Ever since the first season, Gotham has been a regular guest at the San Diego Comic Con. One of their rituals is snapping a picture in the plane going to SDCC. This gives us a nice view of how much the actors and characters have changed over the seasons.
But back to the SDCC panel that was held on the 22nd of July, where they taught us more about upcoming season 4. The people attending the panel were:
John Stephens (Executive producer), Alexander Siddig (Ra’s Al Ghul), Erin Taylor (Barbara Keen), Ben McKenzie (Jim Gordon), Robin Lord Taylor (Oswald Copplepot/Penguin), Cory Michael Smith (Edward Nygma/The Riddler), Sean Pertwee (Alfred Pennyworth), Camren Bicondova (Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Jessica Lucas (Tabitha Galavan) and Drew Powell (Butch Gilzean/Cyrus Gold/Solomon Grundy).
The following fun facts and exciting new storylines were discussed in the panel:
- Scarecrow is confirmed for Season 4. And with a little bit of luck, we get to see him in Episode 1, He is yet again played by Charlie Tahan as Jonathan Crane who will take over his fathers work with developing a fear toxin.
- Bringing Bruce over to the dark side this season will be incredibly important.
- But Bruce will get body armour, grappling hooks and a mask. However, we won’t see him transforming in a full on Batman in Season 4.
- Drew Powell will be portraying Solomon Grundy this season. Something will happen with Butch and he’ll end up as a gigantic zombie. He’ll probably lose his memory at some point because he will be best friends with The Riddler. His story will be similar to his ‘real’ origin.
- Speaking of Edward, he won’t be a popsicle at The Iceberg Lounge the entire season. However, being frozen in the ice will have some effect on The Riddler, not sure in what kind of way.
- We hopefully get to see more of Victor Zsasz, since he and Penguin will team up in Season 4.
- Somehow Bruce and Jim will circle around each other towards the end of the season. And this is what Ben McKenzie said about their relationship: ‘One of the fun things of this origin story is seeing how Bruce learns from Jim’s successes & failures’.
- One of the main themes for this year is ‘family’.
- Lee will come to Gotham, but she is not the same. She’ll be a lot darker, struggling with the things she did and she will be hanging out with The Riddler and Solomon Grundy.
- Barbara is not dead, but apparently not as crazy as she was before. Ra’s al Ghul will be the person to bring her back, maybe with the Lazarus pit, and starts to train her.
- We will be seeing lots more from Ra’s al Ghul, who has been looking for an heir (aka Bruce) for over 2000 years.
- There is going to be some kind of ‘triangle’ between Selina, Barbara and Tabitha. Where Selina turns to be the glue to bring Barbara and Tabitha together again.
- Penguin is yet again at the top of Gotham’s criminal underworld. Apparently, he will be issuing licenses to commit crimes. Therefore controlling not only the crime but also the police force. And he will be continuing with his new nightclub The Iceberg Lounge.
- There also will be a new female hero/villain kind of thing, but that is all we know so far.
- Ben Mckenzie has written Episode 4 of Season 4.
- The first part of the season will be ‘Long Halloween’ inspired, while the second half will be inspired by ‘Year One’. This posed as confusing for many a fan, considering Year One came BEFORE Long Halloween, but as the show gets closer to premiering, hopefully we’ll get more insight on the season set up!
- Fun facts about Selina’s cat scene in Episode 17 of Season 3:
Camren Bicondova, “It was winter in NY, raining at like 10 at night, and I made the artistic decision to keep my eyes open when I was dead. Little fact, this means it was painful and I had my contacts in. They had to bring the cats out, real cats and put cat food in my hands and around my ears. Because of the rain, none of them wanted to get out from under the tent. Except for one of them – I call him Savage Cat – he was hungry and he didn’t just sniff the food or lick it off but bite it off my finger. And so then I had to go to the hospital and get a rabies shot….. It was great… so most of the cats were CGI.”
I have some more conformation about characters coming to Gotham, however, I don’t think this was mentioned at the panel.
First up, Crystal Reed will join the show as the daughter of Don Falcone, Sofia Falcone. She is described as an intelligent and capable character who has been running the Falcone family’s southern operations and has returned to Gotham in order to help deal with the Penguin.
And Professor Pyg will join Gotham! And John Stephens is excited about the villain appearing on the show:
“For this year we’re bringing in one of my favourite newer villains. This might be the first time I’m saying this… because we’re bringing in Professor Pyg this year. And I’ve always loved Pyg because he’s just so demented and strange and gross and terrifying and funny. So, this year, I was like ‘Well, our show is pretty violent and graphic, how can it get more violent and graphic?’ I think Pyg is, maybe because he’s a newer character, feels more current to me in some ways. He doesn’t have some of the baggage of like a character from the ’60s might have where you have to like revitalise in a way. Pyg you can just bring in and he scares everybody.”
Gotham Season 4 will air on the 28th of September.
