Last Monday night's episode of Gotham ended with a shocker. (And if you haven't seen it yet or somehow missed all the headlines about it, I suggest you look away now because there's a MAJOR SPOILER coming up.)
Jerome (Cameron Monaghan), who many suspected to be the Joker, was gruesomely stabbed in the neck by new villain and leader of the Maniax Theo Galavan (James Frain). The Joker's arrival on Gotham was one of the most highly anticipated moments of the show, which will air its fourth episode of season 2 titled "Rise of the Villains: Strike Force" Monday night, Oct. 12. Virtually no one expected such a popular and iconic villain to be killed off so soon, so where does Gotham go from here?
Well, just because the Joker is dead doesn't mean the kind of terror he brought to Gotham has suddenly disappeared. In fact, it's just the beginning.
"We really wanted to play the first three episodes as a mini-Jerome arc because we certainly knew we were setting up this idea of the proto-Joker, somebody that might give the idea of the Joker and that he was going to basically start spreading the Joker virus in Gotham," the show's executive producer John Stephens said during a roundtable interview with several reporters at New York Comic Con this weekend. "Because we already knew who Jerome was, he basically let us start off at a certain velocity, and then when he died and fell away, Galavan could kind of continue on after that."
But just because this part of the season is called "Rise of the Villains" doesn't mean it's going to be a cinch for Galavan's new band of baddies to take over Gotham. New character Captain Nathaniel Barnes (Michael Chiklis) will make his debut in Monday night's episode as a fierce adversary trying to restore some order in a city that has long been ridden with chaos.
"My guy is sort of the cavalry, if you will, and I come in and have some pushback to replace my predecessor who's been killed brazenly by these guys. So I'm serving sort of as a mentor to [Ben McKenzie's] character [James Gordon] as well as an antagonist of sorts because he's sliding down that slippery slope of, you know, ends-justify-the-means law enforcement, which my character is adamantly opposed to," Chiklis said during a roundtable inteview at New York Comic Con. "The good news is you will find out some of the reasons why he's adamantly opposed to this way of fighting crime down the line. There's obviously some darkness in his past and in his character that makes him much more of a rounded, three-dimensional character."
So how will Gordon, who hasn't always gotten along so well with authority figures, feel about his new boss? McKenzie said during a roundtable interview at New York Comic Con that this will create "a new dynamic for Jim because he's not used to having an impressive boss and a boss that sort of is not only law and order but law and order to the point of militarism." However, once this honeymoon period is over, there might eventually be some conflict between Gordon and Barnes.
"They form a bond, but it's a bond that has sort of potentially explosive elements in it," McKenzie said. "Jim is learning that to get things done in Gotham, you can't play by the rules. Barnes only wants to play by the rules. Down the line, that may create tension."
These two will have to deal with all of that on top of taking down the villains that are running amok in Gotham, of course. However, these evildoers may not be as unified as we think.
"I'm not sure that Tabitha is as on board with [Theo's] plan as he is. He's the brains, or the master manipulator and schemer, and she's the brawn," said Jessica Lucas, who plays Theo's sister Tabitha Galavan on the show, during a roundtable interview at New York Comic Con. "I think that she necessarily doesn't want to be told what to do as much, so we'll see her break away from that at some point."
Theo might have to look out for one of his Maniax recruits/sometimes lover Barbara Kean (Erin Richards), especially after the shocking stunt he pulled in killing Jerome in last Monday night's episode.
"Yeah, I think that was an interesting moment for her because she does feel like she needs the Galavans right now because she doesn't have the resources that she would like to have in order to complete her mission at the moment," Richards said during a roundtable interview at New York Comic Con. "I think that she was so confident she had them both under control because she sort of played them against each other and whatever. But then when that happened, she was like, 'Oh, OK, so he's a little bit of a loose cannon, this Galavan, and I have to be very careful about how I deal with him now.' "
It seems like everyone on Gotham needs to be careful when it comes to Theo.
Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. EDT on Fox.
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