Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Gotham are below.
While much of the action currently happening on Gotham is part of the big, bustling interconnected story about crime tearing Gotham City apart, there’s one character whose ongoing arc has largely taken place away from everyone else and is happening behind closed doors. I’m speaking, of course, of Edward Nygma, the future Riddler, whose life took an even darker turn last week once he accidentally killed Miss Kringle after confessing his other murder to her. And actor Cory Michael Smith recently described how his Dark Side will now morph his riddling nature as time goes on.
This is also where Ed’s relationship with riddles is born in a really tormenting way. Up until now, he has used them as a way of flirting, for fun and in trying to make friends. But at this point, this other part of him is going to be using the same love of riddles as a way to torment himself. This is where some severe scar tissue is earned.
It’s never good when being served one’s own medicine is what’s used as the torture device. Especially when that medicine consists of jokes that are balls-out corny. But I do like this approach for a character tic that eventually drives someone to whatever level of insanity The Riddler is comfortable working with. This will presumably end up inspiring that most great of philosophical questions: Is there a riddle so difficult to solve that even The Riddler can’t do it, even if he is the one that came up with it? I can’t wait to see him test that.
“Mommy’s Little Monster” showed audiences, and Ed himself, just how wildly sadistic the Riddler persona can be. He’s not just into making Ed question his bravado and other light emotional fare like that. He’s into hiding body parts that could easily incriminate Ed if anyone else managed to find him. That’s not the kind of sense of humor you want a friend to have, much less the other side of your own personality. I mean, that split identity inevitably makes Ed comfortable enough to completely dismantle Miss Kringle’s body, so it clearly wants to continue thriving inside its host’s body. And the best way to drive that more innocent identity out is to confuse and abuse it to the point of self-banishment.
And as Smith also told TVLine, becoming The Riddler does not immediately make him a Class A Supervillain, and there’s a learning curve there. As he said:
Once you’ve embraced these things, it doesn’t mean that you’re all of a sudden good at it.
We can’t wait to see him bumbling about while other villains like Mr. Freeze and Hugo Strange make their presences known as Season 2 continues.
And maybe soon we’ll find out where all the question marks are. Find out when Gotham airs every Monday night on Fox.
