Gotham residents get in a cutting mood, Outlander's witch trial and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. deal with a familar devil

The plot lines in Gotham have become extremely busy lately, as the end of season one is up ahead. Between Bruce and Selina doing a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew act and Edward Nygma taking his first step into serious violence, I thought it would be best to narrow my focus to just The Penguin and Gordon's new nemesis, The Ogre.

As Oswald sets up the stage for his ultimate payback on Don Maroni, the gangster in question stops by the club for a drink and some one on one time with Mama Oswald(who is pretty much a barfly at this point). Gertrude's delight in Maroni's attentions as her sinister son squirms in his seat really explains a whole lot about why Oswald is the way he is.

However, when Maroni turns the dating game into a personal attack, the Cobblepot clan is put even more off kilter than they already are. While I'm not sure if Maroni will live to see season two, he has certainly delivered on the menace factor and for Oswald to have a better rival in this arena will be a challenge,that's for sure:

Meanwhile, the Ogre story is getting all kinds of crazy. True to form, our sinister serial killer targets Barbara(not knowing that she and Gordon are no longer an item) but holds off on killing her.

Turns out, her addiction to wild behavior appeals to him and her statement that "Whenever people see the real me, they run screaming" clicks into his psychotic need for hard earned feminine approval.

It does fit into his backstory, as the facially deformed son of a butler who was emotionally manipulated by his father's employer, a woman who built up him and then rejected him cruelly. Since Barbara happens to be the typical spoiled little rich girl, she is so right up his alley and a truly bad romance appears to be underway. By the end of the episode, he was introducing her to his American Psycho/50 Shades of Grey hidden room and she seemed rather taken with it.

I know that Gordon is going to run in and save the day by some point but how freaky is this going to get? *Shudder* Well, it's one reason to watch,anyway, I guess:

On Outlander, Claire was caught in the cross-hairs of a witch trial that had her and Gellis(who is pregnant with another man's child and just recently poisoned her husband) as prime candidates for a stake burning.

Having read the books, I knew what was coming as Gellis revealed that she,like Claire, was a time traveler too, coming from a more distant time period(1968, to be exact).

Once she realized that Claire had no intentions of interfering with her own plans to alter fate, Gellis made quite the sacrifice to save her friend and what a marvelous performance it was. Lotte Verbeek does a hell of a job with this character and the Emmy folks should keep an eye on her come nomination time.

I really need to finish Book Two(still in the midst of Dragonfly in Amber) to find out more, as I don't think this is the last we'll see of Gellis,at least I hope so!:

On Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson and his now dwindled in number crew reached out to Ward in order to get his help in infiltrating Hydra for info about where Skye might be.

Naturally, Hunter and Fitz(who thankfully managed to reconnect with Coulson and friends,including Deathlok who I am happy to see back on the show) are less than thrilled with this but willing to play along for now.

Of course, things went awry as Coulson's new crew, Hydra and Skye with her father Cal(who the Inhumans planned to simply drop off in Milwaukee and avoid like the plague) collided together in a bout that left Deathlok and Skye's new buddy Lincoln prisoners of Hydra, among other troubles.

That left Coulson to surrender to the "real Shield" while Ward and the others got away(without Skye and Cal, who were taken back to the Inhumans' secret camp). This is all intended to tie into the new Avengers movie coming out next week and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Nick Fury to show up and kick some much needed ass, especially Ward, who I don't trust at all nor his new gal pal Agent 33:

RANDOM NOTES:

GAME OF THRONES: With Arya now at the House of Black and White, things ought to get intense but Sansa's new adventures(which are going in a different direction than the books) could be just as scary if the rumors are true. I'm not going to speculate right now, but rather wait and see how this all plays out(I do hope the Sansa spoilers are false,though):