'Gotham' Season 4, Episode 6 'Hog Day Afternoon' Recap: Professor Pyg Cleans Up the GCPD [SPOILERS]

The city of “Gotham” is getting more deaths like what the Tetch virus inflicted. Tonight’s episode, titled “Hog Day Afternoon,” introduces one of Batman’s weirdest but most gruesome foes—Professor Pyg (Michael Cerveris). It’s an episode that’s pretty laid-back, but full of important plot details that’s necessary for building up the fates of Jim Gordan (Ben McKenzie), Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), and Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith).
Right off the bat (pun intended), we’re introduced to Cherry’s (Marina Benedict) place—an underground bar that also serves as a venue for wrestling death matches. The last episode revealed that Lee Thompkins (Morena Baccarin) is now working for Cherry as an on-call doctor for the fallen fighters. Now she is introduced to Nygma and Butch Gilzean (Drew Powell)—who is now known as Solomon Grundy. Nygma asks her for help so he could regain his intelligence, to which Lee refuses to. Meanwhile, Sofia Falcone (Crystal Reed) invites Penguin out to lunch, especially now that the crime groups under the Falcone family see Sofia’s friendship with Penguin. She assures him that she’s a friend and that nothing could ever make him think otherwise. Jim watches on, without Penguin knowing about it. He then asks Sofia what she’s planning to win Penguin’s trust. She also assures Jim that if she doesn’t get Penguin in a matter of days, Jim would decide where she stays or leaves.
That night, a cop finishes a shady transaction with another cop in an alley. He hears a noise and is led further the dark alley, as he investigates a room, he’s locked inside and slaughtered by a man wearing a pig’s mask.

GCPD’s dirty cops eliminated one by one

The next day, Jim and Harvey are brought in to investigate the cop’s death. Apparently, the cop who died was named Dave Metzker, and Harvey knows right away that he’s a dirty cop. At first, they both think that Penguin knows something about this. Jim storms off to interrogate him.
Later, Penguin is preparing for the lunch date he’s having with Sofia. Jim marches in and asks him if he knows anything about Metzker’s murder, to which Penguin has no legitimate knowledge of. He then says that someone is making a point to Penguin—that the days of the dirty cops working for him are numbered. Penguin doesn’t seem convinced, and instead, gives Jim a lead from his crime license book. Turns out that Wally Clark, a butcher, applied for a burglary permit, making him the perfect perpetrator—or so Jim thought. Together with Harvey, they go after Wally and bring him to the station for questioning. Wally denies everything and tells them that he was only given the task of stealing 4 pigs by someone named “Prof.” This could only mean that there are three more victims. In order to find out who they are, Jim and Harvey have to talk to bad cops in the GCPD.

They head over to the city and interview every dirty cop they know. They all give them the same answer—they won’t help because they won’t snitch on their colleagues. Jim is close to losing it and almost gets into a fight with each of them. However, the last cop they talk to finally gives a name (well, at least after they stuff him in the car’s trunk and threaten to leave): Chris Whitlock, a delivery for shady cop dealings, and he’s due for a court appearance later that day. Jim and Harvey then proceed to the courthouse, where they find the next two victims who each had pig heads on them. This time, one of the victims was indeed Whitlock and another female cop—both shady cops themselves. Jim deduces that the killer wants to rid Gotham of dirty cops, specifically those who work for Penguin. Now it’s only a matter of time before the fourth victim pops up somewhere. Jim then asks a street performer if he saw something. Apparently, there was a van driven by a man that parked near the courthouse. When the performer returned from his break, the van was gone and the bodies were dumped at the place.
Back at the GCPD, Harvey finally figured out the fourth probable victim. He also tells Jim that the killer knew where each of the cops was going to be, and it had to be someone who’s fed up with the corruption that Penguin was commanding over these dirty cops. They then get a lead on the van, and Jim and Harvey go after it. Meanwhile, the van is seen sitting inside an abandoned building. The fourth victim is there and is greeted by the killer with a pig’s mask.

