Gotham’s grand finale will be no joke.
A teaser trailer and character poster for the series’ final episode depict criminal mastermind Jeremiah Valeska in full-on Joker Mode. It’s highly unlikely he’ll be referred to as The Joker, but the promo materials leave little doubt as to the fact that Jeremiah will embrace his own destiny as the Clown Prince of Crime during the 10-year time jump which will see Bruce Wayne, played by David Mazouz, take on the mantle of Batman.
At least a portion of Gotham’s final episode will take place after that decade-long jump. As the spot, tellingly titled “J,” opens, there’s Wayne Enterprises tower, looming over a dark Gotham City as the tinkling strains of Julie Andrews’ “I Feel Pretty” glide over the soundtrack. This gives way to a shot of Arkham Asylum. Inside its gates a seated figure with stringy, patchy hair, remains still as the inmates mill around in slow motion. Then, we see his face: it’s Jeremiah Valeska, played by Cameron Monaghan, looking worse for wear after years presumably spent inside.
There’s very familiar-sounding cackle over the title card, followed by a brief shot of Jeremiah looking at his own hand, impaled by a Batarang, with a mixture of alarm and amusement. He bursts into hysterical laughter as the spot ends.
Jeremiah is clearly meant to be a version of the Joker, if not necessarily the Joker. Fans have been engaged in back-and-forth debate about whether Jeremiah, and before him, his psychopathic twin brother Jerome would ever become Gotham’s iteration of the character, a debate which was seemingly laid to rest when Monaghan tweeted a series of photos and videos from the makeup chair in May 2018.
According to the actor, not only is he not playing the Joker, but the show is prohibited by Warner Brothers from using the character in any way. Executive producer John Stephens even flatly stated as much himself in a conversation with IGN later that year, saying,
“Jeremiah is not the Joker. The other characters are who they are. Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, et cetera. But no, he isn’t the Joker. ”
The real Joker, Stephens says, is out there, taking his cues from proto-Jokers including Jeremiah, Jerome, and others.
Stephens then seemed to at least partially walk back his comments in a GameSpot interview in March 2019.
“When you look at the Joker, and you break down elements of his personality, and you cleave off certain character traits. Some of those character traits we gave to Jerome. Some of those character traits we gave to Jeremiah.”
Stephens added that there are still other traits of the Joker’s personality, such as being “actually a nightmare,” that the Gotham writers had yet to explore.
This version of the maybe-Joker may fit that bill. He has a look nearly as terrifying as Heath Ledger’s iconic interpretation in The Dark Knight, and that chilling laugh is indeed the stuff of nightmares. One can’t help but feel that Fox is basically doing an end run, sticking to the letter of Warner Brothers’ mandate while finding a way to pair Batman, who is finally making his appearance on Gotham after five seasons and 99 episodes, with his nemesis.
With the final episode, fans will finally get to see Mazouz in action as the Caped Crusader, or at least his face digitally pasted onto the body of a much more physically imposing stand-in, opposed by a very Joker-like villain. Stephens and company can insist that Jeremiah is just a prototype Joker who happened to have fallen into a vat of toxic chemicals in the exact same manner as Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman. And that he just happens to look, sound, and act exactly like the criminal who he will inspire with his maniacal ways at some undetermined point in a future Gotham will never show. Evidently, Warner Brothers’ brass are buying it, but that doesn’t mean viewers have to.
Gotham’s penultimate episode, “They Did What?” airs on April 18; the finale, “The Beginning…” follows April 25. Mark your calendars.