FOX's Batman prequel show Gotham is approaching its third season, and it once again looks like the series is about to charter brand new territory. What began as a faithful(ish) telling of Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon's early years in the city has now become a supervillain-filled drama that continues to surprise hardcore Batman fans by making bold choices that don't exactly follow along with the comics. One of the more surprising plot points from the series revolved around the original character Jerome, whose maniacal laugh and penchant for chaos led viewers to believe he was a younger version of the Joker. So when he character was unceremoniously killed in Season 2, people were more than a little disappointed. Luckily for us, it appears that Jerome won't stay dead forever, and he'll eventually be back to continue his life of crime in Gotham.
Gotham's Executive Producer John Stephens recently sat down with Zap2It, where he revealed that Jerome was definitely going to be back on the show at some point. He said the following:
It is 100% our intention to bring Jerome back. We're going to be playing it again this year and basically extending the idea of the cult of Jerome. We're building the architecture for him to come back.
Cue thunderous applause from basically every Gotham fan out there. Jerome will be back, but it also appears that we might have to wait quite a bit before the Joker-esque teen comes back to life to delight us with his psychosis.
Later in the story, John Stephens laid out the plan for Jerome's return a bit more clearly. Sure, he's coming back- but we shouldn't expect it to happen too soon. Rather than an immediate physical resurrection, Stephens implied that we would see more of Jerome's influence on the city of Gotham first. Indeed, we saw some of this in Season 2. After Jerome died, we were shown a handful of Gotham residents who seemed to have a mental break, and began laughing hysterically at the violent acts they committed.
According to John Stephens, Jerome's influence is going to be seen throughout Season 3, setting up the character's eventual return.
You'll have these underground movements that have started to talk about Jerome and what he represented and how he's going to come back like in the days of John the Baptist. Setting the stage that if there is a Season 4, hopefully we'll bring that back in a much bigger way and you'll see these different versions of the Joker myth.
While Jerome is eventually coming back, it doesn't appear that we'll get him in the flesh in Season 3 of Gotham. While this might be a bit disappointing, I'll honestly take whatever form of Jerome they want to give us; he was really one of the best characters the show has ever had.
Do you want to see Jerome back on Gotham? Or is he better off staying dead? Sound off in the comments below.
