The final season of Gotham is going to be a wild ride, based on what has been seen so far. With the city of Gotham cut off from the outside world and villains reigning supreme, it sounds practically impossible for any kind of happy ending. Don't count out Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz), and their allies just yet, though.
While we do know some of the massive things happening in the final season--like the arrival of Batman in the series finale--there are still plenty of mysteries we're dying for answers to. How will Bane be introduced? What happens to Selina (Camren Bicondova) after being paralyzed? And the question that plagues every season: How is Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) going to somehow survive this time?
Thankfully, during a visit to the Brooklyn sets of the Fox series, GameSpot had the chance to speak with the cast about what to expect from the final season. With Gotham returning on January 3 for the first of its final 12 episodes, there's plenty you're going to want to know before Season 5 kicks off, whether it's what's happening with Jeremiah (Cameron Monaghan) or how Lee (Morena Baccarin) will be different after Hugo Strange (BD Wong) brought her back to life.
Gotham Season 5 premieres Thursday, January 3, on Fox.
No Man's Land is a scary place
In the Season 4 finale of Gotham, Jeremiah blew up the bridges that connect the city to the outside world. Now, when Season 5 picks up three months after the explosions, Gotham is a very different place. Criminals are in control as the city has been divided among various gangs. Meanwhile, there's one small piece of land that Jim Gordon and what's left of the GCPD has managed to maintain.
"The gangs are fighting each other and Gordon is literally and figuratively on an island," McKenzie said. "He's sort of on an island within an island of the little territory the GCP controls, surrounded by all these hostile forces."
Penguin is reigning supreme... for now
With the gangs at war, there's one man sitting pretty at the beginning of the season. Penguin has set himself up as a very important person in Gotham City. "All the major resources in a way have to fall through him," Taylor explained. "Like most war profiteers, he also controls all the ammunition. If anyone is going to rise up to try and take over, essentially they have to go through Penguin to have the means to do so. He's in a very good place when we start off."
And his relationship with Gordon is more dangerous than ever
The dynamic between Penguin and Gordon has been one of the craziest in all of Gotham. They're never exactly friends, but they shuffle back and forth between being in an uneasy alliance and a flat-out bloody feud quite often. Now, with the city devolving into utter chaos, viewers are going to see a new type of relationship between the two, as they may be the only things that can keep each other alive.
"We really go more in the direction of 'I hate you, I need you,' you know what I mean?" Taylor explains. "This happens between a lot of the characters. Because they're all competing for control and they all have their own territories, they were all vying for more and more of this limited resource, which is just what the city [is now]. You see these relationships where it's like it is an alliance, but at the same time the second someone slips or turns their back, that's when the knife goes in. It's this razor edge of trust that Penguin and Gordon are walking. We'll see who wins."
Get ready for Bruce's final steps toward becoming Batman
We already know Batman will appear in the final episode of the series, which flashes forward 10 years. However, this last season will see Bruce Wayne take those final steps toward becoming the Caped Crusader fans have been waiting for, especially when it comes to his work with Gordon and the GCPD.
"Bruce is essentially a part of the GCPD. He is working very intimately with Gordon, and Bullock, and Lucius, and Alfred and all the good guys are together having to do that," Mazouz said. This is a far cry from the days of Gordon chastising Bruce for putting himself into dangerous situations. With so little left in Gotham, he's run out of options that aren't Bruce Wayne.
Let's talk about Bane
When it was announced Shane West would be coming to Gotham to play the iconic villain Bane, there was still quite a bit of mystery about him. We know the character's name is Eduardo Dorrance and he is a friend of Gordon's who comes to Gotham to help restore order in the city. Clearly, there's a plan he has yet to clue Jim in on, though, given he'll be revealed as a major villain in the final season.
According to McKenzie, it won't take long for Eduardo to go full-on Bane. "I think when his character appears, because of their shared history and because of where Jim is--in a bad spot in Gotham--his friend's appearance is very welcome," the actor teased. "It's a way of helping him out of his current predicament. But their history is complicated, and as much as they saw hard times together, the level of trust you reveal through action that the story is not quite as simple as they served together [in the military] and they are best buddies. It's a little more complicated than that, in a good way, and I think it reveals itself rather quickly to be something a little more sinister and a little more complicated."
What's the deal with Jeremiah?
Gotham's flirtation with the Joker has been going on since Season 1. When Cameron Monaghan first appeared as Jerome, a murderous child of the circus, viewers thought he'd surely become the Clown Prince of Crime. From there, the character went through several evolutions--and some serious disfigurement--on the path to becoming Batman's greatest foe--though he never took on the name. Ultimately, he died at the hands of his twin brother Jeremiah.
Now, in Season 5, Jeremiah is this show's take on Joker and Monaghan can't wait for viewers to see how that plays out. "I liked playing Jerome a lot, but Jerome was extremely just chaotic and destructive in a way that was... It was representative of the anarchic side of the Joker, but I don't think it necessarily captured a lot of the obsession and his meticulousness," the actor told GameSpot. "There's a level of genius to this guy. I think that that's what's fun about exploring this."
Selina is down but not out
In the Season 4 finale, Selina was shot by Jeremiah for no other reason than Bruce cared about her. While she didn't die, she was left paralyzed by season's end. That's a strange turn for the character that is to become Catwoman, but showrunner John Stephens made it clear that Selina's story is far from over and will include some help from an old friend.
"We kinda know she's not gonna be paralyzed forever," he said. "So, the question is, what is the journey to becoming unparalyzed, and how does that journey end up changing her? Because obviously the Selina we've seen so far is not necessarily the same Selina we've seen within the comic books, you know? So the journey of becoming unparalyzed, which kind of vectors through [Poison] Ivy, changes her in a way that pushes her even further towards who she ends up being later on."
Hugo Strange has made some alterations to Lee after her near-death experience
Selina wasn't the only one left in a precarious position at the end of Season 4. Riddler (Cory Michael Smith) and Lee seemingly killed each other. That's definitely not the case, though.
And for Lee, when viewers see her again, she's going to be quite a bit different, thanks to Hugo Strange. "She's definitely changed," Baccarin said. "He's been definitely messing with her. But in a weird way, what has happened also brings the old Lee back a little bit. There's like a crazy switch that's gone back and forth, I think that's as best as I can say it, and then it gets better."
Of course, in Gotham better normally means much worse. With that in mind, it should be interesting to see what happens to that character moving forward.
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