Another Fan-Favorite Villain Has Returned to ‘Gotham’

It isn’t much of a surprise, considering his face was spotted in the episodes that were released ahead of this week’s episode, but the maniacal Hugo Strange has finally made his return to Gotham, playing a central part in the twisted story unfolding around Ed Nygma.

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers from the latest episode of Gotham! Continue reading at your own risk…

The last time we saw Hugo Strange was at the end of Season 4, when Penguin delivered Ed Nygma and Lee Thompkins, who were dying from the wounds they’d inflicted upon one another. It was clear that the mad scientist was going to perform some wild operations on the duo, but Strange took things a step further.

As it turns out, he accepted a contract from someone powerful outside of the city, though their identity is still unknown. He was hired to plant a behavioral chip inside Nygma’s brain that allowed him to be controlled by a remote. Whoever hired Strange could tell Nygma exactly what to do whenever they wanted, which led to Riddler blowing up Haven and killing innocent people.

What makes things even crazier is that the people who hired Strange are the same ones who sent Eduardo to Gotham City, making it seem as though they were Jim’s allies when in fact they were the villains the entire time. There’s no telling who could be behind the devious plot, but they’ve certainly got more than enough money and power to pull the strings of an entire city without anyone knowing it.

Not only is this twist being used to further the overall plot of the show, but it’s also a tool that the writers of the show are using to break down Ed Nygma and give him an exciting final arc before he fully embraced The Riddler. ComicBook.com spoke with showrunner John Stephens about the new storyline, and he broke down the motivation behind Nygma’s mind control.

“So, we wanted to do something which would affect him on a deeply moral and ethical way,” Stephens told us. “That would hit him emotionally in a way he thought he was unable for him to be hit anymore. And how that would change him as a character. And being, basically, the instrument that killed all these people, he thought would do that.And then once that happens to him and he goes on the warpath, because whoever did that to him, what happens then.”

New episodes of Gotham air on Thursday nights at 8 pm ET on FOX.