I love Gotham. It’s a great show. But so much ridiculous stuff has happened over the course of the three and a half seasons, I had honestly forgotten about some of it, so I started making a reference post trying to keep track of all of it, because on Gotham, the crazy incidents combine to compose the plot. I started writing this post, and then I realized, hey, I can’t fit it all in one post, so this is going to be a series of several posts, sorted by character – just the mains, of course, if I tried to do every character, I’d never be done. So without further ado, let’s start with the most insane things that have happened to or because of Oswald Cobblepot AKA the Penguin, who began the series holding Fish Mooney’s umbrella while she beat up a man in an alley.

• In the very first episode, Fish wants him dead for being a snitch to the Major Crimes Unit, which I don’t think has even existed since season one. Harvey Bullock wants the then-new to Gotham Jim Gordon to do it. Jim pretends to go along with it, but instead shoots in the air, pushes Oswald into the water, and warns him not to come back to Gotham. Oswald emerges on the other side of the river and kills a fisherman. Not so crazy yet! It starts off slow, we’re getting there.
• Gets picked up while hitchhiking, then gets mad at the people giving him a ride once one says he looks like a penguin when he walks. He proceeds to kill that one and kidnap the other, who he kills after not his ransom demand is mistaken for a prank. Lesson: Don’t pick up hitchhikers.
• Kills a few people, whatever, only notable because one of those people was a dishwasher at Maroni’s restaurant whose job he wanted to take.
• Stages an armed robbery of the restaurant so the manager dies and he gets the job. Gotham City is a terrible place to live and work.
• Surprise, Oswald’s really working for Falcone, all the other stuff was planned from the pilot.
• Takes over Fish’s club and brings his mom to come see. Awww, that’s sweet.
• Maroni locks him in a car about to be crushed, he escapes, and gets a ride with a bunch of ladies on a church bus.
• Meets Nygma and threatens him when Nygma gives him a penguin fact. Okay, so not really relevant, but look how far we’ve come from then!
• Kills a guy for heckling his mom, the entertainment at his club. He’s very temperamental, Oswald is.
• Vows vengeance on Maroni for telling his mom that he’s a killer, not a club owner. Or at least, not only a club owner.
• Declares himself king of Gotham.

And thus ends season one! Season one wasn’t great. Nor filled with much lunacy for Oswald, beyond the “locked in a car about to be crushed” thing. It picks up in season two, thankfully.

• Theo and Tabitha kidnap his mom.
• Cuts off Butch’s hand.
• Tabitha kills his mom.
• Looks unimpressed at Nygma’s low kill count, then gets a pep talk from Nygma about how Tabitha killing his mom resulted in him being freed from his biggest weakness. Holy foreshadowing, Batman!
• Teams up with Gordon, Alfred, Selina, and Bullock to save Bruce, because apparently, the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
• Beats up Galavan with a baseball bat, then shoves his umbrella down his throat.
• Claims insanity and is sent to Arkham for the first, but not the last, time.
• Undergoes “therapy” at the hands of Hugo Strange, gets declared cured, and is released.
• Meets his father and bonds with him while his stepmother and step siblings plot against him.
• Survives an attempted poisoning! But watches his father die instead.
• Kills his step siblings and serves them to his stepmother. Gross, Titus Andronicus, much?
• Kills his stepmother and mounts her head on a stand.
• Convinces Butch that they need to get rid of Galavan, brings him to Wayne Manor where Azrael is attempting to kill the good guys, and steps aside so he can blow him up with a rocket launcher – also known as my favourite scene in the show.

So, onto season three!

• Visits Nygma in Arkham with gifts.
• Calls out the GCPD for being useless and not doing much to deal with Fish. Villain’s got a point!
• Rallies a mob to hunt down Fish. At the end of the episode, said mob carries him on their shoulders and chants his name.
• Announces his candidacy for mayor and arranges for Nygma to be released from Gotham to help him with his campaign.
• Wins the mayoral election. Gothamites, make better choices. (Actually, please don’t, the show wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if you did.)
• Butch reforms the Red Hood Gang so he can kill them all to regain Penguin’s favour. Said gang destroys the statue of Penguin’s mom.
• Nygma forces Butch to attempt to assassinate Penguin in a gambit to solidify his own position as Penguin’s right hand man.
• Realizes he’s in love with Nygma.
• Tries to sabotage Nygma’s relationship with Isabella, a lookalike of Kristen Kringle, the sort of girlfriend he killed way back in season one.
• Cuts the brakelines on Isabella’s car.
• Barbara finds out out about his feelings for Nygma, tells Nygma, and the two of them team up to take him down.
• Clayface pretends to be his father’s ghost as part of Nygma’s plan to gaslight and discredit him.
• In a throwback to the pilot, Nygma shoots Penguin and throws him into the Gotham Bay.
• Nygma spends most of an episode hallucinating a dead Penguin talking to him. This involves mocking the name “The Riddler” and breaking into song.
• Ivy finds him and nurses him back to health.
• Plots his revenge against Nygma and teams up with Ivy, who helps recruit some of Hugo Strange’s freaks.
• Ends up locked up with Nygma in the Court of Owls’s prison. They’re not happy about it.
• Works with Nygma to escape. They agree to not try to kill each other for the night.
• Freezes Nygma alive and uses him as the centerpiece of his new club.

…this show just gets weirder and weirder, doesn’t it? Onto season four!

• Issues “crime licenses” to bring the city to order. Gordon doesn’t like it, but you gotta admit, Penguin’s doing a better job than the GCPD ever did.
• Tells Ivy to shut up too many
• times, resulting in her turning off the lights and letting the Merton gang to get the drop on him.
• Gordon teams up with the Falcones to take him down.
• Nygma wants revenge on Penguin, this time because of the whole “he froze me and put me on display” thing, so he sends him riddles. Being frozen caused him brain damage, so the riddles are terrible. Penguin doesn’t kill him, because he finds it amusing to see how far he’s fallen.
• Becomes an evil mentor to Martin, a random kid at Sofia’s orphanage.
• Stabs a party goer for being willing to let Professor Pyg murder said kid rather than comply with his demand to eat the pies containing homeless people flesh (Ewwwww, why does this show have so much cannibalism?!).
• Fakes Martin’s death so Sofia can’t use him as leverage anymore.
• Winds up in Arkham again after being arrested for the one murder he didn’t commit and that didn’t even happen, an angry Victor Zsasz lying to Gordon and saying Penguin really blew the kid up.
• Finds out Jerome is in the next cell.
• Learns Nygma is back to being the Riddler.
• Gets put through hell by Jerome, who is attempting to snap him out of his depression.

And that wraps up what has been released so far!

…who writes this stuff? I want to send them a fruit basket.