you've done bad and you don't mean to do bad,
[00:24:27] at least you're apologizing for it. But she wants no guns, no trouble, and she doesn't want any of those bears, wolves or snakes. And she wants him to give her a grandchild, which I guess she'll be waiting a long time. I think she might be.
[00:24:44] I think she might be. It's the it's the Monty Python requirements. So I just have two requirements for you. Here's three. Just the little gag in there as well. Yeah, so they are off to America still got three on the way,
[00:24:56] even though it's not playing out exactly as I would have wanted it to, I am kind of glad we are seeing the impact of the loss of Baza. Baza was such a central character to the relationship between Dave Boy and an Alfie that at least seeing that breakdown
[00:25:10] of the relationship between Dave Boy and Alfie because they don't have someone in between the two of them. Yeah. And they both kind of reflect on the fact that if Baza was here, certain things wouldn't be going on. You know, there's certain things like Alfie probably wouldn't be
[00:25:24] going into the arms of Melanie because he'd be talked out of it by Baza. Baza would be able to keep him on the straight and narrow a bit more than Dave Boy because Dave Boy does nothing other than
[00:25:34] drink in the cubicle and wait for his time to go. He's lost one of his angels on his on his shoulder, which is which is Baza the rational sensible one. Yeah. And Dave Boy, the nutty alcoholic is still sort of, you know, giving
[00:25:48] the dangerous advice to some extent. But even in this moment, he knows that what Alfred is doing is wrong and is just kind of, yeah, doesn't look great. Absolutely. Yeah. And he knows he's doing the wrong thing, right?
[00:26:03] I think Dave Boy is still just drinking his sorrows after finding out that wrestling isn't real from last week's jump. Yeah, exactly. I think that's it for Alfie, the boys in the jump. I think so too. I think on to our next point, the English League and Thomas.
[00:26:16] Oh, this was kind of an interesting side of it. I know you mentioned, you mentioned pieces of it up in up in your synopsis, John, but I was really intrigued to see how how much Aziz wants to hold on to the new power he has. Yeah.
[00:26:29] Like he's moved up from, you know, head of the police where he made an inspector. Yes, exactly. He was an inspector in season one, moved up to the head of the police, but made loads and loads of errors all the way through season one.
[00:26:40] Stupid things that caused Pettieworth's major pain and has now gotten to his role as Prime Minister and is definitely not willing to let go of the reins of that pair. Right? Yeah, no, this was really kind of a bit of a side quest in many
[00:26:55] respects, but it was really good. It kind of, you know, it was out of the blue, but I ended off really enjoying this. First of all, having Alistair Crowley come back in is great and John Ripper and the whole hallucination afterwards was superb.
[00:27:13] And I love that it was all manufactured by Aziz in terms of, you know, tipping off Thomas for the CIA to asking this favor and of informing Alistair Crowley that John Ripper is going to come after him. But also then just that moment where he, you know,
[00:27:32] he swats that fly and tapes it to a pentagram and obviously gets that sent off to John Ripper, where it looks like it's coming from Alistair Crowley. So, you know, he kind of manufactures the situation and love that he's just giggling to himself about the idea
[00:27:49] that he's just sent the fly in the post to exactly. And of course, this plays out where Ripper tries to kidnap Crowley. Yeah, I love the fact that it's the intoxicating lippy that Crowley has put on as his protection that
[00:28:06] effectively knocks Ripper out and you get this great sequence of Ripper waking up. And at least for the audience, you think he's in the forest. You see the cross there. You wonder what's about to happen. But it's all in his mind and you get the lovely
[00:28:24] sort of hallucination of all these demons coming at him in the forest. And then the camera work pulls back and it's actually back at the English League's headquarters and it's guards. It's the Queen and it's Aziz and you get this lovely
[00:28:44] cunning, duplicitous Aziz moment where he leans in and whispers to him that it was him all along, you know, and he gets the guards to take him away. And again, Ripper is still trapped in his own mind from all the drugs, the hypnotism, whatever it is
[00:29:06] that Crowley has done to him. So Crowley has really worked a number on John Ripper here, but all to take out effectively his rival to the seat of power to reduce those threats to his new power. That was really, really good.
[00:29:24] Off to Bedlam as well, to be taken care of for these mental issues he's suddenly having. Hypnotic lip gloss. Hmm. Scary creatures coming out of the darkness like a scarecrow would do and maybe like poison I have you might do. Yeah.
