‘Gotham’ Season 4 Spoilers: Ed Nygma To Discover ‘A New Way Of Life’

Even though people have always classified Ed Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) as weird, he always had his brain on his side. As the Riddler, Nygma managed to outsmart his opponents and even pull off a daring crime or two.

However, “Gotham” Season 4 is going to bring him back to his lowest point, especially since he was held as a prisoner by his former friend turned rival, Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor). Somehow, Nygma will escape his ice block prison, but his mind just won’t be the same.

“He doesn’t even recognize himself,” Smith told Digital Spy. “He doesn’t have the [same] mental capacity, his computation isn’t quite so swift or smooth.”

Because of this, he will discover “a new way of life” together with Dr. Leslie “Lee” Thompkins (Morena Baccarin) and the new zombie in town, Solomon Grundy (Drew Powell). “It’s a pattern in his life,” Smith said. “Once again, he has to figure out who he is and what he's worth.”

So for now, the Riddler will have to take a backseat as Nygma deals with his identity crisis. “He knows who he was – for a moment – and he worked so hard to get there and now it’s been stolen from him,” said Smith. “So the long journey of maybe getting back there, or maybe being an even better version of that, is certainly inspiring.”

Another villain who is slowly being built up is Ivy (Maggie Geha), who consumed poison after being pushed too far by the Penguin and being excluded in Selina Kyle’s (Carmen Bicondova) girl group.

“Gotham” co-executive producer Bryan Wynbrandt told SYFY WIRE that this decision is going to transform Ivy into her comic book counterpart, which is the dangerous plant-controlling and poison-oozing villain.

“This is indeed going to be a major shift in Ivy’s character. She’s at a crossroads, fed up with Penguin, alienated by the Sirens. So it felt like the perfect time to push the character in a new direction,” Wynbrandt said.

Ivy is going to be away for a while, but when she returns, fans “will see her transformed or ‘becoming’ more of the Ivy we know from the comics. Dangerous. A live wire of crazy energy,” said Wynbrandt.

“Gotham” Season 4 airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. EDT on Fox.