Gotham’s first episode back from the winter break did a fantastic job showing us how Victor Fries turned from caring husband to overbearing psychopath, and “A Dead Man Feels No Cold,†went through with this idea in quite a spectacular way.
Mr. Freeze gets a pretty bad reputation, mainly from the hilariously bad Arnold Schwarzenegger rendition. While meme and quote-worthy, that’s about all that character left us with when the credits rolled. But the way Victor Fries is portrayed thus far in Gotham is subtle enough not to use a new pun during every scene. He certainly has more of an overbearing loving husband type-of feeling versus whatever has been portrayed prior to this point in time.
As we left off last week, Nora was in custody and inching closer and closer to her death, but the Captain has a plan. While they can’t take her to Gotham General since it would put all the innocent patients in harm’s way, why not go to a secure location with patients who are treated more like inmates. Ding ding! Arkham must be the perfect place to draw Fries in to capture him, all the while limiting casualties. But, where Jim has become quite gung-ho doling out justice, Lee is certainly not on board with the plan.
I love the way that the show runners chose to use Lee as a perfect counter to Jim. While they both are altruistic to a fault, Lee can always snuff out when there is a hint of insincerity in what Jim is saying. While Jim is almost always straight with her, he certainly did lie to her about Galavan. It’s interesting because we learn that she does indeed agree that Theo Galavan deserved what he got. But Lee is more upset that Jim felt the need to lie. In this episode, Lee is adamant about protecting Nora, even though Jim pulls the “but the baby†card on her.
While Fries makes his way into Arkham, he gets a little help from Hugo Strange, but no help is free, of course. In exchange, Strange wants just a single vial of Fries’s formula so, he can successfully recreate it. In exchange for Strange’s help, he ensures that Fries will make it out with Nora.
GCPD had a good plan, but Fries’s freeze bombs and gun were quite overwhelming for the GCPD. One scene that really stuck out was when Penguin was talking to Jim pleading for his help. During the episode Penguin is tortured and becomes the figurehead of Arkham’s rehabilitation program. Penguin goes as far as to mention how he covered for Jim when Jim killed Galavan, and of course the sneaky Hugo Strange got it all on tape.
When Fries makes it home with Nora, the best scene in the episode occurs. Nora asks him to get her a necklace before she gets frozen. While he is doing so, she switches out the cartridge in the freeze gun. This of course kills her, and Victor gives up and freezes himself. Luckily, or unluckily depending on what characters eyes you are seeing things from, Strange actually reanimated him. Fries lost a bit of color in his hair and obtained icy blue eyes, but he is indeed alive.
Hugo Strange is such a fantastic character. He is the perfect blend of sneaky and creepy. His voice is such that it forces the hairs on the back of your neck to stand straight up. It will be interesting to see how he uses Victor going forward, considering he does owe his life to the mad professor.
We did get a few scenes with Bruce and they really conveyed the anger he has towards those Involved in killing his parents. He expresses how he wants to kill M. Malone, but Alfred firmly disagrees. Alfred won’t let Bruce carry that burden, so he says that he is the only one that will kill. Even Selina is taken aback by the idea of Bruce taking a life and reminds him that he couldn’t even push Alfred’s corrupt pal out a window. There was just enough Bruce in this episode. His dour tone would’ve been grating any longer, but it was nice to see a glimpse of his mindset going forward.