[00:29:43] I think there's a lot of Gotham that might exist over in London. It certainly is. Yeah, certainly is. And obviously Bedlam being the stand in for Arkham Asylum as well for Gotham. So yeah, some of the some of the elements here definitely felt very Gotham
[00:29:58] like a very Batman universe like as they should. We have some major Batman characters, including the first, shall we say, appearance of Bruce Wayne? Yes, in vomit form. We get in this episode. I guess that's the way you'd say it.
[00:30:13] Somewhere in there, there's a sort of there is a hormone from the pregnancy that Martha is has and is currently undergoing morning sickness. And we first get this glimpse really quite early on when Martha
[00:30:31] is asked to do this job to get Lucius Fox and she runs out of Aziza's office and throws up and she says, this is the second time. And I think even then I was like, oh, she might be pregnant. It might be morning sickness. Absolutely.
[00:30:48] And yes, this gets confirmed as Patricia Wayne body painting the buttocks of the guy in Martha's apartment keys to Martha's apartment. I guess so. She used to live there wasn't she was looking after her and that there is that connection with Martha. Yeah.
[00:31:07] So I guess she's my from time to time. She likes her a lot more than she likes Thomas. Yeah, with a human meat canvas. And but she is absolutely on it from the moment that Martha comes in and she says, there's a giveaway.
[00:31:24] You're farting all the time and her breasts are magnificent as they're getting ready for young Bruce Wayne. So I love the reaction from Martha is very much like, oh, I thought I was hiding it better than that, you know? Because she knows herself. She knows what's going on.
[00:31:41] So, but yeah, Martha's gone along on this trip hopefully to find out the information from Lucius all about what is Project Stormcladge. And Thomas didn't give a huge amount of way at all when it questioned by his ease just kind of said, you know, when we get our
[00:31:54] man back, we'll find out more about it. And Martha was supposed to find out from Lucius, but Lucius completely clams up and doesn't tell anything about Project Stormcladge until he returns to meet Thomas. And what we find out is that understandably Lucius is terrified
[00:32:09] of this concept of Project Stormcladge. He wants it to go to be escalated all the way to the highest power wants to be escalated to the president of America and wants the president of America's reaction to be, we will crush
[00:32:22] the Raven Union because that's the only way they will stop on their path of releasing Stormcladge. And if Thomas isn't willing to do that or the president isn't willing to do that, Lucius is going to go back in and intervene to stop this from happening. Absolutely.
[00:32:37] This is such a threat. He wants the USA to renege on their pact with the Raven Union and act against them, which is really, really interesting. And Thomas is like, no, I can't do that. I mean, it's actually almost, Thomas is almost this
[00:32:58] neutered bureaucrat who feels like he can't even bring this up, which, you know, I guess that's the whole point of having an operative in the field like Lucius Fox is to find out what's going on and then to act or not act on that
[00:33:13] intel, but I don't know whether it's for Thomas Wayne. And I don't get the sense that Thomas Wayne is high up enough to be able to say whether you would decisively act or not on that intel that Lucius Fox has given.
[00:33:27] Yeah, he kind of just says I'll send it up the chain with a red flag or a red light attached to it so it'll get picked up by the right people. But that's all we're going to do kind of thing. Again, interestingly, the relationship between Lucius Fox
[00:33:38] and Thomas here, Thomas Wayne and Lucius in comic books and in Gotham and in various movies, they would have had a relationship where they were very close because Lucius went and worked for Wayne Enterprises, Wayne Industries. So they would have worked together for years.
[00:33:55] And here the relationship that they have is that Lucius doesn't like Thomas because once again, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and just got a brand new job, really high up in the CIA and doesn't have to be in the field like Lucius does.
[00:34:06] So instantly dis, instant dislike between Lucius and Thomas here, which I think was interesting. That's true that the Thomas Wayne character is unlikable in this. I mean, you want, you're rooting for Martha, you're rooting for Lucius Fox and it, you're rooting
[00:34:25] for Patricia and the way he's so controlling of her. It absolutely smacks of the entitlement silver spoon element that Lucius mentions here. So I think again, it's interesting. I'd love to see how this plays out over another season or more if it were to get more seasons and
[00:34:48] more episodes because yeah, at the moment, these two people in terms of Alfred and in terms of Thomas Wayne, you certainly have no more of from the comics with Bruce Wayne and not a loss I'm saying, but because they're treated in shorthand, you don't
[00:35:11] get the sense of this complexity. And so I guess you immediately default to, you know, Alfred being the person that assists Batman is his almost bazaar-esque sort of rational voice over the shoulder saying you need to be careful about your body and the impact it's
[00:35:33] taking when he's fighting in Gotham. You have Thomas Wayne, you know, this he's set up as a doctor working in the community. They're very philanthropic. He's looking out for other people. The relationship with Lucius Fox seems to be one of equals. You know, he was here, he's condescending.
