You’ve seen him carving a Glasgow smile into Jimmy O. You’ve seen him locking lips with Sheriff Jarry inside a parking garage. Now get ready to see Sons of Anarchy star Tommy Flanagan invade Gotham as the sadistic villain The Knife. Check out our first look at the character below.
Sadly, we aren’t able to see Flanagan do anything terrible or super-violent here, although maybe that’s a good thing, as surprises are always welcome in the comic book universe. With the pointy goatee and slicked-back hair, as well as the all-black suit, he looks like he’d be a star magician in Gotham City. But we’ve already seen a magic act in this show, so it’s okay that he’s just going to be a ruthless murderer. Maybe he could pull a GCPD officer’s head out of a hat.
The Knife, who will first appear in the episode “The Son of Gotham,” is a Gotham City hitman who does work for whoever pays him the most money. Though unlike Mr. Zsasz, for instance, he doesn’t seem to be quite as outwardly maniacal, and he’ll use his charm and his sense of humor to keep his victims comfortable until he brings out the blade and ends their lives. I guess it’s a positive thing to have a laugh before dying? Regardless of who ends up biting it at his hands, it’s going to be a treat to watch, as Flanagan is excellent as being terrifying when the need is there.
It doesn’t seem like The Knife will be around Gotham for a long time, but anything could happen. Maybe he’ll team up with Penguin and Riddler for a deadly trifecta, or maybe he’ll find a way to enter the lives of Hugo Strange and/or Mr. Freeze later in the season. Or maybe he’ll get caught and killed in the first ten minutes. We hope not, though.
I think we can all agree that Chibs would have been the perfect character to play The Joker, just so he could use the “Wanna know how I got these scars?” line on everyone. But since Flanagan doesn’t actually have those cheek scars, and The Joker is basically still only an idea on Gotham, I guess that wouldn’t be quite as perfect as I thought. On the flipside, maybe we can get Donal Logue to somehow reappear in the Sons of Anarchy-verse as someone other than Lee Toric for the upcoming spinoff.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to see Flanagan make his debut, as “The Son of Gotham” will air on November 23. You’ll be able to catch “A Bitter Pill to Swallow” next Monday night on Fox.
