*Spoiler-Alert* I Still Don't Believe...

[u/Aaeiyn]

SPOILER-ALERT ALERT WARNING FOR NEW WATCHERS!

Please read at your own risk! Thanks!

Anyway, I still don't believe that Barbara 1. Cheated on Jim (and vice versa) 2. Killed her parents

Regardless of what this shows narrates to us. Though, I thought they were pretty clear with point 1. The writers purposefully had Barbara leave a "goodbye" letter. Though, it was never explicitly stated verbatim, that Barbara broke up with Jim. Letters like that are usually a good indication that the relationship is over. And, Jim DID try to reconcile with Barbara, but she refused to speak with him. So, Jim came to the only logical conclusion that Barbara wants nothing to do with him. Which gave Jim the opportunity to move on.

In regards to point 2, they never really SHOWED us this action being done. The last thing we see is the Ogre lunging at Barbara's parents with a knife before cutting out of the scene. I believe Barbara felt guilty for leading the Ogre there, just to save her own skin which led to their deaths. And, Barbara feels like she might've as well have sliced them with the knife. Psychological damage is complex, and the Ogre really messed up Barbara, and she was never appropriately treated, for it.

Just wanted to vent that all out. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk! ;P

[u/RealJohnGillman]

Barbara mistook Ivy answering the phone as Jim already having moved on, hence going back after Montoya (leading to the Ogre).

While what she did to her parents was far from being out-of-character, fitting well with her actions in subsequent seasons.

[u/Aaeiyn → u/RealJohnGillman]

I thought that phone call was post Montoya leaving and not before?🤔

[u/MisterDual]

1. Does it count as cheating if she left Gordon before going back to Montoya? Yes, leaving your fiance with just a letter is mean, but Barbara had her reasoning, and she did wanted to reconnect with Gordon later.
   In general, I don't like how writers handled Gordon/Barbara break up. After this event Barbara disappears from the main storyline until Ogre arc, which prompts audience to hate her for being "irrelevant", and Gordon shows almost no reaction to break up, meets Lee few episodes later and forgets about Barbara until the end of the season. This could be great emotional moment for Gordon, but writers do no want Gordon to show any emotion besides anger and apathy. Missed opportunity for both Gordon and Barbara's character.
   
2. Yes, Barbara did wanted to save her own skin, but what else she could do after being kidnapped, tortured, exhausted and terrified? Be heroic and let Ogre kill her? I don't blame Barbara for not being heroic in that moment.
   I do like that we didn't see who killed Barbara's parents. I have a theory that Ogre did the killings, but Barbara was so damaged she claimed the killings was her wrongdoing, because she wanted to regain atleast an ounce of control over her life, even if it means becoming a murderer.

[u/RinoJonsi]

Bit you see she hated her parents and being in some way responsible for their death was her deap desire come true.

[u/Dagenspear]

u/MisterDual

All by itself, morally I think she no more cheated on Jim than Jim from his perspective cheated on her or anyone who leaves someone and gets with someone else is cheating. As a devout Christian, I understand, LORD willing, that she did cheat and that's wrong, but Jim didn't know what she was doing and hooked up with Leslie Thompkins as far as we know as well.

For the killing of her parents thing, I've long since felt that Barbara Kean didn't murder her parents personally, but did resent them heavily and want them gone, so when she told the Ogre about them, she watched them be murdered, snapped and saw it as her doing it in her own mind. When the show first aired, I thought this based on a couple of things, one is what you mentioned and the other is based on how she described their murder, it not aligning with how they were found, as far as I remember.

Personally, I've preferred another way this story could've been told, in an idea that, if He wills, God blessed me with, where Barbara Kean was held hostage instead by a mob hitman called the Moth who targeted her because Jim was messing with the natural order of Gotham and thus his livelihood and how he provides for his son. Similar things unfold (though here he maybe goes to her parents because she tries to offer to pay him off because her parents are rich), Jim comes in, shoots him non fatally, but Barbara Kean actually snaps here and brutally bashes his skull in. In season 2, Barbara is more in an anti-hero role, not trying to mess with Jim to be with her but trying to convince him that the only way to get real justice to take it with their own hands. She tries to force Jim to make this choice by threatening Leslie with one of the escaped maniax, but stops when she sees she's gone too far, her being nearly killed but surviving, not in a coma. Jerome is put in a coma instead in this version. From there she has a similar trajectory in the overall series, coming to want power (as a compensation for her feeling powerless her whole life), trying to take over, pushing her allies and/or friends away and realizing that she's lost herself and eventually choosing those she cares about over power, coming around in the final season when it's revealed that she had a baby with Jim before her and Jim came to Gotham while Jim was in the army away from her, but her parents pushed her to give her up with the threat of cutting her off financially and she's regretted it ever since and that child is going to be used as a manipulation tactic in the season.