Gotham, Season 4, Episode 20: That Old Corpse
A pretty good episode too, this one. Jerome is dead, but the episode sets up the return of a new Joker-equivalent -- Jeremiah Valeska, who certainly looks the part as the classic version of the Joker. Purple suit, white skin, and a mind that's equally as chaotic as his late brother. While Jerome leaves a lot of post-mortem messages (some of which were actually Jeremiah masquerading as Jerome), Jeremiah does launch into a huge, complex vendetta against Bruce Wayne and Gotham City in order to prove himself better than Jerome... although initially the episode sets it up as Jerome trying to get Jeremiah to become insane and Bruce trying to rescue Jeremiah, not realizing Jeremiah's behind everything in the first place.
It's pretty entertaining, especially with the fake-out on Jeremiah already going crazy as opposed to stopping Jeremiah from becoming the new Joker, but the episode ends up being a bit messily paced. I guess part of it is because half of the episode has to deal with the Gordon/Leslie/Riddler storyline, which... while not bad, isn't quite as entertaining as Jeremiah. Gordon is angry at Leslie for breaking the law, but Leslie also notes how she's only helping people in need and hang the law if that stops her from getting what she needs as a modern-day Robin Hood. And then, of course, Jerome's clown gang attacks the GCPD and takes it over, causing Riddler to disguise himself as a clown to get in and rescue Leslie, which is... okay? It feels divorced from the rest of the episode, for sure. That bit where the other random criminals go "Riddler! We're saved!" and "Penguin! We're saved!" is fun, though.
Speaking of Penguin... he's sort of redundant in this episode, isn't he? He notes that all this chaos is the perfect time to take over, but as Butch notes, Penguin's honestly just been sort of there instead of the uncontested King of Gotham that he's been in the past few episodes. It's like the show doesn't really have any idea how to integrate Penguin (or Solomon Grundy) into this season's Jerome/League of Shadows storyline, but don't want to have a season without Robin Lord-Taylor either.
Meanwhile, as the episode races to the climax, Jeremiah and Bruce have a bit of a showdown near Jerome's grave as Jeremiah reveals his true plan -- to one-up Jerome's directionless anarchy and madness with his own direction-driven madness. Okay? Oh, and Bruce gets tossed into Jerome's grave and buried alive, Gordon gets caught in Jeremiah's maze as the clean energy generator explodes, and Alfred gets attacked by an unknown party.
Overall, it's a neat episode with Cameron Monaghan always being entertaining whichever of the Valeska brothers he plays, but there's a sense of simply building up to another climax that makes this episode really drawn out at times, and there's definitely a fair bit of convolutedness to it all. Ultimately, this is just a drawn-out buildup and a mission statement from Jeremiah, resulting in a huge cliffhanger for all the heroes involved.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Jeremiah's purple suit and chemical-induced-white-bleached skin, of course, finally gives us the traditional look of the Joker. Jeremiah wiping away flesh-coloured face paint to reveal his real white skin is a homage to the 1989 Batman movie, where Jack Nicholson's Joker does that multiple times when he was hiding his true face.
- Echo wears a getup with diamond patterns and very distinct antenna-jangle things, which, coupled with her status as Jeremiah's main minion, brings to mind a variation of the original Harley Quinn costume.
- A cult of crazy anarchists built around worshipping the Joker is the whole premise of the Jokerz, a gang that featured in the Batman Beyond cartoon.
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