So now Nygma is on this path of self-discovery because his best friend recently said there was no me without him. Nygma argues that he knows who he is, he just doesn’t know how to be him. What I would have loved to yell at him is who were you when you met Kristen? When you met Isabella? He was happiest when he was a man in love, not when he was playing a villain with Penguin. Maybe it would be best to work on that guy, and try to suppress the murderer in him that always gets these ladies killed in the end. But no, it seems that Nygma is so bothered by Penguin’s words that he is trying to be the best villain he can. Maybe he realizes the chances of finding another Kristen look-a- like is quite low.
He starts out this path looking for a sort-of mentor. He tracks down all the smartest people in Gotham (who can’t really be that smart if they chose to live here instead of anywhere else), and sees if they can answer his riddles. None of them can, but you can still tell that the professor is smart because his immediate reaction to Nygma is starting screaming for help. That didn’t stop his death, but I appreciate the effort.
However, Penguin directs Nygma to a different path. Well, not actually Penguin, but Nygma’s hallucinated version of him. Nygma is taking lots of pills in order to still talk to Penguin, and literally just takes them to have Penguin around sometimes. Nonetheless, hallucination Penguin makes Nygma think that villains don’t have teachers, they have enemies. And, of course, he has to pick Jim Gordon as his enemy. He wouldn’t be a villain if he didn’t target Jim Gordon at some point.
What Nygma didn’t consider (and none of us realized either) is that Jim Gordon isn’t the only competent person in the GCPD. Lucius Fox has caught on to the pattern of dying clairvoyants. Harvey doesn’t believe this pattern, but then Nygma literally sent a message through a fruit man as a clue for his next murder (did the crew just have that costume lying around and think “we need to do something with this?"). The clue calls for Jim Gordon’s attention, but he is busy reconnecting with his uncle, so Lucius Fox takes it upon himself as the only intelligent person left in the GCPD to solve the riddles.
Nygma watches Lucius solve his puzzles, and is clearly impressed, so Lucius becomes his new enemy. I’m glad to see Lucius getting a story arch now, instead of being a background character placed wherever the story needed someone else to be, only noticeable because he is the only man of color in the room. At least they learned that they shouldn’t fight a cocky white guy with more cocky white guys.
Meanwhile, Nygma’s psyche is all messed up. His hallucination of Penguin is making fun of him for being “the chess killer”, for not sleeping, for taking the drugs in the first place. His constant hallucinations of Penguin are enough proof for me to think that Nygma cares about Penguin far too much to only be considered platonic, but then Penguin starts singing and dancing in a way that I can only describe as sensual and I’ve never been more convinced that Nygma’s subconscious at least knows what’s up. Even Nygma himself admits that “killing you killed a part of me,” so that’s progress. Maybe seeing him alive again will be enough (hold on, I’ll get to that).
Lucius is solving the puzzle by vaguely connecting things together, but he is too late to warn Harvey when he figures it all out. Nygma is with Harvey to speak to the future cadets on behalf of the mayor, and takes Harvey down before he can answer the call and gases the hall of cadets. He ties Harvey up with the anecdote to play a game with Lucius. The gameshow set up reminds me of when he essentially did the same thing with Lucius and Bruce for Professor Strange; Nygma really has always been someone’s bitch.
The rules are simple: get three wrong and he dies with the anecdote tied on him, only needs to get one right to save him. The first riddle he answers incorrectly, as the correct answer was loneliness (projecting much, Nygma?). Nygma’s dissociative personality also becomes more obvious here as he talks to himself, but Lucius picks up on his mention of Penguin. Nygma brushes over it to ask his next riddle, but it’s enough for Lucius to question if he murdered Penguin. Not only that, but he also gets the last riddle correct, so Lucius is on a roll here.
