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Let’s Talk About ‘Hedgehunter’:
- Ten years earlier, Alfred, Daveboy and his team ‘secure the package’ in Rabat, Morocco.
- Zahra Khin receives information that her father is still alive.
- Thomas arrives in Gotham City and pays a visit to his father at Wayne Manor.
- Alfred confronts Aziz about Zahra’s father but he denies any knowledge of the operation.
- Alfie wants to quit his assignment with Zahra for crossing a line, but their relationship deepens.
- Bet learns the truth about John Salt and his plans to revive the Ravens.
- Daveboy is still experiencing the effects of Lullaby.
- Alfie is a bit dumbfounded when he discovers his mum is seeing Roger again.
- Zahra and Alfrd meet with the informant, who recognizes Alfred from the night of the kidnapping.
- Thomas makes another surprising decision.
This week’s episode of Pennyworth is jam-packed full of twists, turns, shocking deaths and surprising actions that will have a major impact going forward. Let’s break down the major storylines in the episode.
Alfred and Zahra Khin
Things are shown to be what Alfred feared right off the bat as we see him and Daveboy ten years earlier abducting Zeya Khin, Zahra’s father. The man supposedly guarding him isn’t putting up much of a fight and before Alfie smacks him in the face with the butt of his rifle, he tells the man they have to ‘make it look good’, signifying that the operation may not have been as clandestine as it seemed. Back in the present, Zahra Khin receives a call from someone claiming to know that her father is still alive and they want to meet with her at midnight. Alfie fears it may be a trap, so he tells her to tell them she will only meet at the Queen Anne’s Pub, where Alfred can control the situation. But Alfred also tells her that after the meeting, he is quitting as her security because he crossed a line with her. She says they both crossed a line, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Alfie is worried he’ll lose focus and put her in danger, so he’s arranged the services of another security agency. But Zahra gets the feeling that there is more to Alfred’s story than that he slept with her. He says he just wants her to be safe, and she respects his decision but she’s not buying it at all.
Later while Zahra is holding a press conference, Alfred confronts Prime Minister Aziz and asks point blank where the government is holding her father. Aziz assures Alfred he has no idea what he’s talking about, but Alfred knows that his kidnapping assignment was tied to the government. Aziz asks if he has any proof, but he has nothing except knowing the man he snatched was given to MI6. Aziz wonders if Alfred has mentioned any of this to Miss Khin — he has not — and if it were true why would he assign Alfred, of all people, to protect her? Alfred says he will not be a pawn in some game Aziz is playing because he’s quitting as her security. Aziz tries to ration with him, saying that just because he’s PM doesn’t mean he knows every bit of skullduggery conducted on the Queen’s behalf over the last thirty years, and that of anyone he could have chosen to watch over Miss Khin he chose Alfred because he knew he would be the one who could protect her. But he tells Alfred he must do what he thinks is right, and the conversation ends with Zahra walks up behind Alfred. He lies about what he and Aziz were discussing, and he takes her back to her hotel, the ‘scenic route’ he calls it, through a local street market. She says he looks guilty of something, but is it all because of sex? He says it’s more complicated than that, but before they can continue a storm blows in, typical London weather, Alfie says, sunny one moment then the clouds open up the next. Zahra recalls reading the great British novels when she was growing up, and in them the characters were always getting caught in rainstorms, and when they did all the things dividing them were just washed away. It was all make believe but she loved it. Alfie says in real life they just get wet. And then he plants a kiss on her.
A quick flash back to the extraction operation and Alfred and Daveboy load a hooded man into a car. Back in the present, Alfred is in Zahra’s bed and she asks if he thinks he made a mistake. He said he makes a lot of mistakes, but he can live with this one. Zahra thinks his guilt is coming from another person, but he says that’s not the case this time. She still doesn’t believe him and asks if there was someone else in his life he failed to protect and he admits that it was his fiancee Esme, who was killed by someone who wanted to hurt him. Zahra feels that Alfred won’t let anyone in now because he’s scared they will get hurt too. Alfred asks about her fear. She says she lost the person she loved the most ten years ago and she hasn’t been the same person since. He asks how she lived through that and she says you don’t live through it, you just learn to live with it. He ponders this and tells her he should go to the meeting alone in case it’s a trap. She is not down with that and says she doesn’t have a choice, she’s going. Alfred tells her to forget what he said about quitting, he will stay with her. And since the informant won’t be calling for a few hours, they have some time to kill.
Later, before heading to the Queen Anne’s, Alfred has to stop by his mum’s house to get his gun, which she keeps hiding in inconvenient places like a jar of flour. This time it’s up the chimney and covered in soot. But Alfie gets a bigger surprise than a dirty gun. He doesn’t seem to notice that Mary is wearing her robe … until Roger also enters the room, quickly pulling his suspenders up. The look in Alfred’s stunned face is priceless. Roger shakes his hand and that snaps him out of his stupor, and he immediately asks why Roger never called his mum back. Roger apologizes and said Mary had the courage he didn’t. Alfie is trying not to think about what he just interrupted and makes a hasty retreat. Roger tells Mary he should probably leave, and she said that Alfie just has to get used to her having a boyfriend. ‘Is that what I am?’, Roger asks. ‘If you want to be,’ she replies. He does, they kiss, she lifts her foot and her slipper falls off.
