Gotham Season 3 Episode 15 Heroes Rise: How the Riddler Got His Name Review

Keith NoakesApril 24, 20175039 min

If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.

The city was mad but now it’s time for heroes to rise.

Synopsis: Ed finally got Penguin to pay for his terrible actions and finds himself with a new dilemma on which path to take. (IMDB)

Writer: Megan Mostyn-Brown

Director: TJ Scott

Rating: TV-14

Running Time: 42mins

The last episode ended with Ed seemingly killing Penguin so this episode kind of dealt with the aftermath of this with Ed trying desperately to fill the void within himself. He needed help in becoming who he was destined to be which we know is the Riddler but he needed to figure it out himself. When he tried to find someone worthy to be a teacher or an adversary, they were unable to answer any of his riddles so he killed them all.

To try and help with this, he’s been taking pills that create a hallucination of Penguin. His relationship with this hallucination was pretty much the same but this Penguin couldn’t leave as he was a figment of Ed’s imagination. Of course he finds someone worthy in the form of Lucius. Lucius was suspicious of these recent deaths and brought it to Bullock. The GCPD were busy with cleaning up after Jerome and finding Penguin. A chain of events was then set in motion where Bullock and Lucius had to solve a series of riddles in order to figure out Ed’s plan. Ed was expecting Gordon but he was busy with something else, more on that later.

Bullock and Lucius followed Ed around until Lucius learned that Bullock was a target and then tried to rescue him with Ed giving him the same set of riddles that other people failed. Lucius succeeds, leaving Ed flabbergasted but he obviously gets away. By the end of the episode, Ed confronts Lucius and Lucius calls him out on what he did to Penguin. Thanks to Lucius, Ed now knows how to be who he is so Ed thanked him. Lucius still pleaded that he needed help but Ed was confused that Lucius would seem him that way. He now know who he was, proclaiming that he is the Riddler, lighting change and all.

In other subplots, CB (or clone Bruce for those who don’t remember) is still lurking around so Catherine, and the rest of the Court of Owls, had a plan to replace the real Bruce with him. It got confusing sometimes to tell them apart the last time so we’ll see how it will go this time. Bruce was distracted while training with Alfred because Selena had left him a note in his mailbox wanting to see him. Bruce was acting like he wasn’t interested but went to see her anyway. He was trying to protect her but she didn’t want to be protected so she got mad and stormed off. We learned that she hadn’t written the note and it was CB who used it as a ruse to get Bruce out in the open so he could knock him out and take his place. At first glance, Alfred didn’t notice the difference but we’ll see how long this lasts, especially with Bruce locked away near some snowy mountain (it definitely didn’t take him very long to get there).

Now to Gordon, we met his uncle Frank in the last episode so here he decides to have some quality bonding time with Gordon, or at least that’s what Gordon thought. Frank wanted to recruit Gordon to the Court of Owls so he eventually admitted to Gordon that he and his father were part of the Court. Also, the Court wasn’t what it is now and it had become corrupted. It had been responsible for his father’s death and since then, Frank had been working from the inside to take it down and help honor his father’s memory. Since they wanted him to recruit Gordon, Frank thought that he could help him and they could take it down together. Ultimately, this was just a ploy to get him in and it appeared to work.

It appeared that Ed killed Penguin near the end of the last episode but we all kind of knew that it couldn’t have happened. It would have been nice if they had kept him gone for a little longer, however, at the end of the episode, it was revealed that Ivy had pulled him out of the river and had been taking care of him for weeks.

Overall, this was good episode with a focus on Ed and his emergence as the Riddler but it wasn’t nearly as compelling as it should have been, unnecessarily having to find himself. Replacing Bruce again felt a little stale. The more interesting subplot was that of Gordon and the Court of Owls. Was Frank playing Gordon or was he playing the Court? My guess is on the former but who really knows?

Score: 7.5/10

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