Tuesday, March 08, 2016

My Review of Gotham's 2x13: "A Dead Man Feels No Cold"


Written by Seth Boston
Directed by Eagle Egilsson

Victor: "I should have died with Nora. This all should have ended."
Hugo: "Then take this opportunity, Victor. Pretend that you did die. Death is not an ending. Death is a new beginning."

Well, this one certainly played with canon in a different. I mean, sure, Gotham has been doing that since it's pilot episode but every now and then you get a moment or two where that really sinks in and this episode provided two of them with the outcomes for both Victor and Nora Fries.

The show went down the predictable route of using both Nora and Arkham Asylum as a means of smoking Victor out - a plan this time round thought up by Barnes, agreed by Gordon and rightfully ridiculed by both Bullock and Leslie and just as predictably, things went as bad as they could for everyone.

Not only did GCPD fail to actually get Victor but the latter also managed to get both Nora and Leslie and head back to his own place in order to save his wife. Of course, the subversion happened when Nora decided to take her own life and Victor's attempts of doing the same thing resulted in a stay in Indian Hill and a total transformation as well.

It's interesting that the writers went this route for Freeze's storyline but I'm intrigued by it too. Hugo manipulating Victor along the way, including their encounter during the closing moments of this episode has managed to set up some chaos for later episodes. Victor's outcome is tragic but it's one that Strange clearly intends to use to his advantage.

Speaking of Strange, he was a bigger presence in this episode but so was his assistant, Peabody who is just as creepy as he is. Her unpleasant demeanour, especially during her scenes with Oswald highlighted that she wasn't someone to be messed with too. Keeping with Oswald for a moment, this whole faking insanity thing has well and truly backfired on him.

As for the rest of the episode, we had some domestics with both Gordon and Leslie as the former was a patronising arse about the latter endangering herself while the latter rightfully called the former out on his lying bullshit. Personally I was on Leslie's side more in this episode than I was on Gordon's.

As for Bruce - the quest to become a crusader is certainly taking shaping but right now, he's more motivated in actually killing Patrick 'Matches' Malone than letting the law do their duty. In this episode alone we had Leslie, Alfred and Selina all trying and failing to talk some sense into him. I do think in spite of his anger, Bruce isn't actually going to go through with his plan though.

Also in "A Dead Man Feels No Cold"

Nora and Leslie made some very obvious parallels to both Victor and Gordon throughout the episode.

Bruce: "I wasn't scared."
Leslie: "No? What did you feel?"
Bruce: "I felt alive. Intensely alive."

Barbara made a brief comatose appearance where Leslie got to call her a "bitch" and Peabody referred to her as "Sleeping Beauty".

Bullock: "I'll let you tell Lee we're taking her patient to the nuthouse."
Gordon: "She'll understand."

Inmate: "You're a goose."
Oswald: "No, I'm not. I'm a Penguin."

At the end of the episode, not only did we see Theo in a tank but I really think we saw Jerome in one beside him too.

Oswald: "It's mental torture."
Gordon: "It's therapy."

Nora (to Leslie, re Victor): "He's not an evil man. He believes the good of saving me outweighs the bad of his actions."

No Nygma, Butch or Tabitha in this episode. I wish we had also lost Barnes as he truly grated in his one scene this week.

Selina (re Matches): "So you're gonna kill him?"
Bruce: "Yeah."

Hugo (to Peabody): "The beauty of life can spring forth from even the harshest of climates. We need to be more aggressive in our treatment."

Chronology: Not far from where Mr Freeze left off.

A solid episode with an interesting change of events. I quite liked some of the subversion that A Dead Man Feels No Cold offered and Victor's transformation at the end of the episode is arguably one of the least severe looks for the character but still worked. The Gordon/Leslie scenes though dragged this week but overall, another good episode.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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