Gotham, Season 2, Episode 12: Mr. Freeze
There really isn't honestly that much that incited me to continue watching Gotham. Last month when I was on this huge TV-show-catchup mode, Gotham is the only one of the superhero shows that I essentially dropped. The mid-season break for season two lasted like three months, and that, combined with the generally crappy quality of how the mid-season plot resolved, essentially killed off most of my interest in the show. And considering this episode originally aired like in March, it's saying something that I've only chosen to watch it now. But word of mouth told me that, well, the second part of season two is insane. Hugo Strange! Mr. Freeze! Azrael! Insane levels of insanity! Gotham's day-to-day cop life plot never honestly enticed me that much, and, well, at least an insane show would be fun to watch as opposed to the humdrum plot that is the Theo Gallavan bullshit.
Anyway, this half of the season is honestly much like a season unto its own, subtitled 'Wrath of the Villains', and wastes no time in introducing Mr. Freeze and Hugo Strange, the alleged huge players of the season. Half-season. Sub-season. Whatever. It's... pretty cool, I guess. We start off with a long recap of what's happened in the first half of the second season with Harvey Dent interrogating Gordon, which is pretty nifty because it's been half a year since I watched those episodes. Basically Gordon's role in Gallavan's death is cleared, with Penguin randomly being arrested halfway through the episode intentionally taking the blame (for... reasons unclear) before taking a plea of insanity. Barnes seemed to be somewhat suspicious of Gordon but ultimately let it slide. He's ultimately still the same-old-same-old Gordon from the past episodes of Gordon, partnering up with the still-hilarious Bullock, thrown into your weekly procedural plot.
This week's episode revolves around a certain villain going around freezing people, and, y'know, as the previous episode (which I watched like a half-year ago) foreshadowed, was none other than Mr. Freeze himself. It's honestly pretty much what you'd expect from a proper Mr. Freeze origin story, except he's a bit poorer than more traditional portrayals of the character (the New 52 blasphemy does not count) who is working for a facility. Here he's literally working in his basement, freezing random people and looking for a way to unfreeze them safely. Meanwhile, his wife is dying of a random disease without any clue that Freeze has been going around killing people for his research. Most of the broad strokes are still there -- tragic villain doing what he does for his wife's incurable disease.
Bullock and Gordon end up catching Nora Fries, and Victor Fries ends up turning himself in and rather hilariously gets put in a holding cell alongside a bunch of other people claiming to be Mr. Freeze... only to see one of his victims return back to life because one of his chemicals worked. Cue escape. It's just a setup and an origin story, and a pretty decent and faithful one at that.
Meanwhile, Hugo Strange is set up to be the big bad pulling the strings, and it's definitely a very well-done portrayal of the character courtesy of B.D. Wong. It's an interesting take on the character, nailing the charismatic mad scientist aspects down but freeing him of his normal plotline of being super-obsessed with Batman and Batman's identity. Curious where we'll go with him and what is his endgame with his collection of metahumans (Fireflybug is mentioned offhandedly in this episode). He's definitely fucking people over, causing one of the inmates (much to Penguin's horror) to claw out his own eyes. Penguin may have bitten off more than he can chew, pleading insanity, and we'll see how these two villains interact.
Oh, and Tabitha Gallavan and Butch have struck up an alliance. Butch has a drill-arm. That is an awesome drill arm. I don't particularly care about this bit, honestly, but better Butch than Theo. Nygma tells Gordon about nursing Penguin to health but not about Kringle's death. He's also more assertive against Bullock's verbal bullying, ever so slowly developing into the Riddler. Leslie is sort of around.
Overall it's kind of a strange episode (no puns intended), and while both Hugo Strange and Mr. Freeze's introductions are decent enough, the bit with Penguin felt really rushed and it kind of makes no sense that he can just plead insanity and be whooshed off to Arkham in like an hour or two. And how does an insane man's testimony be legit? Kind of a decent episode, does the Mr. Freeze origin story justice. Decent is, well, better than being shit, so yeah, no complaints from me.
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