from guest writer, Khalil Johnson
As we closed the chapter on the “Rise of the Villains” arc
with the death of Theo Galavan, we begin the “Wrath of the Villains” storyline for
Gotham introducing Mr. Freeze and
Hugo Strange in what promises to be a very interesting second half of the
season.
Gordon is continuing to go from squeaky clean to a very
“gray” line. In season 1 of Gotham, Jim Gordon was the only cop on
the police force that was not on the take, and now he is willingly lying to an
investigative board to get his job back.
He is slowly transitioning to the Dark Side in order to achieve his
goals.
With Oswald Cobblepot taking the rap for Galavan’s murder
and on the run, Butch is now the de-facto leader of Gotham’s criminal underworld.
It also seems that he will soon have a queen for his newfound kingdom
with Tabitha Galavan wanting to join him.
Can she be completely trusted though?
Oswald Cobblepot was finally caught and arrested this
episode. As always, he had a plan to
take the rap for Gordon, and plead insanity so he could end up at Arkham
Asylum. Of course he thinks he can
handle serving time there, he was able to orchestrate himself to become the
head of the underworld, why couldn’t he hack it there? But he slowly started to understand that it’s
hard to be a straight-headed leader when you are in crazy-town. The criminals there didn’t take him
seriously, because they simply can’t take anything seriously. That’s gotta be a big blow to the ego for
him.
We got to meet the first of the new villains: Hugo
Strange. Fans of the comic book know
he’s going to be some trouble. After
all, he is one of Batman’s most famous enemies.
BD Wong looks perfectly cast as the famous doctor. Towards the end of the episode he takes an
elevator down to the Indian Hill facility, so we now know that he’ll be a
problem for a while. Previews foreshadow
him experimenting on Oswald Cobblepot under the guise of “helping” him. Oswald will probably become crazier than he
is faking to be as a result of Hugo Strange.
Finally we got to meet Mr. Freeze, who first appeared
briefly during the mid-season finale. He
seems to be mirroring his comic book counterpart in regards to becoming a
criminal for the sake of helping his dying wife. He is pretty much the “reluctant villain.” Sometimes characters in Gotham don’t necessarily stick to the source material (Barbara
Gordon and Jerome), but it is good that they adapted Victor Fries the correct
way. Though he was originally going to
turn himself in, he ultimately realized he can still save his wife by
continuing his criminal activities. Both
he and Hugo Strange seem like they are going to be good foils for Gordon and
the police department on Gotham. Hopefully they will not be “one and done”
characters, but have at least a multi-episode arc.