[00:35:52] There's a snobbery about him and you're kind of like, oh okay yeah, you know, he's sleeping on the job. But it's like he's doing something so important and he's been put there because of his wealth and his networks and his contacts, but actually he's useless at it.
[00:36:10] He doesn't really know how to maintain those relationships or his entitlement gets the better of him. Yeah, maybe. You know, something like that. I like that discussion between Aziz and him and Martha where Thomas is saying that he needs this job done to extricate Lucius and asks Aziz
[00:36:28] what he can do for him. Aziz kind of goes, well you could stop supporting the Raven Union for one. They want to kill all of us. Stop supporting them. And Thomas goes, it's a foregone conclusion that you're going to lose so we're not going to support you.
[00:36:39] So he's so cold about it sitting in the room with these two people who need the support because they're everything's dwindling. All their supplies are dwindling. Their forces are dwindling. Their land is dwindling because of this attack by the Raven Union, but Thomas is completely
[00:36:56] unwilling to entertain the idea that CIA could support them. Veve la resistance, Thomas. Yeah, be useless in a scrappy fight. He would. He would. But you're right. It is interesting again that two major characters that we have here aren't necessarily very good people,
[00:37:11] which is a good thing about the show overall. Absolutely. And we talked a little bit obviously about the Project Storm Cloud that's also being talked about over in the Raven Union as well. Our final major point for the episode, let's get on to the Raven Union.
[00:37:24] Yes, the Raven Union. I think the interesting thing here is, the whole brains behind Project Storm Cloud is Captain Salt. And you see here his scheming machinations that have been playing out. And you've kind of gathered that. He's very scheming. He's very cunning.
[00:37:46] I think I mentioned, is Harwood getting the medication from Salt? And in this episode, we see that. We can see that Salt is playing Harwood and moving him into position in terms of building up this paranoia in Harwood that he sees betrayal
[00:38:06] and being undermined at every turn to the point where, effectively Salt now has maneuvered himself to be Francis Gaunt's replacement who Harwood imprisoned in the last episode. And he maneuvered himself to become Sir John Salt as well. Yes. He maneuvered himself all the way through. Gets an erudan.
[00:38:27] Yeah. He gets a whole rake of things. Everything he wants because he needs to get up higher in society from this low-born professor, scientist, effectively all the way up to Sir John Salt being referred to that, referred like that from Harwood.
[00:38:44] Not only is he providing the drugs to him, John, I think that's one of the things I wanted to point out because I love when you're right on your theories. Let's just delve into it a little bit. Me too. It's very rare. Very rare.
[00:38:54] But just delve into it a little bit. We even have a moment here from Harwood where he looks at the pills that Salt is giving to him and going, these are a different color and Salt's going to him, same formulation. We just changed the color on you.
[00:39:04] On you? Yeah. Well, people don't do that on pills. So they don't get confused as the point. You would never change the color of somebody's pills. So absolutely Salt is plying in full of different stuff to, in order to manipulate them. Once again, another very Batman-y Gotham universe
[00:39:21] or DC universe type of thing. Yeah. It's almost a bit Riddler-esque. You know, he's isolating, he's using his intellect in order to maneuver himself into position and maneuver the other chess pieces of Harwood, Gauint, even the Lieutenant Graves that we see and the Field Marshal Thursday, strange name.
[00:39:43] Well, it's because Strange Name. All around the board. And I think that's the really good thing is, he's trying to isolate Harwood in his position to make him paranoid. And yeah, it plays out really nicely here after thinking about seeing Salt in episode one of this season
[00:40:04] and knowing that he was a bit of a conniver and seeing it play out here in the war room at Raven Union headquarters, with the Harwood staff looking aghast at what's happening what with Francis Gauint, even the elevation of Salt, but also then what happens with Lieutenant Graves
[00:40:27] who comes in with some quite reasonable discussions. In fact, his theory as to that it can't have been Francis Gauint that someone playing events out in the background is, well, he's right there in the room, which is really good. Yeah, he's close. He's close with his estimation.
