Riddler (Gotham)

Ed Nygma also known as The Riddler is a character in the show Gotham. He is based on The Riddler from DC Comics. He’s played by Corey Michael Smith.

Season One

In the first season of the show, Ed Nygma is a nerdy forensicist who loves jokes, puzzles and riddles. He also accidentally annoys everyone else. Nygma falls in love with a girl named Kristin. So, when Nygma finds out Kristin’s boyfriend Tom Dougherty is abusive to her, he gets angry about it. Tom Dougherty then attacks Nygma and Nygma kills him with a knife. Nygma then gets a split personality.

Season Two

When Jerome Valeska attacks the Gotham City police department, Nygma saves Kristen’s life. Kristen then falls in love with Nygma and they start dating. Nygma then admits to Kristen that he killed Tom Dougherty and accidentally kills her. Nygma takes her body to a forest to bury her but a man sees him so Nygma kills the man. Then Nygma finds a criminal named Oswald Cobblepot injured in the forest and helps Oswald get better. Nygma helps Oswald get revenge on the person who killed his mother.

Nygma worries that Detective James Gordon will find out he killed Kristen so Nygma kills a police officer named Hugh Pinckney by beating him to death with a crowbar and frames Gordon for the murder so Gordon is sent to jail. Gordon escapes with help from a criminal named Carmine Falcone so Nygma tried to kill Gordon. But then Gordon tricks Nygma into admitting everything that he did in front of the police and Nygma goes to Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. There Nygma meets and helps a mad scientist named Hugo Strange.

Season Three

Oswald Cobblepot gets Nygma out of Arkham so Nygma can help him get elected Mayor of Gotham City. Nygma then falls in love with a female librarian named Isabella but Oswald kills her. Nygma thinks a criminal named Butch Gilzean killed her so he kidnaps Butch and his girlfriend Tabitha and cuts off Tabitha’s hand. Then Nygma finds out that Oswald did it. So Nygma digs up Oswald’s father’s grave, tricks Oswald into thinking that he’s haunted by a ghost, tricks Oswald into killing a man who works for him, and tries to kill Oswald with a booby trap. When Oswald escapes, Nygma shoots him and drops his body in a river.

Nygma then kills the four smartest people in Gotham City for not being able to teach him to be a supercriminal. Nygma uses drugs to hallucinate Oswald and ask for his help. Oswald tells Nygma he doesn’t need a teacher, he needs an enemy. So Nygma becomes a terrorist called the Chess Killer and sends Lucius Fox clues about how to stop him. Nygma also kidnaps Captain Harvey Bullock though Fox rescues him. Then Nygma decides to rename himself The Riddler.

The Riddler kills an actor playing The Ghost in Hamlet, kills the actor who plays Prince Hamlet and announces he’ll find out who controls Gotham. He then kidnaps the Mayor and ties him to a bomb. Detective James Gordon and The Court of Owls then capture The Riddler. After the Court of Owls locks up The Riddler, he finds out that Oswald is alive and another prisoner. So he teams up with Oswald to escape. Then The Riddler tries to kill Oswald but Oswald outsmarts him so Oswald and Mr. Freeze trap him in an iceberg.

Season Four

A woman who calls herself The Riddlette rescues The Riddler from Oswald, who now calls himself The Penguin. But The Riddler lost his intelligence so The Penguin decides there’s no point in killing him. The Riddler starts calling himself Ed Nygma again. Nygma teams up with Solomon Grundy and a female psychiatrist named Doctor Lee Thompkins. Nygma falls in love with Lee. Then Nygma’s split personality comes back and calls itself The Riddler. The Riddler hires an assassin to kill Lee but Captain James Gordon kills the assassin. Nygma decides to commit suicide to destroy The Riddler but the Riddler convinces him to go to Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane and turn himself in instead. Nygma goes to Arkham and finds out that The Penguin is there. The Penguin agreed to help The Riddler take over Nygma’s mind if The Riddler helped The Penguin escape Arkham. So The Riddler breaks The Penguin out of Arkham. Sofia Falcone captures The Riddler but then decides to have him killed but then The Penguin rescues The Riddler. Lee convinces The Riddler to rob five banks in one day and give the money to the poor. The Riddler then kidnaps Captain Gordon but Lee rescues him. When The Riddler finds out that Lee is about to leave Gotham, he stabs her but she stabs him. The Penguin finds out that The Riddler is dead so he asks Hugo Strange to bring him back to life.

Season Five

Hugo Strange mind controls The Riddler into killing a number huge of people in an act of terrorism. The Riddler kills a woman who saw him do it. The Riddler also asks The Penguin to explain what happened. And The Riddler teams up with Captain Gordon and Bruce Wayne to get revenge on Hugo Strange. When Bane attacks, The Riddler and The Penguin team up and The Riddler builds a submarine to get them out of Gotham City. The Penguin decides to go back to try to save Gotham from Nyssa al-Ghul. The Riddler goes back to save The Penguin. The Penguin is shot in the eye saving The Riddler and ends up needing a monocle. Nyssa escapes in the Submarine that The Riddler built. The Penguin and The Riddler become partners in crime.

Epilogue

Ten years later, Jeremiah Valeska breaks The Riddler out of Arkham Asylum and then leaves him for the police but The Penguin rescues The Riddler. Then a man dressed up as a bat captures them both and says “this city is mine.” The Penguin and The Riddler swear revenge against The Bat-Man.