No Joke.
This week’s episode of Gotham was heavily promoted as the possible first appearance of the Joker. We saw the famous circus family that gave us the young man who would become Robin but all eyes were on another boy in the infamous circus.
In The Blind Fortune Teller Jim Gordon takes Leslie Thompkins on a date to Haly’s Circus and into a deadly family feud.
A fight breaks out under the big top leading Jim and Leslie to uncover a bitter rivalry between the Flying Graysons and the Lloyds, a family of clowns, and the murder of the Layla the Snake Lady.
As Jim and Leslie attempt to solve the bizarre murder an unusual witness comes forward and we may have seen the birth of Batman’s greatest enemy.
But before we continue here’s a…
SPOILER ALERT!
If you didn’t want this week’s Gotham stop reading now.
OK
Here it comes.
A psychic named Cicero (the episode’s title character) says the victim sent him a message from beyond the grave. The psychic was protecting the victim’s mother, Jerome played by Cameron Monaghan.
When Jerome turns ad shows his true nature, it is absolutely scary as hell. Monaghan is brilliant. The grin. The delivery. The laugh. A villain and a star is born.
“He may or may not be The Joker,” Showrunner Bruno Heller told The Hollywood Reporter after the promo hit last week. “All I can promise is that’s not a bait and switch. It’s a long game we’re playing here.”
This could be yet another possible origin of the Joker.
You may know about the mob killer, the failed comedian, the lab worker who fell into chemicals but this Joker was born in the circus.
Scott Snyder is exploring a stranger origin for The Clown Prince of Crime in Batman Endgame: Is it possible the Joker is immortal ?
The next chapter of Endgame is in Batman #39 this month.
Gotham is teasing the first appearance of the Red Hood on next week’s episode.
By Editor