Review: Gotham Season 2 Episode 12, Mr. Freeze [SPOILERS]

Overall, I was well pleased with the Season 2b premiere.

My only complaint was that the episode seemed a bit choppy in terms of pacing, compared to a usual Gotham episode. Maybe it only felt that way because I binge-watched the whole first season just a few months ago, and sometimes, binge-watching changes the way the pacing is perceived.

Or maybe this episode really was choppy in terms of pacing because the writers were trying to touch on each and every character's story and set it up for the rest of the season. (Even though a ton of characters were in this episode, by the way, Bruce and Alfred weren't.)

Now for the things I liked about the episode.


1. Penguin

For the most part, we are left to guess at exactly what happened after the mid-season finale. But I see at least two reasonable assumptions: 1) Penguin became too depressed to competently rule his men anymore, or 2) Penguin purposely let Butch take over, and Penguin purposely let himself get captured by the GCPD as part of some sort of evil plan.

I much prefer to assume theory #1, since it so perfectly addresses the issues I talked about in my review of the first 1.5 seasons. What issues? Namely, the idea that having no love means having freedom, and the question of how Penguin could go back to being so sunny so soon after his mother's death.

See, if theory #1 is correct, here's what I imagine happened with Penguin in and after the final episodes of Season 2a:

1. Penguin believed Nygma when he said that having no love means having freedom. Penguin needed to believe that because he was in so much pain at the time.
2. Penguin's quest for revenge on Galavan allowed Penguin to carry on as his usual, sunny self.
3. Once Galavan was dead, Penguin couldn't carry on like that. As I said in my previous Gotham review, love is the only real motivator. Without love or some sort of quest based off of love, Penguin didn't have anything to push him through the hard times. The GCPD cracked down on his criminal organization, and Penguin lost control of his men.
4. In this episode, Penguin was far from being sunny, but he was still delightfully sassy and entertaining. He was still himself. He was just a very depressed version of himself, which makes perfect sense.

Therefore, because it makes so much sense, psychologically, for Penguin to become so depressed after killing Galavan, I hope that that turns out to be the case.

But from Penguin's general attitude when being taken in by the GCPD, I have a suspicion that he let himself get captured.

I'm confident we'll find out the truth before long.


2. Nygma

The scene of Nygma comforting Penguin in his prison cell was very sweet. I like that Penguin reacts to Nygma with the same kind of warmhearted chuckles with which Nygma's fans (like myself) also react to him.

That scene also seems to confirm theory #1, above, that Penguin did not plan to get captured, since Nygma did not seem to be in on any evil plot that involved Penguin letting himself be captured.

That scene also, however, raises the question of why Nygma has given up on trying to convince Penguin NOT to give up. It could just be that Nygma really doesn't see a way for Penguin to get out of this whole being-in-prison situation. Who knows?

We'll have to wait and find out, I suppose. I imagine all will be revealed when it is revealed whether Penguin planned to be captured or not.

I also like that the writer's aren't rushing Nygma's transformation into The Riddler. He is obviously different now, more openly angry toward others, but he hasn't quit his day job to pursue crime full-time or anything like that. Yet.


3. Despite the four-week jump, we don't skip most of the hard stuff in Gordon's story.

I hate it when TV shows end a season/half-season on a cliffhanger and then come back a few months later with a sizable in-story time jump. That is, I hate it when shows end on a cliffhanger, time jump over all the interesting stuff that happened after the cliffhanger, and come back to the story when everything has simmered down.

Often, the characters will simply describe what happened, or brief flashbacks will show what happened.

What's the point of ending on such an exciting note if you're not even going to let us SEE what happens at that point?

Show me the interesting stuff, the hard stuff that the characters had to go through at that point, because that's the stuff that really defines the character and keeps the story gripping.

We may have skipped some of the hard stuff for Penguin, but I'll be okay with that as long as the truth is revealed eventually and the truth turns out to be theory #1 (Penguin becoming too depressed to rule his kingdom). See, in that case, Penguin is still going through the hard stuff, so we didn't entirely skip it.

However, when it comes to Detective Gordon, it seems we didn't skip any of the hard stuff. We pick right up with him being questioned about Galavan's murder. So, it seems, with Gordon, we merely skipped a lull in his life.

That's the right way to employ time jumps, as a way of skipping the boring parts.


4. Mr. Freeze and Nora Fries

As I've said before, it is common to try and make villains sympathetic by showing the audience that the villains love other people. However, much of the time, it's done wrong and I'm not convinced of the love these villains supposedly have for other people.

For example, I wasn't convinced of Loki's love for his mother in the second Thor movie, because he was just never that nice to her.

But Gotham does it right. It convinces me of the love these villains have for other people. It 100% convinced me of the love Penguin had for his mother, and now, it has convinced me of the love Mr. and Mrs. Fries have for each other.

If Nora had ratted on Victor after the cops picked her up, I'd think, "Oh, see, look, Mr. Freeze. Here you are killing a bunch of people to save someone who can't appreciate it even a little bit." And I just wouldn't care anymore. Not about Victor as a villain, and not about Victor and Nora's relationship.

But Nora DIDN'T rat on Victor. I love how plainly she expressed her feelings on the subject. She said that Victor had done horrible things, and she was inexpressibly sorry for that, but he did them for her, so she couldn't betray him. I mean, that's just a very realistic set of conflicting feelings. It's how I imagine I would feel in her situation.


Overall, a very good episode.

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RATINGS:

General: 8/10

Compared-To-All-The-Content-I've-Ever-Loved: 7/10