Although we’re all still reeling from the intense fall finale of Gotham, that does not mean it is too soon to talk about the show’s return. When the “Rise of the Villains” arc resumes, expect to see the likes of Hugo Strange, Mr. Freeze and even more new and familiar faces show up on the series.
Recently, Gotham executive producer John Stephens sat down with Comic Book Resources to discuss what we can expect from the second half of Season Two. Some rather interesting secrets were divulged, including that of an alliance between Hugo Strange, the man behind the mysterious Indian Hill and Mr. Freeze.
You won’t have to wait long at all to see Hugo Strange. In fact, we’ll be seeing him as soon as we come back in the New Year. We’re going to see those two end up working together as we go forward. Both of them will be at the heart of this mystery that our characters have been investigating since last year, about what is happening inside Wayne Enterprises and how that is connected to the death of the Waynes. We’ll be tying those two characters into the core mystery of the show.
Despite Nicholas D’Agosto having joined the principal cast this season, we haven’t seen much of his character, Harvey Dent. Thankfully, Stephens assures us that we’ll see more of the classic Batman villain soon:
He’s still a part of the world of Gotham. We still use him, and we still always ask ourselves, “Is there a way we can bring Harvey into the show?” We spent so much time on this track of following the Galavans throughout the first half of the season, that we haven’t been able to use him as much as we wanted to. Right now, we have him plugged in for a bunch of episodes going forward, but we don’t have any big arc for him. We still continue to think about him all the time.
It’s that case of, when we’re dealing with the Batman world, of having an abundance of riches. Whenever you feel like you using one character, or developing a following character, you know you are always short-changing someone else. You just have to hope you are on the air long enough that you give everyone their due.
While the Barbara Kean character is currently licking her wounds, don’t expect her to be absent for long. In fact, you should expect her to be around for awhile, as it seems the creative team have factored her into their long term plans.
We have absolutely not seen the last of Barbara. She’ll be coming back in the middle of the second half of the season. We will continue to take her along a more dangerous path. Erin [Richards] was so wonderful in that version of crazy Barbara that we wanted to have as much of her as we possibly could. We are developing a storyline for her in the second half of the season that will be leading into next season as well.
Gotham returns on February 29 on Fox.