Back in the car, Alfred gives Zahra the gun — she notes it’s dirty — and before he can ask if she knows how to use it, she’s popped out the cartridge, given it a once over and put it back together. Looks like she does. They get to the pub and are still trying to guess who could have called her. She doesn’t know but the man said he was there the night her father was taken. That certainly gives Alfred some concern. Some men enter the pub and pat down Alfred, insisting that there be no guns. Alfred says no because they all have guns, that’s how they all feel safe. Another man enters … it’s the man whom Alfred hit with the rifle butt, but he doesn’t seem to recognize his assailant. But Zahra introduces Alfred and says he can be trusted. The man never introduces himself, looks Alfred over, and says they have much to talk about. He apologizes to her for not protecting her father, which was his assignment. He says he chose to live. Zahra asks where the president of Kalpoor is holding her father and the man is baffled. It’s not the president who has him, it’s the British. He saw the men and heard their voices. Zahra realizes this must be true because that allowed them to install a puppet so they could maintain control over her nation. The man says her father has been held in a secret prison on the Hebrides islands where there are no records, no trials, everyone there has a life sentence, and their names are not written down when they die. He calls it a ‘black hole’. He says she would need an army to get him out, but she believes if she makes this information public, the Brits would have no choice but to release her father. The man says they would deny it and move him to another prison, and it would take her years to find him again. The only ways he can help is to give the British something they want — the names of her people in the resistance. It’s either them or her father. Alfred jumps in and tells her not to trust this man because he obviously works for Aziz, who is trying to get her to turn on her own people. The man denies the accusation, and his men pull out their guns. Alfred assures Zahra he knows what he’s talking about, but the man says Alfred is the spy to turn her suspicions on him. Alfred assures her he will investigate these claims, but this man was not her father’s friend nor is he hers. As Alfred talks, the man slowly begins to recognize him and he tells his men to shoot. Alfred gets off the first shots, hitting both men in the legs. The man says he knows Alfred’s voice, he was there that night and Zahra starts putting the pieces together. Alfred was one of the British soldiers who kidnapped her father. He confirms this with a nod and she aims his own gun at him. He puts his gun down and tells her he had no idea who her father was, he was just another target, and it wasn’t until she started talking about him that he put it all together and that’s why he was quitting as her security. He is sorry but she still cannot trust the other man. He was working with the government, he sold her father out. The man denies this and tells her to shoot Alfred. Zahra says she’s thought for ten years about what she would do to the people who took her father and how she’s make them pay. Alfred asks how they got her to England. Was it the summit? Or was it this man saying he knows where he dad is and all she has to do is give up her people? Alfred says she’s being played. The man said he loved her father. Alfred tells her to do what she has to do. She cocks the gun aimed at him … and quickly turns to shoot the other man in the head. She angrily walks out of the pub.
Alfred walks her back to her hotel, and as she opens her door he walks away. She stops him to ask if what happened between them was a lie. He assures her it was not. And why should she believe him? She smacks him across the face, backhanded, and again with the palm of her hand on the other cheek. She tries to backhand him again but he grabs her by the wrist. She asks him how he lives with himself, and says she wants new security and that she never wants to see him again. Alfred goes back to the office and finds Daveboy passed out on the desk in his underwear, the place a shambles. He doesn’t know that earlier, Daveboy was met in the pub by Sandra, whom he saw as some kind of glowing bug or alien with a flowing cape, the effects of Lullaby still wreaking havoc on him. She asked him to give Alfred a note, but he ended up eating it instead. Alfred asks him what happened and Daveboy says all he can remember was going to the art gallery and all they were serving was fizzy white wine, nothing to get him pissed. Alfred says that was two days ago. Daveboy has no recollection of talking with Alfred a day earlier about Morocco, but now Alfred needs his help with a job. Oh, and there’s no money. He asks Daveboy if he’s ever been to the Hebrides. Looks like Alfred is going to do his best to show Zahra he was clueless about the situation, but while he may succeed and she may be grateful, their relationship could at least end on amicable, but certainly not romantic terms.
