A new season of Gotham naturally means that a new batch of characters will be making their debuts in Gotham City, though this latest addition to the lineup isn't on the wrong side of the law. (At least, not yet.) Once Upon a Time star Jamie Chung has joined the cast of Gotham for Season 3, and she'll be playing a character that we weren't expecting at all: Valerie Vale, the aunt to famed Batman mythos character Vicki Vale.
Now, you might have heard some months back that there was casting being done for the role of Valerie Vale, with a description that sounded much like the Vicki we've known for years. And then it was announced very recently that "Valerie" was indeed going to be Gotham's version of Vicki, but it looks like that confirmation was put out there a little too haphazardly and without much confirmation.
Since we're all caught up with who is playing who, we can get into just who Valerie Vale is, since she did not originate within the comic books as her niece did. As the Gotham Gazette's newest reporter, she will put to use all of her journalistic prowess to figure out what the hell is happening at Indian Hill. Her nose for scoops cannot be deterred, and she soon becomes convinced that Jim Gordon is the key to unlocking all of the secrets to Dr. Hugo Strange's bizarre experiments. I can't imagine that this will go well for anyone, since discovering information in Gotham City only leads to darkness. And also resurrected monstrosities and Bruce Wayne doppelgängers, naturally.
Valerie's presence here over Vicki's is a great decision as far as I'm concerned, considering Vicki and Bruce unlock different kinds of secrets together as adults. Having yet another Batman character come into the story so much older than Bruce Wayne would have been mildly frustrating. Now it looks like we might actually get to meet young Vicki at some point in the future. Perhaps a weird asexual love triangle between her, Bruce and Selina? Perhaps not.
Jamie Chung has been all over the place in recent years, and her recent TV gigs include the acclaimed but short-lived sci-fi drama Believe, the Hulu comedy Resident Advisors and Once Upon a Time, in which she recurred as the princess Mulan, as seen above. On the big screen, she could be heard in Big Hero 6 as Go-Go and could be seen in movies like The Hangover Part III, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and Premium Rush.
Gotham Season 3 will kick off as Season 2 left off, with bonkers experiments running around the city and making life hell. We'll get to meet a batch of new villains and we might even see some similarities between the show's storyline and our own current political landscape. Keep your eyes open for more news as it's unveiled - or unVALEd, as it were - and you can plan on getting Season 3 into your eyeballs on Fox starting Monday, September 19. For everything else premiering before then, check out our summer TV schedule.
