Autumn Preview: Gotham season 2

by Daniel Falconer | 12 September 2015

With the second season of Gotham right around the corner on FOX in the US and Channel 5 in the UK, we've put together absolutely everything we know about the new batch of episodes so far, and it's shaping up to be an exhiliarating and bumpy ride.

What's it called?

The show continues to be called Gotham, but this year has a subtitle - Rise of the Villains.

With Penguin now at the top of the food chain in the criminal underworld, Oswald is the self-proclaimed King of Gotham and will be willing to do whatever it takes to maintain that mantle. Unfortunately for him, this subtitle means he's going to be challenged not only by the official authorities this year, but by a slew of young DC characters finding their wings and hoping to soar.

Which villains will be involved in this rising?

Well, of course we have Robin Lord Taylor back as Penguin, but as we saw at the end of the first season, Erin Richards' Barbara Kean could also fall into the villain category, after murdering her parents and attacking Jim Gordon's (Ben McKenzie) girlfriend Leslie Thompkins (Morena Baccarin).

What we also saw at the end of season one was Edward Nygma's (Cory Michael Smith) descent into madness, after he took the life of an abusive police officer and disposed of the body in his lab. Seeing more of this transformation from Nygma as he turns into The Riddler is going to be some fantastic viewing.

This new season introduces sibling duo Theo and Tabitha Galavan, played by James Frain and Jessica Lucas respectively. Though Theo's villainous ID has to this point been kept underwraps, we do know that Tabitha will become a new version of comic book nasty, Tigress.

We've also been promised appearances from; Mr Freeze, Firefly, Flamingo, Clayface, Silver St. Cloud and Joker, although not necessarily in that order. Though we don't know 100% for sure just yet whether or not Jerome (Cameron Monaghan) from the first season will be that Joker, it's a pretty safe bet, and he'll be bonding in Arkham Asylum with other villains, including newest resident Barbara.

Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova) will also return following her evolution in the season one finale as a child inspired by chaos, with Nicholas D'Agosto taking a more central role this year as Harvey Dent, who fans will know one day becomes the feared Two-Face.

And though we've been told by creator Bruno Heller that the series won't feature colourful villain costumes, he did confirm at the beginning of the year that the Red Hood is on its way.

Michael Chiklis is also coming to Gotham as Captain Nathaniel Barnes, but he's there as a "law and order zealot" who'll be "ripping out the dead wood of Gotham's police force," whilst acting as a "hero and a mentor to Gordon". Still, no cop in Gotham is without their crooked ways, so one day we could see Barnes turn rogue.

Did Fish Mooney survive her fall?

It's entirely possible. Jada Pinkett Smith told EW that "that's for the fans to determine", but she has ruled herself out of appearing in season two in the past. Despite that, she would only say to EW that she "will not be a series regular", and when asked if there's a possibility she'll pop up, she said: "If she survives the fall. Yeah, I mean, it was water below."

What about the plot?

Showrunners have done well to keep pretty much everything surrounding the new season underwraps. Things are going to immediately pick up moments after Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) discovered a cave full of bats with his butler Alfred (Sean Pertwee), but then we'll jump the timeline a few months to find Gotham back in the grasp of the bad guys.