Gotham S02E13 Review: Moronic Plans

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 13: A Dead Man Feels No Cold

The fashion police is after him too.

Well, after a mediocre episode before this, we ramp up the insanity in this one. And, well, practically the entire cast bar Hugo Strange makes utterly insane choices. The Mr. Freeze origin story quickly happens, with the twist that Nora Fries (apparently) dies in this episode instead of being frozen solid. With the plot of Victor Fries going to save his wife from being used as bait by the police forces, Nora ends up sabotaging Victor's own freeze gun with an earlier formula because she's kind of tired of living, and cannot begin to comprehend waking up from her slumber with Victor dead or imprisoned. So she shatters apart. And Victor shoots himself with his own freeze gun, except, y'know, what everyone expects to happen happens, and he gets turned into Mr. Freeze, unable to survive outside subzero temperatures. 

Except that a good chunk of Mr. Freeze's origin is engineered by Hugo Strange, who is highly interested in Freeze's freezing formula thing for his own experiments. To this end, while the police and Mr. Freeze are playing cat and mouse in Arkham Asylum, Hugo Strange helps out with a getaway vehicle, by trapping Bullock's forces behind some 'malfunctioning' prison bars and telling Mr. Freeze where to go... and eventually appropriating Mr. Freeze himself and placing him in his facility in Indian Hills with promises for an alliance.

While the Mr. Freeze tragedy is portrayed well, the events of this episode honestly couldn't be any messier. Everyone makes utterly baffling choices. Barnes using Nora Fries as bait by transferring her to Arkham Asylum's ER (an ER is not quite the same with an ICU, which I imagine is what Nora needs) instead of Gotham General is not a decision that I imagine is legal nor ethical. Leslie throwing a hissy fit about the unethical actions is reasonable. Throwing a tantrum and putting her pregnant self in harm's way by insisting that she be the doctor that handle Nora is utterly idiotic, and I don't think Gordon is the one who has a say -- Barnes should be able to shoo Leslie away from it all. And the fact that, y'know, she's fucking pregnant. Self-righteousness is one thing, putting herself and her child in harm's way is another and honestly she's lucky that Victor Fries didn't throw an angry tantrum when his wife died or when he reached Nora. 

Mr. Freeze's plans aren't honestly that well thought-out, though. Does he honestly believe Gotham has a good enough system in place to take care of his wife as a ward of the state without fucking things up? Does he really think his (Arkham City game-inspired) freeze grenades is enough for him to take over the asylum? Why didn't he steal one of the cryo-tanks from his house before rescuing his wife instead of returning to the place where all the police were waiting for him? Also how stupid is it for him not to notice the cryo-cylinder thing being held in his wife's hand in plain view? So much stupidity is involved in both the police and Freeze's side of things that I can only shake my head at the insanity of all this.

Also the fact that Theo Gallavan's body seems to be something that Hugo Strange wants to revive just makes me groan. Also the fact that Hugo Strange seems to have witnessed Penguin's rantings to Gordon that Gordon was Gallavan's true murderer. No more Gallavan please! The drama with Gordon being the killer is fine, but don't bring him back. He's a douche.

Meanwhile, the Penguin has been hit with even more indignities as he's subjected to Hugo Strange's tender electroshock mercies, and he's just turned into a subservient penguin playing duck duck goose and it's hard to see one of the show's once-greatest characters be basically brain-dead for the sake of, y'know, building up one of the big villains. 

Oh, and Bruce Wayne returns to the show! I don't... particularly mind him that much, really. He's obsessed with the whole hunting-down this Matches Malone, the man who apparently killed his parents. Oh, and killing him. It's a nice, refreshing break that Alfred made Bruce promise not to hand Malone over to the authorities as normally wont, but rather that Alfred will be the one to kill Malone. It's a nice, twisted and dark take, and, well, while it might not fit the nice fatherly Alfred of classic Batman lore, this Alfred is a bit more... keen in teaching Bruce to defend himself. Plus he probably has a bone to pick or two with the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne. It's an interesting setup, and we'll see if Bruce can have an interesting plotline after being so whiny in most previous appearances in this show.

Overall a messy episode that delivers on the insane level, so mostly keeping in with my expectations. It's entertainingly bad, at least, and I do like Mr. Freeze, which is why I watched these two episodes back to back, but we'll see if I continue on this season.