The fall finale episode of Gotham Season 4 airs this Thursday, and — being a finale episode — you know what that means: not-actually-the-joker-but-may-as-well-be character Jerome Valeska (Cameron Monaghan) is coming back to be killed, maimed, or otherwise used as an entertaining misdirection again. Executive producer John Stephens admitted as much earlier this year, Monaghan himself posted on Instagram from the set last month, and now this trailer for the finale makes it official:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86xOvMdkD6o
Jerome’s scars seem to have healed a bit — his face was cut off, stapled back on, then literally punched off like a Death Of The Family homage, if you haven’t been keeping up with this bonkers show — and, thanks to some interviews, we have an idea of what may be ahead for the character.
Robin Lord Taylor, who plays Penguin, told Comic Book that the two have a scene together. “I just had the most amazing episode with Cameron Monaghan. There are very few scenes I’ve done on the show that I felt so… That captured the full range of human emotion and what you can put a person through, so yeah. It’s really incredible,” he said. “Chaos and order. These are two things that are very volatile together. At the same time, they both understand fundamentally what it means to control people.” He compared the two villains to magnets, teasing that they may either “snap together or be archenemies until the end of time.”
Meanwhile, the showrunners are still playing the is-he-or-isn’t-he-the-Joker game, although things seem to be falling squarely into the “not the Joker” camp of late. Co-executive producer Bryan Wynbrandt told Comic Book, “Jerome is our homage. He’s obviously not the Joker himself, although we clearly seems to be the impetus that eventually creates the Joker. The more that we see him, the more he carves out his own path I’d say. I wouldn’t say he becomes more the Joker, but the Jerome character continues to evolve.”
In other words, this is not the Joker in the DC television world. This is just a tribute.
We probably should have known the showrunners had decided against making Jerome officially the Joker considering how they originally planned to end the previous episode the character appeared in. Monaghan told Nerdist his character died by beheading in an earlier version of that script. The writers later decided to leave it open-ended, having Jerome keep his head and land in Arkham Asylum instead. Now it appears he’s going to escape Arkham, possibly with Penguin’s involvement. Maybe it’ll work out better than the last time Penguin helped someone get out of Arkham.
Here’s the full synopsis for the fall finale episode, “Queen Takes Knight”:
Things get complicated for Gordon, Sophia and Penguin when Carmine Falcone (guest star John Doman) comes to town. Alfred tries to get through to Bruce once and for all, while Nygma struggles to gain control over The Riddler persona and Tabitha attempts to make Grundy remember his past. Meanwhile, a familiar smile resurfaces in Gotham.
Gotham‘s fall finale airs this Thursday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.
(Via Gotham, Cameron Monaghan, Comic Book [1, 2], and Nerdist)
