Gotham EP Say Mr. Freeze's Story Will Make People Cry

Fans anticipated the return of Gotham for the second half of Season 2 may want to keep a box of tissues nearby while they watch. Showrunner Bruno Heller says the upcoming Mr. Freeze (Nathan Darrow) storyline is a tearjerker.

"We're taking it back to the roots of the origin story," Heller tells TVGuide.com. "It's about him and his wife before he became a bad guy, how he became a bad guy. It's very much a story of the heart rather than a story about technology and super-villainy. It's a doomed romance. It will make people cry."

Freeze won't be the only new villain given the spotlight in the remainder of Season 2. There's also Dr. Hugo Strange (B.D. Wong).

"He's very much not a 'mwa-ha-ha' villain," Heller says Strange. "He is a man filled with the joys of science. He doesn't think of himself in any way as a bad person. He is the essence of scientific progress and the joy of hope for the future that science promises. He shows us how even that sensibility can be warped into something evil if wrongly used."

That doesn't mean that these new blood villains are going to crowd out Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor).

"He is very much challenged," Heller says. "Gilzean begins to feel that he deserves a crack at the throne, and Tabitha is still around to cause trouble. But Pengin's life veers off in a totally unexpected direction that we're very excited about. Dr. Hugo Strange has a profound effect on Penguin. He makes a new man of him in many ways."

Gotham returns Monday, Feb. 29 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.