Thanksgiving week is typically a slow time for television, as many shows opt to go into reruns until after the holiday. Fortunately, Fox aired a new episode of ‘Gotham’ on Monday night, which was a welcome distraction from the depressing real-world events happening on the news at the same time.

Episode ‘LoveCraft’ (I’m not sure what the deal is with the capital C) opens with a trio of assassins invading Wayne Manor on the hunt for Selina Kyle. The leader isn’t actually named in the episode, but DC’s promotional material identifies her as Larissa Diaz (Lesley-Ann Brandt from Starz’s ‘Spartacus’), a.k.a. Copperhead. She kills a gardener and cons her way into the house by pretending to be a car accident victim. Alfred lets her in but quickly realizes his mistake. The butler immediately shifts to badass mode and fends off the assassins (taking one of them out) while Bruce and Selina escape through a secret passage and make their way to the city.

Gordon and Bullock arrive afterwards, and Gordon has to fill his partner in on the whole story about Selina witnessing the Waynes’ murder, and Harvey Dent using her as a ploy to rattle rich guy Dick Lovecraft. Bullock is quite pissed to hear about all this after-the-fact, but he agrees to take Alfred into the city to search for the kids while Gordon questions Harvey Dent about how the assassins could have known who Selina is or where she’d be.

Bullock and Alfred pay Fish Mooney a visit, because very little happens in Gotham without Fish knowing about it. When Harvey’s bad-cop routine doesn’t work, Alfred flirts with Fish shamelessly to get on her good side. She points them in the direction of a fence named Clyde that Selina often has dealings with.

Dent admits that he leaked Gordon’s name to key trusted contacts in order to bolster the credibility of his case. Obviously, one of those contacts must not have been so trustworthy, and reported this onto underworld figures, who connected the dots and followed Gordon to Wayne Manor. This version of Harvey Dent is kind of a lousy lawyer, isn’t he?

Gordon heads straight to Dick Lovecraft to make him call off the assassins. He doesn’t have much of a plan for how to do this, other than to use whatever force may be necessary. Lovecraft, however, swears that he’s just a patsy. His story rings true when the Copperhead chick shows up to take him out. Gordon tries to fight her off, but she knocks him out. By the time he wakes up, Lovecraft is dead with a bullet from Gordon’s gun. That’s not going to look good.

Selina brings Bruce to a sleazy den for runaways and lowlifes called “The Flea,” where they run into Ivy, the orphaned daughter of the thug who was framed for murdering Bruce’s parents. Ivy is so crazy that she even freaks Selina out. Next, the kids visit the fence Clyde. Selina tries to pawn off a watch and some other trinkets that she lifted from Bruce for some quick cash. Unfortunately, Clyde sells them out, locks them in a room, and contacts Copperhead.

The episode climaxes when Bullock, Alfred, Gordon and the killers all converge on Clyde’s hideout. This leads to a big shoot-out. Selina slips away through an open window, but Bruce lags behind. Copperhead, who has no interest in the Wayne boy, lets him live and also sneaks out.

In the aftermath, a furious Mayor James (Richard Kind) covers up the death of Lovecraft as being a suicide prompted by the harassment of an overzealous cop – Jim Gordon, of course. He uses Jim as a scapegoat and has him demoted to security guard at Arkham Asylum. Meanwhile, Selina returns to Wayne Manor and gives Bruce his first kiss.

This episode is the show’s fall finale. The series will take the month of December off and return in January. It’s a strong episode, and I like the twist of Jim going to Arkham. That should really shake things up in the second half of the season, and give the show plenty of opportunity to introduce all manner of future Batman supervillains.