Gotham is back in a spectacular way with the latest episode, “ Mr Freeze,†after a lengthy fall break. Gotham sped along quite nicely up until the break, and they revel back with a solid episode delving into two huge characters of Batman mythos.
As the title suggests, Mr. Freeze is the main “protagonist†in the episode, I emphasize quotes because he is another one of those villains that is out to do good; but the drive to save his wife has left him with some unsavory outcomes.
Although we were given a tease of what Victor Fries has to offer at the end of the episode just before the break, the dedication to the character during this episode was outstanding. Gotham has done a great job of ripping characters from the pages of comic books and bringing them to our television screens. Victor created a device that uses super cooled liquid helium to freeze corpses in hopes of being able to freeze his wife until a cure is created, and then she could be reanimated.
Victor’s basement of frozen corpses is intensely creepy and things only get more bizarre when he attempts to reanimate yet another corpse. The reanimation appeared to work, but when the corpse hit 41 degrees, it turned into a pile of goop. All this is going on right under where Nora is fighting for her life. After Victor’s rampage of freezing everyone in the pharmacy, he notices that the police are taking Nora into custody.
GCPD can’t believe what they see, a bunch of frozen corpses in the basement; what they are about to see is even crazier. One of the subjects, the pharmacist he fought with to receive the prescription, is slowly thawing out in Nygma’s lab. All the while this is taking place, Victor is ready to confess to his crime to set Nora free, but as he is waiting, his subject A16 stumbled out into the open and finger points and yells at Victor. Â
Quite the turn of events for Victor. It will be interesting to see how his storyline progresses since he can’t really be out in the open after being the prime suspect in the murder of a dozen people. The special effects for his cold gun were spot on, and the actor did a great job portraying the desperation one would have when trying to save a dying loved one.
While Victor Fries was the main protagonist, we also get to meet another pivotal character; enter Dr. Hugo Strange played by BD Wong. We first get to meet Dr. Strange when Penguin encourages GCPD that he did kill Galvan, but that he’s insane, thus being placed in Arkham. Dr. Strange tells an inmate, Nigel, “See no evil, do no evil,†and we later see Nigel scratch his eyes out lamenting those same words. The meeting between Penguin and Strange is as tense as you’d imagine, and Wong plays the interestingly eerie doctor perfectly.
The big bombshell of Strange was when he hears word that Fries has successfully reanimated his first corpse. We then see various characters that have been taken down to Arkham in hopes of this one day coming to fruition. The big one being FIsh Mooney, who we know is back this season.