[00:40:47] He is marginally wrong. Francis Gauint did go behind Harwood's back to go and reach out to his ease and try and form this relationship so that they could stop Project Stormclet effectively. So she did go behind Harwood's back. We also heard earlier on when they're talking
[00:41:02] with the Field Marshal, we heard earlier on that Harwood is willing to use the weapon. Right? So he's basically saying, we are going to wipe the ball ash with Stormclet and that's the first indication that something is going badly wrong.
[00:41:16] And one of the reasons why Field Marshal Wednesday is going to take away his power by the end of the episode. No, Thursday. Thursday. But I guess there's a Field Marshal for every day of the week. They're maybe. They're maybe. It's just all the names in this episode.
[00:41:30] You know, I'm sorry. It's Field Marshal Thursday. Yes, he's going to take him out. But I do absolutely want to mention how ironically named Lieutenant Graves is. You obviously knew that he was going to be in his grave by the end of the episode. There is.
[00:41:43] He is going to end off being killed by Harwood in the most brutal of ways. Like he kills him with his walking stick. Yeah, he's bludgeoned to death by Harwood. But he stops, looks up, sees everybody in the room
[00:41:56] and then goes back for more and beats him to death. Yeah. And it's only with Field Marshal next Tuesday that, oh sorry, Field Marshal Thursday coming back in and effectively Harwood then is taken away. I think interestingly with the Field Marshal though
[00:42:14] is that he like Francis Gawnt was Storm Cloud as a threat to use. It's a threat to use not to actually use it. Yeah. Why don't you use a nuclear weapon? Exactly. Whereas I guess Salt wants to see his creation, maybe his life work possibly, play out.
[00:42:40] He has aspirations of power. I guess now he is now the Chancellor. If Harwood is taken away, he's deemed to have gone crazy, has killed one of his officers, high-ranking officers in graves. So you see a quick coup effectively happen in this episode
[00:43:04] with Harwood following Gawnt into prison and Salt being elevated, at least in the interim and I guess for longer, as the Chancellor. I wonder whether he's gotten the Chancellor's job or will he be effectively Field Marshal will move up to Chancellor
[00:43:23] and still be in the ear of Field Marshal Thursday? I wonder if that's going to be the case. I know, I guess it's Salt as the deputy. He replaced Francis Gawnt and she stood in for him whilst he was in prison.
[00:43:36] So I guess it would be him automatically. Whether the Field Marshal is happy with that and I guess there's still tension to play out between what needs to happen with Storm Cloud, between Salt and the Field Marshal. So there may be more infighting to come at Ravenhead courses.
[00:43:55] Yeah, absolutely. The last mention on Storm Cloud for me, I really like the description that we got from Lucius of what Storm Cloud does in this episode. He specifically mentions that it attacks the limbic system and people die of terror literally once again,
[00:44:12] feels very like a certain scarecrow character. Certainly does. From Gotham, yes. Is there anything else in this episode, John? Yeah, no, there's no notes from me. Okay, one just got to mention the poor dog of Alistair Crowley who gets thrown out the window
[00:44:27] at the hands of the Ripper. Just thought it was really cruel, but I could absolutely see it happening. You know, Crowley going out for a walk with his dog and then being told to get in the car with Ripper.
[00:44:36] I didn't think Ripper was going to be putting up with a dog in there. No, and I love the forlorn look of the dog standing on the side of the tree. As the car drives away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice little shot.
[00:44:46] Good little gag there from John East that's a, in the direction. That's it for our major moments for the episode. Really enjoyed it. If you want to tell us your thoughts, please email us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. John, overall, how would you rate this episode of Pennyworth?
[00:45:01] I really liked this episode. I thought it brought a lot of stuff together. I'd give this four painted buttocks out of five. No fellow governors, I'm not obsessed with buttocks or am I? I think you might be. Might be. Nonetheless, yeah, I thought this pulled a lot together.
[00:45:19] You know, we were wondering, will we see Martha pregnant in this series and in Pennyworth? And we get that. And it's kind of a nice touch because it is, that you're kind of, you take on a different view of Martha
[00:45:33] because there's a Bruce Wayne starting to form here. It also suggests, you know, that the relationship between Thomas and Martha, you know, how are they going to play that? Is it that they reconcile and actually they do really like
[00:45:48] one another's company or is it some kind of social pressure? I mean, it's just where are they going to go? How are they going to treat that? And I think as well... They do really like each other. No, I do. I do.
