‘Gotham’ Producer Says Full Batman Transition is Very Close

Kim Taylor-Foster
TV DC
TV DC

Gotham is currently in its fourth season. A season that writer, director and executive producer on the show, Danny Cannon, calls “the crazy, bananas season.”

“We just go nuts,” he says. Speaking at New York Comic-Con, the British creative force behind the show — which rewinds to Bruce Wayne’s childhood years — teased some enticing details about the season during a round-table interview. Including Bruce’s imminent transition to full-blown Batman.

“We’re getting very close,” says Cannon. “The turmoil that he goes through this season is the death rattles of youth, basically. He’s becoming a man and starting to feel the responsibilities of that, and things go really badly before they get better. His relationship with Alfred will break down and be tested, and dissolve. He will also take on a disguise, a personality disguise and become a billionaire brat, something that Bruce Wayne needs to do to throw people off the scent of his vigilante passions.”

Developments for Ra’s al Ghul and Penguin

Ra's al Ghul gets really evil in Season 4.

We’ve already had a taste of that persona in Episode 3 of Season 4, where Bruce adopted the guise at the auction of Ra’s al Ghul’s knife, outbidding Barbara Kean. Ra’s al Ghul is another of this season’s significant characters.

“Halfway through, you see how evil he really is,” says Cannon.

Ra’s al Ghul actor Alexander Siddig, sitting alongside Cannon, says he loves playing a bad guy in Gotham.

“Bad guys are the most fun to play because they get all the best lines and they’re often the sexiest roles,” he says. “The fact that I get to figure out ways to make it not too obvious what I’m trying to do is my challenge, the thing I really enjoy. And the writers make no bones about exactly what they’d like to see and what they need done by Ra’s al Ghul, and I try and find a way to confound them and still deliver. Surprise, that’s probably my M.O.”

This season, Siddig’s favourite scenes have been some of those with David Mazouz, who plays Bruce Wayne, and a dungeon scene that he won’t elaborate on.

gotham-mad-city-s3e01-penguin-in-gcpd
We'll see Penguin behind bars this season.

Finally, Cannon also spilled some beans on Penguin’s story this season: “Penguin is so good at being in charge that one of our other cast will find a way of dismantling him for good. Of taking him out of the picture and putting him back in prison where he belongs. But the bad thing about going to prison for our characters is there’s a lot of bad people in prison with him so you can imagine what’s going to happen there.”

Definitely sounds ominous.

Kim Taylor-Foster
Kim Taylor-Foster is Entertainment Editor for Fandom in the UK. She was raised on an unsteady diet of video nasties and violent action flicks.