Spoilers ahead for Episodes 19 and 20 of Gotham Season 4.
While Gotham has toyed with the introduction of the Joker from the very first season, the Clown Prince of Crime himself evidently hasn't made his debut just yet. The good news is that we've had solid surrogates, first in the form of Jerome Valeska and soon presumably in the former of his newly-demented twin brother Jeremiah. Now, we haven't gotten to see Jeremiah in action since being exposed to Jerome's special variety of the fear gas, but a trailer for the next episode may point toward Jeremiah somehow being even more dangerous than Jerome. Take a look!
Admittedly, there are only a few seconds of footage featuring either Jeremiah or Jerome in this trailer, but those few seconds combined with what we already knew about Jeremiah could point toward Jeremiah being far more dangerous than Jerome, which is saying something. Jerome has been on top of more than one reign of terror over the years of Gotham so far, and his actions caused a lot of deaths, twisted a lot of minds, and resulted in a whole lot of mayhem. Prior to his death, Jerome was arguably the most damaging villain of Gotham. Now that he's dead and Jeremiah is the crazy Valeska brother in the mix, things could get a lot worse for the people of Gotham.
In the trailer, we see Bruce getting up close and personal with Jeremiah, seemingly as allies, which indicates that Jeremiah recovered from the fear gas enough to pass as perfectly sane among the normal folks. If Bruce counts him as a friend, then Jeremiah could have access to a lot of powerful people, a lot of money, and a lot of access. The end of the trailer also shows Jim being held at gunpoint by somebody in an outfit that looks distinctly circus-like. This person could well be Ecco, Jeremiah's right-hand woman who appeared in the same episode that saw Jeremiah's debut. Jeremiah could be a smarter and sneakier version of Jerome, and that's incredibly dangerous.
If Jeremiah is as far off his rocker as Jerome was off his, we can bet that he'll use his considerable capacities as an intellectual to find some incredibly dastardly way to do damage to the innocent people of Gotham. Of course, he could also be driven more by revenge than an overall desire to create chaos. Perhaps Jim is being held at gunpoint in the trailer because Jeremiah blames Jim for Jerome's death and directed Ecco to take him. Sure, Jeremiah and Jerome weren't exactly bosom buddies by the end, but they were brothers, and Jeremiah's mind might have been warped just enough to believe that Jerome's death needs to be avenged, and Jim is the only one (other than Jerome himself) who could be blamed for Jerome's death.
Bruce could be another target for Jeremiah's revenge. The fear gas from Jerome was delivered in a box that seemed to be from Bruce Wayne. If Jeremiah blames Bruce for what happened to him, he may want to go after young Bruce. Would it make sense? Not really. At this point, however, we should know better than to expect anybody in the Valeska family to make sense.
New episodes of Gotham hit the airwaves on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Bruce Wayne may become Batman sooner than we expected, and there's plenty of action to expect moving forward. Our midseason TV premiere guide and summer TV premiere schedule can help you plan your viewing lineup moving forward, and our rundown of network TV renewals and cancellations can fill you in on what shows are on and off the table for the next season. We can only hope that Gotham scores a renewal sooner rather than later.
