'Gotham' Boss: Season 2 to Focus on the Joker

The season finale of Gotham brought big changes to the city that will one day belong to the Dark Knight, but perhaps not changes that the audience expected: Marked-for-death crime boss Falcone (John Doman) choosing to retire in Florida, rather than stand up for his legacy? Butch (Drew Powell) shooting Oswald (Robin Lord Taylor) and Fish (Jada Pinkett Smith), giving the former a chance to kill the latter? Barbara (Erin Richards) trying to kill Lee (Morena Baccarin)? As showrunner Bruno Heller tells THR, "When you're telling a story that everyone knows all the characters and where they're going, you have to surprise people."

Even the writing staff of the Fox drama was thrown for a loop by some of the major beats of "All Happy Families Are Alike," according to Heller.

"We knew the season was the story of Penguin's rise to power, so that was always there," Heller says, "but how we got there was up in the air as we were writing it. So much of [the mythology] is laid out before you because of the future that everyone is aware of, but there are many things where, to keep a sense of life and things happening without the knowledge of history, we'd just tell the story and see how things unfold."

The same was true with Butch's indecision over whether to side with Fish or Cobblepot, and also with Barbara Kean's descent into madness. "The plot between Barbara and Lee came out of the show as it developed," says Heller. Although, as with the Penguin storyline, there was always an ultimate aim in mind when it came to Jim Gordon's former fiancee. "We always knew from the start that Barbara was the wrong woman for Gordon," he admits, promising that "we're going to see how [her attack on Lee] plays out" in future episodes.

Another character who underwent an unexpected change in the finale was Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova), who went from street thief to gun-toting mole upon Fish's reappearance. Heller explains that that doesn't mean she's turned evil exactly — more that she's just a regular teenager. "Selina is one of those interesting Gotham characters in that she's ambiguous," he says. "It's still very much a story of a girl, not a woman, and teenagers try on different roles. She's still a protean human being. We're playing with that — she's not going to become one thing or the other definitively until she's a grown up."

Fans might be wondering what happened to Butch or Selina after Oswald's victory; Heller reveals that some moments in the finale were sacrificed for the greater good. "This world is so packed with incident and characters, it's difficult to tell the story you want in the time frame you have," says Heller. "There's an element of an overstuffed suitcase with all of these episodes, because there's so much to get in. You have to think of that as a virtue rather than a vice, because it's better than vamping because you don't have enough story to play with."

Something that did make it in was that final scene of Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) discovering a hidden passageway in Wayne Manor. Is that…the Bat-Cave? Heller laughs when the question is asked. "It's a fireplace that moves sideways and goes downstairs," says Heller. "It's not the Bat-Cave, because the Bat-Cave only comes into existence when Bruce Wayne decides to become Batman. Call it his father's office."

What is in that office, and what it means to Bruce, will form much of the first part of the show's second season. ("It's very much a visualization of one's parents' secret lives, their past, when you're a kid that age," says Heller. "When you're so young, the idea that your father and mother had hopes and dreams and secrets of their own. That's what that staircase leads to. Dark secrets.")

Also on tap for the second season, he says, is more on Edward Nygma's descent into darkness, what Oswald does now that he's become Gotham's king of crime and the much-anticipated return of a character only seen briefly in the show's first year.

"We're going to find out how the hell Jerome, the proto-Joker we met earlier in this season, connects with the Joker as people known him. That's the big focus of the beginning of the second season. We're going to tell the story of how the Joker came to be," Heller says, before pausing and adding, "That's teaser enough, I think."

"GOTHAM" CASTS NATALIE ALYN LIND AS SILVER ST. CLOUD

"The Goldbergs" star Natalie Alyn Lind has joined "Gotham" as Silver St. Cloud, a love interest for the young Bruce Wayne.

Entertainment Weekly describes St. Cloud as "an ethereal beauty with the pristine manners of a Gotham debutante." Like Bruce, St. Cloud lost her parents as a young age, which sets up an instant bond between the two characters. However, where Bruce's tragedy puts him on the path to justice, St. Cloud has decidedly darker intentions.

Bruce will meet St. Cloud through her uncle Theo Galavan, a billionaire philanthropist and mayoral candidate. In much the same way he finds a kindred spirit in St. Cloud, he will find a father figure in Galavan.

