A new image from the forthcoming fifth and final season of Gotham is said to tease the death of a long-running character. The conclusion of Gotham season 4 saw Jeremiah Valeska, who still may or may not be the Joker, isolate the city in a manner not dissimilar to Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. With the city in chaos, the various criminals and denizens of Gotham are taking over and only a few brave souls, Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne among them, are left to stand against the tide of evil.
It was previously announced that Gotham season 5 would be its final run and consist of a shortened stint of 12 episodes. Taking inspiration from the Zero Year and No Man’s Land comic stories, Gotham’s final season comes with the title “Legend of the Dark Knight” and is set to introduce Shane West’s Bane. A trailer released earlier this month indicated that this season would focus heavily on Bruce Wayne’s transformation into Batman and would also include more comic-accurate costumes for the show’s array of villains. It has also been confirmed that Erin Richards (Gotham’s Barbara Kean) will direct the show’s 100th episode, with Ben McKenzie (Jim Gordon) taking writing duties.
A fresh photo from the season 5 premiere has now been released via TVLine featuring Robin Lord Taylor’s Penguin standing in front of a crashed helicopter, with Wayne-branded supplies and corpses scattered everywhere. Interestingly, the report that initially unveiled the image claims the moment shown in the photo takes place right after the death of a “long-running character” who is not named.
Gotham season 5 was written to be the show’s swansong from the outset, meaning that the writers had no requirement to hold back and all bets are off when it comes to character deaths. However, it seems unlikely that those integral to the future of the Batman universe such as Penguin, Riddler, Alfred or Selina Kyle will be killed off, as fans know that these figures are important to Bruce’s future and to bump them off in Gotham would arguably lessen its legitimacy as a Batman prequel.
However, there are plenty of main characters in Gotham who aren’t quite as safe and by putting context to the image above, some potential victims soon come to mind. Given Gotham City’s isolation, it’s safe to assume that the crashed Wayne chopper was delivering a shipment of either supplies or weapons to the city’s remaining defenders and civilians. It seems that Penguin has intercepted this delivery and therefore his victim is likely to be either a member of the GCPD who was unfortunate enough to be retrieving the supplies or another criminal looking to steal the same cargo.
With this in mind, Donal Logue’s Harvey Bullock and Richards’ Barbara Kean are perhaps two of the most likely characters to be killed off here. Bullock’s death would provide Gordon with a tragic motivation to keep on fighting crime into the future and it would be an awful lot easier for Richards to direct her episode if Barbara Kean wasn’t in it.
More: Gotham Actress Teases Harley Quinn Transformation
Gotham season 5 premieres January 3, 2019 on Fox.
Source: TVLine
