Gotham S02E15 Review: Riddles

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 15: Mad Grey Dawn

That was kind of a decent episode. It started off rather promising, with Edward Nygma finally doing his first foray as the Riddler. I thought it was going to just be a kind of a filler episode finally exploring this character we've followed for nearly two seasons finally embrace his comic-book costumed counterpart. We've got a fun little old-timey campy plot with robbing paintings and a giant prop bomb. The riddles aren't as moronic as they could've been, and honestly kinda-sorta made sense though why Gordon would immediately think that it's a riddle is kinda a bit of a leap, but hey. Nygma himself also shows a fair amount of shrewdness and planning as he mucks around with crossbars and case files and signatures. It's a fun bit trying to piece together what Nygma is planning... only to find out that, hey, it's not a random distraction riddle-spree, but rather he just plays for keeps and outright frames Jim Gordon for murdering a 'witness' for his murdering Theo Gallavan.

Which, ironically, Gordon did murder, so sucks to be him. The episode ends with Gordon behind bars, with the legal procedurals happening in a montage, and it's a great moment as Edward Nygma, the future Riddler, actually straight-up pulls off a win and deals a damning defeat as he frames Gordon. A great episode for the main plot, and that murder has been something hanging over Gordon's head. While he still is a bit self-sanctimonious for someone who actually did kill Theo Gallavan, it's still fun to see both characters struggle with Gordon having no idea who actually framed him. Nygma steals the show, definitely.

It's great, really, how Nygma's paranoia and gradually seeing Gordon as his rival, someone to outwit before Gordon discovers Kristen Kringle's death, ends up solidifying into him creating this plan to frame Gordon and lob him into Blackgate Penitentiary in order to dissuade him from tracking down Kringle's true fate. Of course, Nygma ends up committing yet another murder to do so, so yeah.

The rest of the plotlines in this episode really didn't hold much of a candle. Hugo Strange is completely absent, and we follow Bruce, Selina and Ivy as they make a plan to steal money from Butch's nephew. It's a bit of a bland and slow-paced B-plot with the moral of it really amounting to Bruce finding out that he can take a insane amount of punishment for a kid with definite masochism undertones that Selina lampshades.

Oswald is a pushover, being bullied by Butch and Tabitha who spares Oswald for insanely stupid reasons (that even the characters in the show lampshade). Pushover Oswald is a boring Oswald, and he randomly meets his alleged father, Elijah Van Dahl, and is accepted to this huge family because... um... reasons. I am not particularly invested, but apparently Van Dahl's actor is the same actor that played Penguin's father in Batman Returns, so yay for that little fun trivia. No idea where they are going with this. Are the Van Dahls legit, or are they just part of Hugo Strange's strange experiment for Penguin?

Oh, and Barbara Kean wakes up just because.

The main plot with Riddler and whatnot is really solid and extremely central to the main plot of Gotham, a rarity with these villain-of-the-week procedural cop shows. Despite my reservations about Edward Nygma since the show's inception, Nygma proves to be a capable and competent enough villain without losing the insane flavour of the Riddler. Good job, showmakers.