Michael Chiklis Joins 'Gotham' as Series Regular

Fox's Gotham is adding an Emmy winner to its ranks.

The Shield alum Michael Chiklis has joined the DC Comics adaptation as a series regular, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

As first reported by TVLine, Chiklis will play Capt. Nathaniel Barnes, who joins the Gotham City Police Department and rids it of its "dead wood." He's unafraid of making enemies — on either side of the law — and serves as a mentor for Ben McKenzie's Gordon. The character will prove himself to be a strong ally to Gordon — but he one day may make for an equally powerful enemy.

Chiklis joins the series as Gotham is poised to spend its sophomore season exploring the "rise of the villains," as showrunner Bruno Heller told fans at Comic-Con. McKenzie noted that additional good guys would be joining the cast who all will have to band together to combat the apparent new crime wave that likely will include Cameron Monaghan's Joker. The Shameless star confirmed his role as the future Joker heading into the fan convention.

"We're going to find out how the hell Jerome, the proto-Joker we met [in season one], connects with the Joker as people know him. That's the big focus of the beginning of the second season. We're going to tell the story of how the Joker came to be," Heller told THR in May.

For Chiklis, the role marks his follow-up to American Horror Story: Freak Show and his return to broadcast television following CBS' Vegas and ABC's No Ordinary Family.

Gotham returns Sept. 21 at 8 p.m. on Fox.

Spoiled because this episode "leaked" online last week. The official premier is actually tonight. (sorry)

Just as a thought exercise:

It's interesting that the career of the great Commissioner Gordon that we all know and love was built upon making deals with criminals.

Also interesting is that all of Batman's future troubles can be lain at the feet of Gordon. How much of a good job does Gordon end up doing anyway?

Gotham season two kicked off Monday night with a new, more serial nature and the much-hyped subtitle to the season, “Rise of the Villains.” That rise was shown right off in the first episode, SPOILERS AHEAD, with an Arkham breakout, new characters introduced, and a death designed to show folks who exactly is giving the orders around Gotham City nowadays. Meanwhile, Penguin is the king of the underworld, and even Nygma is seeing his dark side quite literally trying to break out of him. END OF SPOILERS

But those new villains in particular, the Galavan siblings, struck our interest. When the first image of Theo Galavan and the man who turned out to just be a bit of a loon in a costume cropped up, it made us start thinking about the Court of Owls. Coupled with the fact that Jessica Lucas and James Frain told me during a set visit that they were on “a mission of revenge” and had “a long family history in Gotham City,” it seemed like this relatively new part of the DC Universe might be getting a live screen adaptation sooner than later.

During a phone conversation with executive producer and showrunner Bruno Heller, he candidly talked about fan theories, telling ComicBook.com, “everyone’s opinion has been valid and has to be listened to,” expounding on the fact that the characters and concepts they’re playing with are “about the interplay between what we’re doing and what the audience would like to see and how they react.”

In that vein, I asked, well, what about the theory that the Galavan siblings’ long history in Gotham means the Court of Owls is coming, or is that at least something he’s interested in exploring?

“Yeah, absolutely, [I'm interested]. I won’t say that it’s part of – I don’t even want to say that, because I don’t want to spoil part of the story,” Heller said after a bit of a chuckle. He continued, “The Court of Owls is deep, deep, deep Gotham mythology. The comic book fans know about it, but I would suspect the larger audience is not so familiar. We sometimes have to make a distinction between the ‘Nolan-era Batman movie fans’ and the comic book fans. It’s not that they’re two separate audiences, just that there are two levels of engagement. Court of Owls is very much deep DC mythology.

“We are absolutely going to explore that world down the line. Looking at the longevity of the show, we have to hold some cards back, we can’t just throw all of the elements, all of the story at once,” he explained - he even noted earlier during the conversation that he felt they made a mistake trying to throw too much into season one. Heller didn’t mince words, though, and did say definitively, “The long arc of the show is Bruce Wayne’s journey of discovery down into the depths of the physical and meta-physical world of Gotham. The Court of Owls is a brilliant conceit that will absolutely be part of our storytelling. I just won’t tell you when.”

