Tabitha (Jessica Lucas) arrives at a bar where she enters an underground illegal casino run by a woman known as The Lady (Michelle Gomez).
Tabitha offers money in exchange for killing Gordon (Benjamin McKenzie) after the arrest of Galavan (James Frain).
Elsewhere, Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor) wakes up in Nygma's (Cory Michael Smith) apartment.
While in the elevator to Galavan's penthouse, Gordon is attacked by a hitman, Billy Boy (Jon Sklaroff), but he manages to defeat him.
Cobblepot wakes up again and tries to leave, but Nygma prevents him from doing so, stating he's a wanted man for the attempted murder of Galavan.
Later that night, the religious sect of the Galavans arrive in Gotham City where they're greeted by Father Creel (Ron Rifkin).
The episode received a rating of 77% with an average score of 7.6 out of 10 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's consensus stating: "Gotham gives Jim Gordon some much-needed depth in 'A Bitter Pill to Swallow,' although the surrounding stories are less cohesive.
"[5] Matt Fowler of IGN gave the episode a "great" 8 out 10 and wrote in his verdict, "Aside from the Bruce being "grounded" story, this week's 'A Bitter Pill to Swallow' was really, and violently, eventful.
It even contained a moment - the death of Parks - that topped Jerome's slaughter of all those GCPD cops months back.
Club's Kyle Fowle gave the episode a "C+" grade and wrote, "The problem with using 'Rise Of The Villains' as this season's subtitle is that it's such a generic phrase as to be virtually meaningless.
If a subtitle is to have any use at all, it’s to bring some sort of focus to the proceedings, but since almost anything that happens on Gotham can fall under that heading, the show is just as prone to sprawl as it has been from the beginning.
Tonight's storylines are connected inasmuch as they all spring from Galavan's presence in Gotham, but since he is barely glimpsed until the episode's final minutes, 'A Bitter Pill To Swallow' still feels like a disparate collection of stories in search of a center.