Only four episodes remain of the first season of the hit FOX series, so it's only natural that the creative team behind it has already begun plans for the greenlit second season.
When speaking with IGN at WonderCon 2015,
Gotham executive producer John Stephens shed some light on who and what we can expect to see in the second season and the few remaining episodes of the current season. We know that the show is about to introduce a serial killer called the Ogre in next week's episode and it seems his role is a bit more important than we initially thought. According to Stephens:
"There are major stories that are going to hit Jim [Gordon] at the end of the season. One involves him chasing down this serial killer that Milo Ventimiglia is playing that is going to have a crushing impact on him personally that's going to revert around all next year."
Hmm. We've previously seen in the promos that the Ogre will come into contact with Barbara Kean and it was teased in
a recent featurette that Lesley Tompkins could also be on the Ogre's radar. Perhaps one of these women will be horribly injured? Worse? Only time will tell.
Despite being heavily teased at the beginning of the series, the Arkham Project storyline hasn't seemed to have moved forward in a while and has barley been referenced at all in recent episodes. There also doesn't seem to be any sign of previously confirmed villains Hugo Strange and Mr. Freeze. We now know when to expect these characters and arcs:
"Hugo Strange will show up and we're going to see much more Arkham Asylum next year. On of the things we've done this year is introduce a lot of villains and so a lot of these villains ended up going to Arkham this season. Though we didn't see it happen, we will find him next year in Arkham and Arkham will become much more of a player in our world." Hugo Strange has not yet been casted, according to Stephens.
"The conception of the character, I feel like [the actor] would be younger than the idea of the Hugo Strange that we all know. He's probably not bald. Think of the Hugo Strange from the comic and age him back 15 to 20 years."
Is Jerome Valeska the Joker? While we still don't know for certain, Stephens promises us that the Joker storyline will
"continue to develop" and that they are currently
"breaking the storyline that involves that." He continues to say that he
"feels like the storyline is going to be broken down will be very exciting and satisfying without breaking any sort of canon lore that we are trying to respect at the same time." Lets hope so, as they are only dealing with the first live action incarnation of the Joker since HEATH LEDGER.
As the interview continues, Stephens informs us a little about their version of Mr. Freeze.
"The Victor Fries character is a story of a character that we are going to build out. If you look at the pantheon of the Batman villains, with some of these villains, especially ones that involve science, there are ways to tell them in sort of realistic and grounded ways that don't cross out world where your in Man-Bat territory." Despite this comment, Stephens goes on to warn us not to expect Man-Bat anytime soon, joking that they are saving him for the Man-Bat centric thirteenth season of the show.
Gotham returns with brand new episodes this Monday. Only four episodes of the season remain, starting with "Beasts of Prey."