The Court of Owls debuted in the “New 52” era of DC Comics that saw every issue relaunched in a new, modern version of their universe. In the Batman comic book by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, they revealed that Gotham City has had a secret society behind it for generations known as the Court of Owls. Populated by some of Gotham’s oldest families, the Court uses their assassins known as Talons (think slightly less-trained and more-psychotic versions of Batman) to alter the course of the city’s history.

Will the Galavans be the entry into the Court, with their century-old grudge against the city and its families? Perhaps, but one way or another, Gotham fans, the Court of Owls is “absolutely” on its way.

The Court of Owls was probably my most enjoyable experience reading Batman comics since the 1980's.

'Gotham' Star on Character's Fate: "No One Is Exempt"

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from Gotham season two, episode two.]

If there's one thing to learn from the first couple of episodes of Fox's Gotham this season, it's that becoming a police commissioner is a bad idea. After commissioner Loeb was forced out by the Penguin in the season-two premiere, Capt. Essen (Zabryna Guevara) stepped into the role — only to end up murdered by the Maniax.

For showrunner Bruno Heller, Essen's murder at the hands of Jerome Velaska (Cameron Monaghan) signals that things are getting more dramatic on the series. "In Gotham's world, dramatic and crazy stuff happens every week, and police officers get used to living in that world of tragedy and trauma and victims. The only way to knock them off their equilibrium is to go after their own," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "It's not that they don't care about deaths outside of their own number, but when it hits home, when someone comes into your home and takes away an authority figure like commissioner Essen, then you're really hitting home."

Essen's death, Heller said, paves the way for the arrival of new series regular Michael Chiklis' Capt. Barnes on a plot level, but more important, "it really lets everyone know that however hard Gotham has been hit in the past, the Maniax are taking things up a notch — and that the show is taking things up a notch."

But what about Essen herself? THR caught up with Guevara to discuss her exit from the Fox drama, her character's death and the world she's leaving behind.

All things considered, Essen really shouldn't have taken that promotion.

I'm sure everyone had that moment of fear when Essen was named commissioner! [Laughs.] It's one of those things in the show: the higher you go, the more danger you're exposed to. As you can see with the mayor, who's not doing so good himself! No one is exempt.

When did you find out that Essen was going to die? Did you know going into the second season?

At the beginning of the season, I knew Essen was going to meet her demise in some way or fashion, but I didn't find out how it would happen until I got the scripts. It really was a great final two episodes that gave the character a great exit.

In her final scene with Jerome, it's clear that she's going out fighting.

Cameron's a super-intense actor — a lovely guy, but it's not hard to imagine the fear that [Jerome] can instill in someone. At the same time, there's a great sense of fortitude you get from playing a character who has developed a strong spine — in playing the scene, I approached it in the same way I do any scene: What do I want? What am I trying to affect in the other person, and that was pretty easy because Cameron really committed in a big way.

As we were getting the episodes, I was collaborating with the producers to tweak the scenes, and in that final scene when Essen says, "That's gonna leave a mark," that was me. I was like, "You know what? I want to go out with more bite."

It's such a dramatic moment, especially because she'd become one of Gordon's strongest supporters in the GCPD, which wasn't how she started the show. Even when you and Ben [McKenzie, who plays Jim Gordon] were butting heads, did you expect her to end up where she did?

I knew that Essen would be a major player, but I didn't know how it was going to progress. Definitely in the beginning, she had a tug of war with Gordon's moral center being so firm; he really did rock the boat for everyone in the GCPD. Everyone was working on the status quo and maintaining everything the way it was, and he came in and shook everything up. That was something that she really struggled with in the beginning, but in the end — and it's something that you can really see by the end of season one — she was completely on board with him.

If she hadn't died, what kind of commissioner do you think she would have been? Would she have ended up falling prey to the same pressures that Loeb faced?

No. I absolutely think that she would have gone in the direction she had wanted to go with Gordon — ridding the city of the apathy that had taken over every part of its gut. I totally think she was totally going to try and affect a greater change, and she was just cut off before she had a chance.

Having taken out the head of the Gotham police force, what will the Maniax do for an encore — and just how messed up are Gordon and Bullock going to be as they try to rally a response to the newest menace to society? Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.