[00:45:59] I think they just love to fight with each other. They fight and I think they get exasperated because it's kind of on off, on off. So it's one of those. So this may finally bring it all on, I guess.
[00:46:10] It's a Kisek Sikam drama trope of the two main characters. It is. They don't like each other but have to be together. And I think in the same way that we're talking about, you know, how certainly at the moment Thomas is kind of a bit obnoxious
[00:46:22] with his entitlements that at the same time I love that Alfred here actually played very, very darkly. And I loved that moment with Sandra. I thought it was absolutely awesome. I loved the breakdown of her but holding it together.
[00:46:43] And I was just, yeah, I cheered when she left the cash envelope there on the stage. Absolutely. Yeah, you gave a really good punch in the air when Sandra did that. Yeah, it was really, it was really, really good.
[00:46:57] You know, you can see the threads of Melanie and the complication with Gully happening here. You can see potentially that, you know, you can see Alfred lost at sea, what with Sandra and with what's happening at Melanie. And also with his relationship with Dave Boyne.
[00:47:16] I think you're right, you do sense the loss of Baza kind of that, the glue that binds the three together, I think here. I love the surreal buttock painting, you know, it's just like, okay, what's that about? Why is that even in there? But why not?
[00:47:36] Because it's Patricia Wayne. I know, but still she could just be painting or she could just be relaxing on the sofa. What I mean is it's quirky, it's for, why not? Really good. No more, no more naked buttocks for you.
[00:47:51] And then, you know, Crowley's mind alteration of Ripper really nicely done and a nice little dark twist for Aziz here, which was nice. And also with the coup d'etat happening at Raven Union headquarters,
[00:48:09] I liked how that played out to see salts and devious machinations finally bearing fruit for him. Because certainly last episode it felt like he was being put in his place and possibly it wasn't going to work out like this but really good.
[00:48:27] So yeah, absolutely thought this was a great little episode. Excellent. There's a little part of me that's wondering, are they tying up a lot of things really quickly here? We originally were supposed to have a 10 episode series as we mentioned last week.
[00:48:37] We actually don't know how many episodes we have left. If we only have two more episodes left, they certainly feel like they have to pull a lot of threads in together in this episode. Bringing Bruno Heller in to run this episode as he's the showrunner for the show.
[00:48:50] I wonder if this is where we're seeing the kind of COVID effect of the shutdown and reopening of their filming. Are they pulling things together so that they could deliver the full season? I felt like a lot of things were going really fast in this episode.
[00:49:03] As I said, lots and lots of major characters getting almost wrap-ups to the storyline, at least on the path to their closing storyline in a couple more episodes. I'd be intrigued to see if we do have a full 10 episodes or whether we have eight. Yeah, and it's interesting.
[00:49:18] Is it closing because maybe there's not going to be another season? Or are they closing because they're coming to the end of the UK part of Alfred's journey and life and possibly going to America? It'll be interesting to see really what happens with this show.
[00:49:40] But certainly, this really did move things along, as you say, quite quickly. But quite nicely as well. I thought it was done pretty neatly. Yeah, absolutely. Always love Bruno Heller's writing as well. Thanks very much once again for joining us for this episode of Pennyworth.
[00:49:54] Make sure you subscribe to the podcast over on TV Podcast Industries. Or if you just want to subscribe to the Pennyworth podcast, there's a feed out there for that too. We've just finished our coverage of WandaVision as I mentioned earlier on
[00:50:05] and we'll be kicking off our coverage of Falcon and the Winter Soldier from March 19th over on Disney Plus on our main feed on TV Podcast Industries. Yes, and of course we will be continuing our podcast discussions on the Pennyworth podcast
[00:50:20] for Season 2 of Pennyworth and we will be back with episode 7, The Bloody Mary, next week. Headless Monarch or Drink Who Knows? We'll have to see what they mean by that. But we hope you'll return to join us for our next podcasts on everything to do with Pennyworth
[00:50:43] and of course Falcon and Winter Soldier as well over on TV Podcast Industries. Absolutely, we'll talk to you again soon. Bye. Yep, thanks so much fellow governors and speak to you again soon. Bye. you