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GOTHAM Showrunner Previews Gordon’s Showdown with Nygma

Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) is officially an escaped convict on Gotham. Bet you never thought you’d see those words typed out, huh?

But it’s true! Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) bested Gordon and got him locked up. Thanks to Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) and the return of season one villain Carmine Falcone (John Doman), Gordon escaped prison before the warden could kill him. So what’s his next move?

“His first goal is going to be to try and clear his name,” Gotham executive producer John Stephens tells Nerdist. “He doesn’t believe that if he goes off and tries to find Lee [Morena Baccarin], that they’re going to be able to have any sort of life if he’s going to have to live a life of a fugitive. He’s not going to ask her to do that. So he needs to find out who framed him, which will obviously set him on a collision course with Nygma.”

While the audience knows that Nygma was behind Gordon’s arrest, Gordon has no idea his “friend” at the GCPD was the architect of his downfall.

“This particular showdown of Gordon vs. Nygma [is what] we’re going to see this season,” Stephens says. “You’ll absolutely see it happen sooner than you think. It’s going to set up a longer-term dynamic between the two of them as nemeses that is going to play throughout the life of the series. Gordon is really going to see Ed for who he is in terms of his darkness. Before all this, Gordon probably took Ed a little bit for granted and didn’t give full weight to Ed’s intelligence. Going forward past this episode, Gordon will have no choice but to acknowledge that. It’s the beginning of putting Ed up there with Penguin [Robin Lord Taylor] in terms of another nemesis for Gordon.”

Gotham

And bringing back Gordon’s nemesis from season one, Falcone, to help him this time around was such an awesome surprise.

“We always wanted to bring him back this season, but we just didn’t know when that was going to happen,” Stephens says. “And then once we started breaking out this arc, we realized this was the natural place for him to re-enter. We always wanted to see him again. He was a great character in the canon so it made sense to bring him back.”

But don’t expect to see Falcone stick around for the rest of the season.

“For now, he was just back for the one episode,” Stephens says. “We’d certainly love to see him in the future of the series, but for now, this will be his only appearance this season.”

When he was still in jail, Gordon was devastated to learn that Lee lost their baby and she moved away from Gotham. Now that he’s out, what does that mean for their relationship? Nothing good.

“He doesn’t know how to mend those bridges and mend those fences,” Stephens says. “She didn’t want to close the door on that relationship, but now, with the baby gone, it’s much easier for her to move on. Once Jim clears his name, if he wants to mend that relationship, it’s going to be harder for him to do. The two of them are farther apart than ever.”

Gotham

And for all of you hoping that Oswald’s father Elijah Van Dahl (Paul Reubens) just collapsed and isn’t dead, I’ve got some bad news for you.

“He’s officially dead,” Stephens says. “I know, it’s terrible. Paul was great. But no, he’s dead.”

Even though Oswald seems to trust his new family, expect him to finally start to wise up to the fact that there was something unnatural about Elijah’s death.

“As time goes on, he’s going to start to suspect that something not good is going on,” Stephens says. “He’s going to get onto the case of it. And Elijah’s death is going to have deeper implications for him too, in terms of his character.”

Yes, he’s talking about how Hugo Strange’s (BD Wong) experiments on Oswald changed his personality for the better.

Gotham Hugo Strange

“I think the Penguin is still alive, lurking inside of Oswald,” Stephens says. “Moving forward, as he deals with the emotional upheaval of the death of his father, the Penguin might start to crack open inside of him. And then woe betide anyone who crossed him!”

Another one of Hugo’s patients, Barbara Keane (Erin Richards), just woke up from her coma inside Arkham. But she won’t stay there for long.

“Barbara is going to be released back into Gotham and she will be sent on a trajectory right back to Gordon, since that’s the biggest relationship she had in her life before,” Stephens says. “The two of them will resolve their relationship in a way that I think is going to surprise you.”

What are you most excited to see from tonight’s episode of Gotham? Tweet me your thoughts at @SydneyBucksbaum!

Images: Fox

Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.

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