Welcome to the new Gotham City!
While Jerome (Cameron Monaghan) was killed before he could see his years-long plan of turning Gotham into a madhouse, his twin brother Jeremiah (also Monaghan) made short work of turning Bruce Wayne's (David Mazouz) hometown into his own personal maze.
Jeremiah used the battery bombs he conned Bruce into making for him to level half the city and create his own personal maze to run around in. While the city panicked and what is left of the police force tried to evacuate innocent citizens, Jeremiah tried to send Bruce into his own madness by torturing Alfred (Sean Pertwee) in front of him and spraying Bruce with a touch of Scarecrow gas.
In the meantime, Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) and the Sirens tried to take advantage of the chaos to reclaim their territory. On the bright side, Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) survived Jeremiah's initial bomb and was saved by Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) and Lee (Morena Baccarin) just in time to figure out how to stop the next phase of Jeremiah's plan -- at least for now.
TV Guide talked to Gotham executive producer John Stephens about Jeremiah's grand plan, how he'll outdo his twin brother and how this new iteration of the show's Joker prototype will push Bruce towards his Dark Knight destiny.
Cameron Monaghan, Gotham" data-image-credit="FOX" data-image-alt-text="Cameron Monaghan, Gotham‹" data-image-credit-url="" data-image-target-url="" data-image-title="Cameron Monaghan, Gotham‹" data-image-filename="180510-gotham-cameron-monaghan.jpg" data-image-date-created="2018/05/10" data-image-crop="" data-image-crop-gravity="" data-image-aspect-ratio="" data-image-height="1380" data-image-width="2070" data-image-do-not-crop="" data-image-do-not-resize="" data-image-watermark="" data-lightbox="">How will Jeremiah and Bruce's antagonizing relationship be different than Bruce and Jerome's, considering that Bruce and Jeremiah started out as good friends?
John Stephens: We look at Cameron Monaghan's characters of Jerome and Jeremiah as our prototypes of The Joker. We're never going to have the Joker himself, so how do we take elements of who that character is and show different parts of it through Jeremiah and Jerome? One thing the Joker always does towards Batman is the idea that the two of them are bonded together. There can never be one without the other, almost to the point of this weird brotherly affection that they have. As part of that, Jeremiah wants Bruce to be on the same journey that he himself is on. Jerome unlocked the madness and insanity inside of Jeremiah a couple of episodes ago and now Jeremiah wants to pay it forward with Bruce because he sees the same sort of darkness inside of Bruce. The two of them can be partners in this great experiment going forward.
The biggest steps that Bruce has taken toward becoming the Dark Knight usually came after he had a big encounter with Jerome. Will Jeremiah push him in the same way?
Stephens: It's going to be two different things that are happening. One is that Bruce is going to be facing the darkness inside of him and learning to control it again, which is an ongoing theme in the Batman comics. Batman is always trying to control the darkness and anger inside of him while the Joker is calling it out, so we'll have Jeremiah doing a bit of that and Bruce fighting it. But also, a choice that Bruce makes in the finale based upon what Jeremiah has done is one more step forward along the Dark Knight road.
Fox's 2018-2019 Fall TV Lineup: Everything You Need to Know
Jeremiah announces that he wants to rebuild Gotham after he destroys it. What does his vision of the new Gotham look like?
Stephens: In our world, it essentially looks like a fortress. Our point of view is that Jeremiah was always psychotic but also an agoraphobe where he has a great fear of the outside. It would be a fortress-type labyrinth that he could always hide in and no one would be able to find him.
How does Nygma feel that Jeremiah has taken on a puzzle-themed mayhem? Is he jealous that Jeremiah is stealing his bit?
Stephens: That's a good point! We actually talked about that. He absolutely does and we [saw] some of that come out in the penultimate episode as Jim is trying to enlist some of Nygma's help in figuring out what Jeremiah's plan is. We see Nygma's both admiration for someone whose brain works in a puzzle-like way but also that jealousy of who does this guy think he is?
The Season 4 finale of Gotham airs Thursday, May 17 at 8/9c on Fox.
Other Links From TVGuide.com GothamCameron MonaghanDavid Mazouz