Bet Sykes & John Salt
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After confronting Salt in the previous episode and being taken prisoner, Bet finds herself in what appears to be an old factory, a huge, regal portrait of Salt on the wall before her. He is getting an adjustment done t oa piece of the hardware in his arm which produces a long, retractable dagger. He sees that Bet is awake and welcomes her to the Office of the Chancellor for the Raven High Council in Exile. Bet rolls her eyes and calls him a twat, noting he’s turned himself into a Swiss Army Knife. Bet always has a way with words. He says he’s just embraced the times in which they live, saying the Ravens lost the civil war because evolution defeated them. Bet says it’s because he betrayed the only decent leader the Ravens ever had. Salt says that once Gully Troy ingested Stormcloud and became Captain Blighty, being human simply was not enough anymore. He reveals another of their experiments, a blue super soldier, noting the first test subjects sort of blew themselves up but they pressed on. Soon they will have an army to sweep over the country like fire. But more urgently in the moment, he wants to know how Bet found them. She says she’s MI5. Salt doesn’t believe MI5 sent her there with a baby. Part of her cover, she says. Since she’s not being forthcoming, he directs the soldier to take aim, not at Bet but at the pram across the room. Fearing for the life of ‘her baby’, Bet gives up Frances Gaunt as the informant. Salt says he should have taken care of the old bag years ago. Now that he has a name, he tells the soldier to fire, and then he ‘remembers’ to tell Bet he had Julie taken to the nursery earlier. Whoops. He just needed to make sure they weren’t in any danger, and they aren’t, so he orders his guard to kill Bet and burn the body. (Why didn’t he just get his super soldier to do it? Didn’t want to have to clean up the mess in the room?)
The soldiers take Bet to another room that has obviously been used for other executions. She asks the guard to tell her where the nursery is, give a woman her dying wish. The don’t seem to care much about the teddy bear Bet has been clutching since they left the other room. The guard tells her where it is and she asks how the baby got there. The guard tells her to shut up and stand there, asking if she wants a blindfold. She says no, it would make it harder. ‘Make what harder,’ he asks. ‘This’, she says as she holds up the teddy and shoots both men in the head. Bet makes her way to the nursery but it’s full of dozens of babies. A nurse walks in and she demands to know where Julie is. The nurse points and when Bet asks who all the other babies belong to, she replies they are all john Salt’s. As Bet leans over and asks baby Julie to give her mum a smile, Salt sneaks up behind her and plunges his new dagger into her back, a drip of blood coming from her mouth. She tries to crawl away, but he steps on her chest. She begs him not to hurt her baby, but he says it’s his baby now, to do with as he pleases. Bet still has the teddy and manages to shoot Salt in the neck, causing him to collapse next to her. He grabs her around the neck and during the struggle she manages to activate his dagger, piercing his chest (maybe his heart), exiting through his shoulder. With Salt now apparently dead, she says she finally shut him up. But she is not in the best shape herself. With the baby in her arms, Bet makes her way to a park bench and has a seat, telling Julie she just needs to rest a minute to get her strength back, but not to fret, all will be well. She tells Julie she will love her every minute of her life, and wherever she went she’d know her mum loved her. She says she is not well, but what is she to do? Bet notices a bus idling across the street. Inside the bus, there are no passengers. The driver enters and sees the baby on the front seat, with a note that says to deliver the baby to Peg Sykes, 13 George Street. Bet watches from the bench as the bus pulls away, saying her last goodbye, saying her mum loves her as she fades away and falls over. Is Bet truly dead?! We’re going to have to riot if she is (but at least we get to see Peg again).
Thomas Wayne
Thomas has arrived in Gotham City, making his way to Wayne Manor to confront his father. Patrick asks how everyone is, including Martha, and Thomas says they are fine and he and his wife are working on things. Patrick says to never give up on family because if you do, what’s left? Patrick notes that his son has been putting up a facade his entire lifetime so people don’t see the terrible thing inside, and he knows Thomas has come home for revenge, plain and simple. Thomas says he came because he loves his father. Patrick says he loves Thomas too, for what it’s worth. Thomas asks his father to recall one good memory from his childhood. Patrick has to think and recalls a canoe trip they took up the St. Lawrence River, feeling like they were the only two people in the world. But a storm came up and blew their canoe away, while they sheltered in a cave, Patrick assuring his son that everything would be okay. Thomas fell asleep in his arms, and the next morning the storm had passed, they hiked out and found a diner where they had blueberry pancakes. Thomas said his dad was a good parent, so what went wrong? Patrick does not have an answer. Nothing. Everything. Shit happens, nobody’s in control. Thomas hugs his father and the both get emotional, apologizing to each other. But Thomas leaves saying, ‘Love isn’t enough, is it?’
Some time later (and is that exterior shot of Gotham City reused from Gotham?), Patrick is leaving a bar and begins to make his way home down a dark, sketchy alley. A shadowy figure follows him — actually dressed like the character The Shadow — and Patrick turns to face the man … with unmistakable eyes. Two shots rings out, Patrick falls to the ground, and the man approaches saying, ‘Goodbye, dad.’ He walks away, leaving Patrick to die … and foreshadowing his own fate several years later. But how will Thomas live with himself, and will he be honest with Martha about his act of patricide?
Only four episodes left this season, and there is still a lot of story to tell.
What did you think of this episode? Start a conversation in the comments section below.
New episodes of Pennyworth stream Thursdays on HBO Max.
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