Spoilers ahead for the fifth episodes of Gotham Season 5, called “Pena Dura.”
Way back before Jeremiah even made his debut in Gotham Season 5, actor Cameron Monaghan revealed that he would be playing another character before the series finale, which would bring his grand total up to three characters after Jerome and Jeremiah. The shocking death of Jeremiah -- or “death,” as we learned in “Pena Dura” -- last week seemed to open the door for crazy character #3 to turn up.
Well, this latest episode revealed that Jeremiah isn’t quite as dead as he seemed, but comments from showrunner John Stephens indicate that the third character is still on the way, and the new version of Jeremiah will be more like the Joker. Here’s how Stephens put it in comments to ComicBook.com:
So, to that I want to say, there are some elements, I'd say, of the character of the Joker himself that we see down the road that have not been present so far, either in Jerome or in Jeremiah. But those elements and characters are present in the new iteration of Jeremiah that comes out.
This new version of Jeremiah still probably won’t win the title of “Joker,” but he’ll apparently deliver some Joker-esque characteristics that haven’t been displayed by either Jerome or Jeremiah. At this point, it’s almost difficult to imagine what he could do. Cameron Monaghan delivered on the maniacal laugh way back in his first appearance as Jerome in Season 1, and Jeremiah had the Joker look down before Selina went stab-tastic on him last week. Jeremiah even got his own version of Harley Quinn thanks to Ecco.
Of course, there is no shortage of Joker source material that Gotham can use as inspiration for Joker elements to instill in Cameron Monaghan’s next character. Between the comics, movies, and other TV shows, there are plenty of Jokers. Will this new and not-so-improved version of Jeremiah be bad enough to earn his place among other Clown Princes of Crime as one of the most dastardly?
Only time will tell. At this point, I’m not even sure what Gotham is doing for this third character. Jeremiah definitely seemed very dead after last week’s episode, but “Pena Dura” revealed him very much alive. Still, he wasn’t on screen long enough for me to gauge whether he was his regular Jeremiah level of crazy or a new level of crazy to mark the birth of the third character.
Jeremiah was hidden down in a tunnel of some sort, not looking too hot and clearly still recovering, although not so injured that he couldn’t tell Ecco to shake the bullet around her head when she was getting too sentimental with him. Ah, love.
By the end of the episode, Jeremiah and Ecco emerged from the tunnel into a fine house, where a doctor had been working on two mystery people. The scene never showed their faces, as their heads were wrapped in bandages whenever the camera showed them from the front.
Once the bandages were removed and the backs of their heads were revealed, it was clear enough that one was a blonde woman and the other a grey-haired man. Could they be Thomas and Martha Wayne, resurrected somehow? Or two random people, surgically altered to look like Thomas and Martha Wayne? Or just two random people, and I'm overthinking it because I always expect Gotham to go in the wildest direction? Jeremiah breathily stated that they looked “beautiful,” then said that he loves family reunions.
Whatever he has up his sleeve, we can bet that it won’t be good for Gotham City. How far will Gotham take Jeremiah when it comes to giving him elements of the Joker? Is this Jeremiah, recovered from seeming death, the third character, or is the third character more distinct from Jeremiah? When will he stop wearing suits?
We’ll have to wait and see. New episodes of Gotham air on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. For additional viewing options, swing by our midseason TV premiere guide. Gotham still has plenty of madness in store, and now the future Bane has entered the mix. Jim and Bruce are going to need all the help they can get, and they may not be able to rely on their former friends.