However, the GCPD is still as dumb as ever. While they are searching for Nygma in the most obvious of places, they leave Lucius alone. Nygma essentially works on his long-winded villain speech where he tells his life story to Lucius. All his life he knew that there was someone inside him, someone that people would fear, and Lucius helped him finally be able to become that person. Will Lucius brood over this fact that he helped create a villain? Probably not, and that’s why I like him. He remains calm throughout the entire situation, and even tells Nygma that he needs to turn himself in and get help. Of course, it’s too late to save Nygma’s sanity now. So, who is he now? He’s the Riddler. With this revelation, he doesn’t need hallucination Penguin around anymore. He goes to the river to dump his pills where Penguin (allegedly) died.
Of course, hallucination Penguin needs to get the last word in, warning him that no one is going to be afraid of “the Riddler” (which is a little judgmental coming from someone named “Penguin”), but Nygma is not worried. He says his final goodbye to Oswald, and tells him that he misses him. Well, if he misses him so much, then he is in for some good news soon.
Ivy saved Penguin from the river, and has been nursing him for weeks. I don’t think anyone was surprised, we all knew that there was no way Penguin would actually die. This TV show doesn’t actually kill people off; let alone the best villain they’ve had. Looks like Nygma will be able to see his best friend again! Though, his best friend will probably be trying to kill him. Well, there’s good news and bad news for him.
While the GCPD is in ruins without Gordon, he is reconnecting with Uncle Frank, just to find out that his long-lost Uncle has been involved with the Court of Owls all these years. To make things worse, he finds out that his father was involved with them too, and was killed by them when he found out that they were corrupt. His uncle says that he was sent overseas to prove his loyalty (to not be killed as well), but now he has come back to convince Gordon to join so they can destroy them from within.
I have no idea where his uncle truly stands in all this. He is reporting to Kathryn, but she also has to remind him that Gordon is in danger if he doesn’t comply, so that makes it seem like he may not be all that loyal to the Court if he needs coercing. Gordon also doesn’t know what to make of him, and asks why he should trust him. His uncle vaguely responds “you have to believe in something,” which really isn’t a good argument at all, isn’t even an argument. If that convinces Gordon, then maybe Lucius should become the new main character.
Meanwhile, Kathryn perfects clone Bruce. However, he seems to be under the impression that he is somehow going to save Gotham, so maybe in time he will be convinced to join real Bruce’s side in the end.
What is real Bruce doing? Alfred is teaching him knife throwing, like all good role models. However, he is distracted by Selina. She’s been avoiding him for weeks after the whole con artist mother trying to get Bruce’s money situation. Now, she has sent him a note to meet up, and he is not about it. It’s times like these that I am reminded that Bruce is, in fact, a teenager. Alfred must realize that too, because he makes up a transparent anecdote that Bruce should get closure, and despite it’s less than subtle nature, it is enough to convince Bruce.
Bruce is just chilling on the stairs of some sketchy alley when he sees some people fighting, so of course he does the insane thing which is to approach the violent men and ask if they know where Selina is. They try to mug him, but Selina stops them. She is rude and dismissive of Bruce, and we find out that Selina has no knowledge of the note. Before Bruce has time to process this, she leaves and the guys go straight back to the mugging and beating. What’s a broken heart without a few broken bones to go along with it?
Bruce is a lot better at fighting! He seems to beat up the group of guys with relative ease. Apparently, he is not good at fighting his clone though. Turns out it was the clone’s plan to kidnap Bruce.
The clone takes Bruce back to Kathryn, who traps him somewhere in the mountains (maybe a monk will come and rescue him and he will learn martial arts… wait, wrong franchise). The clone easily slips into Bruce’s life, but I’m blaming Alfred for that. Alfred really dropped the details about Selina, so there was no way to catch him out on a lie. After all, Alfred does know that there is a clone of Bruce out on the loose. Maybe they should have developed a system to confirm he was the real Bruce the moment that the clone ran away.
Overall, I find the Court of Owls storyline captivating. And as sad as I am that Nygma and Penguin’s time as the dynamic duo is over, I am curious to see how things will change now that Nygma feels powerful and Penguin is vengeful. I wonder how (if) his love for Nygma will play into this anymore. It must be hard to feel anything for someone who literally tried to kill you more than once (I assume, I don’t have experience in this area).
Written by Nicole Teeters, GOTHAM Beat Writer -- Click to read Nicole's posts
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