TV Reviews: FTN Reviews Gotham Season 5 Episode 5: Pena Dura

After the shocking twist last week that Nygma was the bomber of Haven, I was curious as to how it would this episode would follow that up. Turns out, it was basically the sole focus of it all. “Pena Dura” brought the hunt for Nygma to high stakes with new allies and old enemies coming into things as it got more and more complicated.

Turns out, Nygma was not only mind-controlled, he was mind-controlled by multiple people! But how did they do it? By the help of Dr. Hugo Strange of course! BD Wong returned for some truly haunting scenes with Riddler as he revealed just how innocent Riddler really was.

That being said, the drawn out nature of things on the hunt for Nygma was a bit tedious. I mean…the woman being mad about the dog getting killed? Really? And as much as I liked the Penguin/Riddler scene, it was a bit too much at times.

However, the last 15 minutes of the show, with the reveal that Jim’s friend Eduardo actually being the one controlling Riddler was amazing. I knew he was the guy who would be Bane soon, but I didn’t expect it to go down like this, and it adds a new wrinkle to the entire No Man’s Land scenario. I also appreciated Ed’s scenes where he’s begging people to believe that he is not a mindless criminal, but one who always has a purpose, but that this attack didn’t have one, so it couldn’t be him. It was nice.

Meanwhile, the Bruce/Selina storyline took a bit of a downturn as they went the whole “I know you better than you know yourself” route and it didn’t really connect. I liked how she noted to Bruce that she was there when his parents got shot…but that she didn’t care enough to tell anyone (until later when it served her purpose obviously). But aside from that and the nice speech from Harvey, it didn’t really amount to much.

Still, with the great 15 minutes to end things, “Pena Dura” helped set up some big things, and Bane is coming, and he won’t be playing nice when he does.