Jim and Harvey arrive at the scene and finds the last cop victim. He’s strapped to a chair while wearing a pig’s mask. As soon as Jim removes the mask, he finds that its attached to a grenade which then explodes. Later, Jim wakes up strapped to a chair too, with the killer right in front of him. There the killer tells him that he wants to get rid of all the corrupt cops on Penguin’s payroll—which is half of the GCPD. It turns out that the killer was once a victim of corruption, hence his mission on killing the dirty cops. When Harvey wakes up, the killer goes to him and proceeds to kill him, but not after Jim escapes and tries to stop him. The killer slits Harvey’s throat and escapes.
Later, Harvey is in the hospital recovering. Jim then confronts him and asks why the killer wanted him dead. Harvey comes clean and tells Jim that he’s also been on Penguin’s payroll ever since the crime license was issued. He says he couldn’t do anything about it because it was the Commissioner’s orders and his bills and debts were piling up. Jim tells him to put an end to it and leaves. On his way out, he comes across a news broadcast. The media is now calling the killer “Professor Pyg,” and he’s still at large.
Meanwhile, Professor Pyg is seen tending to his pigs and tells them that tomorrow, the ax will fall.

Grundy, the fighting champion

Grundy is finally brought into the ring for his first match. Lee and Nygma watch him as he goes against a fighter named Hammer, whom he defeats with ease (even killing him in the end). The place erupts in support of Grundy, and Cherry sees him as her new cash cow as she tells Lee to fix Grundy up.

Lee marvels at how much Butch has changed and sees that his heart isn’t beating and his blood is made up of swamp water. She then tells him that Nygma isn’t his friend and he’s only using him for money. Grundy insists that he is his friend, just as Nygma marches in with his cash earnings from the fight. He asks Lee again if she could take a look at him, even offering to pay her with the cash that Grundy will reap from his future matches. Still, Lee declines. Cherry comes in to check on Grundy and asks Lee if he’s good for another fight that night. Lee says yes and tells Cherry that she’s stepping out for a while. She also agrees but reminds her that they have a deal. Nygma follows Lee and finds out that she put up a free medical clinic for the poor people of Gotham.

That night, Grundy wins another fight after he kills his opponent. Nygma is extremely happy, especially after Cherry declares Grundy as the champion. He tries his luck with Lee again and tells her that if she refuses to help him, he will do… well… something to Lee’s clinic. At least Nygma found out that the deal Cherry had with Lee was for her to keep the clinic as long as she stays and tends to the fighters too. Lee laughs at Nygma’s outright stupidity and tells him that he should have threatened Cherry to take Grundy away if Lee won’t help him, thus forcing Cherry to make Lee do so.
Later, as more patients pour into Lee’s clinic, she finds out that she’s out of meds to give. She decides to finally help Nygma for his money so she could buy the things she needs for the clinic. Nygma is ecstatic and tells Grundy that he’s going to be smart again.

Penguin’s insecurity

Elsewhere in the episode, Victor Zsasz (Anthony Carrigan) informs Penguin that Sofia couldn’t make it to their lunch date (to which Penguin denies guiltily throughout the episode) so he has Victor follow her and find out what she’s up to. Later, Victor finds Sofia meeting up with a few politicians. He informs Penguin about the matter. It turns out that she had lunch with the Mayor and went to the old Gotham Heritage Hotel (which she secretly bought). She also met with the zoning commissioner, which explains why she had walls built around the hotel. Penguin is furious, thinking that she’s making alliances with politicians and building a fortress for herself, all while pretending to be his friend.

He confronts Sofia at her place and demands to be taken to the hotel she bought. Sofia is confused but ultimately takes him there. Upon arriving, Penguin sees that Sofia actually turned the place into an orphanage, and she meant to make it as a surprise for Penguin. He’s evidently flushed and embarrassed at his outrage and asks Sofia for forgiveness. Call this a cunning plan, but it’s only a matter of time before she finally gets Penguin to bow to her will.

‘Gotham: Hog Day Afternoon’ Overall Verdict

There’s not much action in tonight’s episode of “Gotham,” but it’s a welcome relief given how the previous episodes focused on Ra’s Al Ghul and more of Bruce Wayne’s whiny attitude. Professor Pyg, with the little amount of screentime, is a bit underused in the narrative. He’s only present as a looming threat for Gotham’s dirty cops. But then again, this is only his introductory episode, and it’s definitely exciting to see what he’s planning to do next week as he tries to rid the city of Penguin’s army of shady police officers.
“Gotham” continues next Thursday with “A Day in the Narrows,” 8/7c on FOX.