Gotham has been quite spectacular after its freshman start, and there is certainly no Sophomore slump here. Up until this point, the showrunners have been ratcheting up the intensity and the violence, and it only continues in “Mad Grey Dawn.†This week’s episode is one of particular note as we get to see huge plotlines develop with two of the main villains and the future caped crusader himself.
Nygma has pretty much taken a side seat for the good majority of the second half of this season. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s nice to see him get some major screen time.
With Jim snooping around about Kris Kringle’s disappearance, we finally get to see the maniacal side of Nygma once again.  He starts off this episode by defacing pricey paintings and sculptures at the art museum, but in typical Nygma fashion, there’s a riddle to be solved. Thankfully, the folks at GCPD are able to devise that he is going to hit a train station next, and they head there. Nygma obviously planned this and set a bomb to detonate within a minute. Jim throws it just in time, but it’s clear that Nygma wasn’t looking to kill him just yet. Like a silent predator, Nygma obviously enjoys toying with his prey before killing it, and it becomes quite apparent Jim’s death isn’t the desired outcome.
Through Nygma’s trickery, he is able to pin the murder of one of the GCPD’s task force members on Jim Gordon. This places Jim directly in the crosshairs since IA is reopening the investigation into the death of Theo Galavan.
The mastery that Nygma used to twist Gotham’s finest against one another was awesome to see. Nygma is ever so quickly ramping up to his devious plans, and it will be interesting to see where he takes it in future episodes.
The future of Nygma as a character is certainly exciting, but Penguin’s is just as much so, possibly for all the wrong reasons. The newly reformed Penguin went on an apology tour in this episode, and things got weird, very very weird. His first stop? Butch and Tabitha. They can hardly believe his sincerity, that is until Tabitha mocks his mother, and he remains unfazed. But, Tabitha doesn’t let him go unpunished and tars and feathers him. Penguin’s next stop is to see Nygma, where he is immediately shot down by his old friend. His final stop is to pay respects to his mother, but he runs into someone he hasn’t seen for a very very long time. His father.
I’m sure it was incredibly difficult trying to cast the father of such a character as Cobblepot, but they did a bang up job in casting Paul Reubens (famously known as Pee Wee Herman) as the enigmatic father. The creepy factor is certainly there, and the entire family, or whomever they are, exude this uneasy feeling that permeates the entire sequence. The thought of what could happen is certainly pulling at me, and I hope we don’t have to wait a handful of episodes to see the resolution of this very twisted storyline.
Last but not least, we get to see how Bruce fares in the real world of Gotham. As you might expect, things don’t necessarily go as planned.  Ivy and Selina have planned to rob a crew within the magic mushroom division. Simple plan, let them get high and pass out with Ivy’s “Blue Devil.†They just have to wait and then snatch the cash. Bruce is surprisingly excited to take part of the heist. Of course, the group is quickly caught. Sonny, the nephew of Butch, catches them, and Selina tries to talk her way out of it. But, Bruce speaks up. Bruce uses the tactics he learned from Alfred and outlasts Sonny just long enough for Selina to get fed up, and they gain the upperhand. Bruce taking a beating was definitely eye-opening, but him saying that he wanted to prove to himself that no one could break him, really is what proves that he is slowly making his way toward being The Dark Knight.
As for Jim’s resolution, he is sentenced to Blackgate for 40 years! The unanimous verdict was none surprising, and it will certainly be nice to see within the walls of Blackgate.
