Major spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet watched Gotham's Season 4 finale.
In Season 4, Gotham made a solid argument for it showcasing the most watchable villains on TV, with Cameron Monaghan dishing out dual proto-Joker roles as both Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska. Together and apart, the brothers became THE forces to be reckoned with in Gotham City's underworld -- "It was a blimp. It was a whole thing." -- and in the season finale, the city truly paid for allowing such monsters to thrive. The "No Man's Land" storyline came to an explosive head with all manner of strange character-groupings, and Gotham will never be the same.
While the "No Man's Land" storyline from the comics was triggered by a massive earthquake, Jeremiah was mostly to blame for Gotham's live-action version. After seeing that Jeremiah had already planned on his flip-flopping followers flip-flopping on him at a certain point (ending in their crispy deaths), it was no surprise that the studious villain would have a back-up plan for the initial bomb scheme. With the city's kaboom-ability factor potentially up for testing, the government naturally evacuated the city, which is exactly what needed to happen in order for the grand razing. Or The Grand Ra's-ing, at it were.
Not only did Ra's al Ghul show up to ask for Barbara's hand in eternal partnership, admitting he was only joshing about having killed the woman from the painting, but he also aimed to turn Gotham City into a "dark island" to set the stage for his heir, one Bruce Wayne, to take the metaphorical throne. With the added bonus(?) of Jeremiah as his pale-faced second banana. But lo, villains in Gotham City only get so far with their horizon-reaching goals, and Ra's soon found himself the victim of a tag-team stabbing, with Bruce and Barbara co-holding the blade. (Foreshadowing?)
Babs does deserve to rule everything for eternity, I'll say that, and her complete dismissal of men near the end of the episode was worthy of all the cheers. Penguin better watch himself. Welcome to Gotham, Sirens!
After all the bridges exploded, and some other really crazy shit went down with Tabitha, Grundy and others, Gotham finally revealed what happened to Selina as the hospital was being evacuated. And it wasn't good. The show revealed it wasn't quite done with its Killing Joke homage, with the young presumed-Catwoman's spine getting severed by the bullet, and she won't be walking for a while. Could she possibly take on Barbara Gordon's arc and become Oracle in Season 5, though?
In any case, Selina's injury is what keeps Bruce within Gotham's city limits, ready to take on whatever the hell is around. As the episode was coming to a close, Jim put a spotlight up in the air, not to get Batman to the scene, as one might have expected, but to send up a beacon that there are still people in Gotham City. And that there will be li...WAIT A FLIPPING MINUTE, WAS THAT MAN-BAT?
Yes, Gotham actually seemed to introduce its own version of the monstrous villain Man-Bat, who sprung himself down upon some unwitting victims, looking like just the kind of thing one would find in an abandoned city. As well, a pair of deadly masked killers were introduced, and it was seemingly Mother and Orphan...maybe?
And we also got to watch the rest of Gotham's still-living rogues tearing things up, while two of the barely-living ones -- Ed and Lee -- are going to be "fixed up" by Dr. Huge Strange, which can't be a good thing for anyone. And then the episode...ended...with Jim and Bruce and Lucius and Harvey ready to take on an entire city full of people and other entities that want to kill and destroy most other people and entities. Which means Season 5 is going to be the best thing ever, even if we don't get to properly introduce ourselves to Batman.
Unfortunately, Gotham will be away from our prying eyes for quite a while, as the limited-episode Season 5 likely won't be around on Fox until the new year. Until then, though, we're going to be theorizing about and obsessing over everything that Season 4 brought to the table. In the meantime, though, our summer premiere schedule will set you up with all the new and returning shows on the way soon.
