Gotham S03E15 "How The Riddler Got His Name" Recap

Ed Nygma holds a professor at gunpoint in their lab. He asks him a series of riddles and the professor fails to answer any of them correctly. Ed ties him up and shares how he has killed people before but still struggles with how to be himself, though he knows who he is. The professor is still unable to answer Ed's riddles so Ed rigs up some gas tanks and leaves the professor to die in the impending explosion.

Kathryn complete Five's brainwashing in the Court. Five has been designed to be Bruce Wayne's doppleganger replacement but still do the Court's bidding. She then calls Frank to ascertain whether Jim Gordon will be cooperating with the Court's demands.

Ed has taken up residence in Dahl Manor since shooting Oswald and throwing him in the harbour. Ed is hallucinating Oswald due to his partaking of some pills. These visions of Oswald torment Ed for what he has done, not only to Oswald but to all his other victims. Ed decides that he needs an enemy to fixate his attentions on and decides it should be Jim Gordon.

Harvey learns about the recent killings Ed has caused, not knowing who perpetrated them yet, but is unable to launch a proper investigation into them just yet since there is so much else the GCPD must work on first. However, all of the deaths are shown to be of intellectual and artistic backgrounds. Harvey and Fox are given a card delivered to them by a man in a fruit suit. The card is a clue as to who the next victim will be. The clue consists of a pattern that leads them to the Knight's Tour, a chess exhibit in the city. Ed is there waiting for Jim to arrive but Fox is the one that shows up instead.  Ed turns on a device that electrocutes the people participating in his game. Fox solves the next clue hidden in some chess pieces which lead him to a phone number that Ed answers on when Fox calls it. Fox is trying to solve the next riddle but Ed will only give him the message, "Tomorrow, when the pawn's on queen, you'll find my next target in the belly of the beast." Harvey and Fox question a man working in a pawn shop on Queens Avenue. The man, Winston Peters, admits to covering for another employee named Teddy Thirio. Thirio is a Greek work for "Beast."

Alfred is still training Bruce to be a hero. Selina sends Bruce a note asking to meet with him. Bruce doesn't want to go but Alfred convinces him to go. Bruce has a run-in with Sonny Gilzean and his henchmen but when Selina arrives, she tells Bruce that she didn't send him any sort of note and leaves him to fend for himself. Bruce is beaten for a bit before finding his strength and fighting them off. As Bruce begins his journey back to Wayne Manor, he is drugged by Five who declares that he was made to be Bruce. Five goes to Wayne Manor, ready to assume Bruce's life.

Harvey must leave to attend a graduation at the police academy. Ed is still being tormented by visions of Oswald, who demands that Ed admit that he's lost without him. Ed refuses to do so and the hallucinated Oswald proceed to sing "Wake Up Alone". This forces Ed to admit that killing Oswald killed a part of himself as well but he is determined to make his way alone and leave Oswald in the past.

Fox has Lee do an autopsy on Thirio's body and upon doing so, she finds Harvey's badge in his belly. Ed attends the graduation ceremony Harvey is at and drugs him to take his place as the announcer of the ceremony. He uses this opportunity to throw some knock-out gas into the crowd, disarming all of the cadets. Ed tells Fox he needs to come with him and solve another riddle in order to save the knocked-out cadets. When Fox goes upstairs looking for Harvey, they find him tied to chair teetering on the edge of the stairs with just three ropes hanging him in place. Ed begins rattling off riddles with the condition being that each wrong answer will result in a rope being cut. The first two answers are incorrect but Fox guesses the final one correctly. Ed cuts the rope anyway and Harvey nearly falls to his death but Fox manages to save him.

Jim goes with his uncle Frank to a cabin in the woods to ensure privacy to properly talk. Frank says that he returned to Gotham to work out the issues in his relationship with Jim. He introduces Jim to the Court of Owls and how it is a secret society that had maintained control over Gotham for centuries, with its aim always having been to maintain balance. Eventually it became corrupt and both he and Jim's father Peter were in the court. The court had Peter killed when he discovered what the Court's secret plans were. The car accident had been set up by the Court and sent Frank away so he could prove his loyalty to them. Now Frank had returned to recruit Jim to help him take down the Court. After Frank leaves, he reports to Kathryn about his progress with Jim.

Fox leaves the station but is confronted by Ed in his car. Fox has already learned that the other attacks were only there to serve as a charade. Fox wants to know about the other murders and Ed claims that there was someone inside that would cause others to fear him. Ed now considers Fox as his enemy. Ed is ready to rid himself of visions of Oswald and embraces his new identity as The Riddler. The following day, Ed has a final conversation with Oswald at the harbor where he shot him and drops the pills he was taking into the water.

Ivy is shown to be tending to an injured but alive Oswald after rescuing him from the harbor. Oswald declares he needs to kill someone.

Bruce wakes to find himself in a cell and upon looking out the window, observes that he is somewhere up on a snow-covered mountain.

Gotham airs on Mondays on FOX at 8/7c.