Gotham is finally coming to an end with its fifth and final season. After a wobbly start, it’s been a wild, weird and totally unpredictable rollercoaster ride through a bizarre version of Batman’s early years. Fans already knew that the final season wouldn’t be aired until 2019, but we now have an exact date courtesy of Gotham Hub’s Twitter account: March 15th, 2019 (though a second tweet points out that this may change).
In keeping with its absurdly ambitions and kind of bonkers storytelling, season 5 will apparently mash up the classic Batman storyline No Man’s Land with elements taken from Frank Miller’s Year One and Scott Snyder’s Zero Year. This means we can expect a cataclysmic earthquake to hit Gotham, roughly coinciding with Bruce Wayne’s first outings in full costume. Expect teething trouble for the newbie hero combined with the chaos of shattered streets being taken over by all varieties of supervillain.
Andrew Sellon, who plays new character Mr. Penn, recently hyped up fans by saying the following:
“If you thought Gotham was a tough town before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. No Man’s Land is literally a war zone, and absolutely no one is safe. There’s danger – and potentially death – around every corner. But somehow out of all the anarchy and violence, a couple of heroes are rising.”
For a while, it seemed up in the air whether Gotham would be able to finish its story due to declining ratings, but the show received a reprieve – albeit with a shorter season than usual. Sellon also addressed this in the same interview, saying:
“Despite having our season shortened, everyone is there delivering 150 percent to give Gotham‘s fans the insanely high quality they’ve come to expect. Fans won’t be disappointed. Every show has to end sometime, and if anything, the cast and crew have bonded that much more in our determination to send Gotham out in the style it deserves.”
Good for them. While the series isn’t quite what I was hoping for when it began, I’ve developed a serious soft spot for the adventurousness with which Gotham treats the Batman mythos. After all, managing to be genuinely surprising while essentially being a prequel is no mean feat.
