Not only does the title of next week’s episode of Gotham, “Mad City: Follow The White Rabbit,” cause one to recall either Alice in Wonderland or The Matrix, but it also starts to provide clues as to where the whole “Mad City” story arc is going. Given that the following episode happens to be titled “Red Queen,” it looks as though the Mad Hatter has everything to do with it, which is actually quite obvious in hindsight.
As we saw in last night’s instalment, Jervis Tetch has lost even more of his marbles (as if that were thought possible) and has now begun his pattern of killing women that he dubs “Alice,” paying some kind of bizarre tribute to his now deceased sister who shared that name. Fans of the comics are familiar with this proclivity of his, so it comes as no surprise that the producers have opted to explore this, given that they don’t shy away from the darker aspects of the Batman mythos.
Furthermore, it appears that Tetch will force Jim Gordon to choose between the lives of Leslie Thompkins and Valerie Vale, a dilemma somewhat reminiscent of one presented to Oliver Queen in season 2 of Arrow. Hopefully neither of those characters meet their demise, but it’s worth pointing out that Morena Baccarin (Thompkins) is a series regular and Jamie Chung (Vale) is not.
Other characters to keep your eyes peeled for next week are Isabella, who is played by a returning Chelsea Spack and is no doubt going to bring back bad memories for one Edward Nygma, as well as Kieran Mulcare as the White Rabbit. The latter is especially interesting because many fans assumed that he would be this show’s version of Solomon Grundy due to his pale complexion, but we now know that to not be the case. At this point, smart money says the infected Captain Barnes will go on to be Grundy.
Gotham airs on Monday nights on Fox.
