“The newspapers have already given him a nickname,” says the head nurse at Arkham. “Hello Mr. Freeze,” reads Dr. Hugo Strange (BD Wong) as they first hear about a madman terrorizing Gotham City with his quick freeze gun in the midseason return of FOX’s comic book crime thriller series, Gotham.

The episode opens up with Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) testifying to the events which occurred leading up to Theo Galavan’s demise. Gordon decides to protect himself and lies about being involved with Galavan’s murder. Harvey Dent (Nicholas D’Agosto) is running the hearing and clears Gordon of all charges, making him fit to resume duty. Barnes (Michael Chiklis) however is still not satisfied that Gordon is innocent and makes it his number one priority to find and arrest The Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) even though it is now day number 27 into the manhunt.

Gordon and Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) have a funny but quick reunion due to the case Bullock has been assigned to. It seems someone in Gotham froze a policewoman to death. Gordon and Bullock approach Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) trying to find out how the police officer was frozen. With one of his experiments, Ed is able to confirm the killer is using liquid cooling hydrogen rather than nitrogen as they first suspected. Bullock is a little off the cuff and rude to Nygma, feeling the pressure from Barnes to solve the case, and Ed’s evil psycho side shows itself just enough to make both Gordon and Bullock uneasy and Harvey apologizes to Ed. Nygma offers to check around and see what business uses or sells liquid-cooling hydrogen in Gotham to help them out.

As Harvey leaves, Jim approaches Ed to see if he is okay and to ask about his friendship with The Penguin. Ed says he found Oswald in the woods, dying, and tended to his wounds believing he had turned over a new lease on life. Before their conversation can go any further, Barnes enters the police station with Oswald in custody.

Gordon seems a bit concerned but he has nothing to fear because when Barnes interrogates him Oswald confesses to killing Theo, saying, “I’m not a criminal. I’m just…insane.” Barnes talks to Gordon and tells him he’s choosing to believe Oswald’s story. He welcomes Jim back to the job but warns him not to make him look foolish. While Oswald is in holding he gets a short visit from Nygma who asks if there’s anything he can do for him and Oswald asks him to tend to his mother’s grave since he’ll be locked up.

Meanwhile, getting back to Mr. Freeze… Mr. Freeze is actually Victor Fries (Nathan Darrow), a scientist who has created a freeze gun he uses to freeze people. Once frozen, his victims are taken back to his secret laboratory where he experiments on them. Victor’s trying to find a way to bring one of them back to life successfully in the hopes he’ll be able to freeze his wife, Nora (Kristen Hager), who’s fighting a fatal illness, and bring her back cured. It seems all of Victor’s experiments have failed so far.

Back in the underworld, since The Penguin has been hauled off to prison Butch has become the King of Gotham but is finding it all rather boring and tedious until he gets paid a visit from Tabitha (Jessica Lucas) who’s looking to partner up with Butch (Drew Powell). Even after everything Tabitha has done to Butch he still feels drawn to her and the two share a sensual kiss with young miss Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova) watching from an open window.

Bullock gets the info they’ve been looking for from Lucius Fox (Chris Chalk) and finds that Wayne Enterprises used to have a cryogenics department but it was recently closed. It turns out they were using liquid helium as a fast cooling agent.

Back at Freeze’s…er, uh…Fries’ home Nora is having a bad attack from her sickness and almost dies. After making sure she’s okay, Victor rushes out to get her medicine refilled. The pharmacist refuses to give Victor a refill because he doesn’t have the original prescription, making the mistake of being obnoxiously rude to both him and another customer. Fries threatens the man and says he’ll be back. He returns in his unique winter outfit with his freeze gun and freezes both the pharmacist and the security guard.

Gordon and Bullock hear over the police scanner about the attack at the pharmacy and speed over only to crash into the frozen security guard and break him into a million frozen pieces. After getting over the shock of the accident, the two cops find the prescription bottle with Nora’s name and address. They head to the house and find Nora who has just discovered her husband’s terrible secret. She knew he was conducting experiments but he told her he was using mice NOT human specimens. Nora is loyal to her husband and will not betray him to the police.

Meanwhile, Oswald has been transferred to Arkham since he’s saying he’s insane and it hasn’t been going well for him as the other psychos mock and make fun of him. His first encounter with the head psychiatrist, Mr. Hugo Strange, isn’t really a fun one for Penguin. Strange tries to get a reaction from Oswald by bringing up the murder of his mother as well as Theo Galavan, but Oswald shows no remorse or emotion in his first session with the creepy doc.

Strange assures Oswald that he is all about rehabilitation and they have “many treatment programs” at Arkham. As Oswald returns to his room he sees just what Hugo is capable of when he sees another inmate’s eyes have been gouged out as he continues to mutter a lesson from Strange himself, “See no evil, do no evil.”

Victor is headed into the GCPD to turn himself in and get his wife out of jail. The frozen pharmacist is lying on Nygma’s table and when Ed comes back from getting a cup of coffee, the body’s gone! The pharmacist walks to the main precinct and keeps asking, “Am I dead?” over and over again. Victor, who has been placed with the other nuts claiming to be Mr. Freeze, sees the pharmacist and realizes his reanimation drug finally works. The pharmacist sees Victor and starts screaming “YOU!” but no one makes the connection and Victor is able to slip out while vowing to save his wife now that he knows his experiment works.

Hugo Strange is recording his session with Oswald as he travels down in a secret elevator. His diagnosis for The Penguin is megalomania and narcissism. He’s met by a colleague who gives him the newspaper article that shows Mr. Freeze’s discovery of reanimation.

Gotham Season 2 Episode 12 Review

Creepy and action-packed, Gotham season two episode 12 titled “Mr. Freeze” returns the show from its winter hiatus with the introduction of two classic Batman villains who it looks like are about to take center stage. The casting of BD Wong as Hugo Strange seems to be a perfect fit as already the actor is bringing to life the brilliant and disturbed mind of one of Batman’s deadliest enemies.

The stand-out performance in this episode once again goes to Robin Lord Taylor as The Penguin who conveys so much emotion while his character is actually trying to hide his real feelings in front of the police and Dr. Strange. The scene where he briefly talks to Nygma while in the holding cell and asks him to take care of his mother’s grave is heartfelt and moving.

With Mr. Freeze determined to save his wife at the cost of who knows how many lives, Butch and Tabitha teaming up to run the underworld of Gotham, and Hugo Strange running Arkham with his weird experiments, it looks like Gordon, Bullock, Oswald, Selina and the rest of the gang are in for a dark, dangerous, and freezing cold winter ahead. It’s so great to have Gotham back!

GRADE: B