Jerome’s ‘Gotham’ return helps Bruce build his Batman philosophy

The return of “Gotham” is closing in — and fans are very excited about the return of Cameron Monaghan as Jerome, the man who could end up being Batman’s greatest foe, the Joker. As we learned this week, though, Jerome’s return is actually going to end up being even more major than we expected.

Jerome’s story stretches over the next three episodes of “Gotham,” which will bring his arc to a close before the series goes on hiatus once again. In that time though, he’s going to have some serious — and historic — interactions with none other than Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz).

“[Bruce] really gets pulled into the Jerome story full-tilt. We really see a big step that he takes, another chink in the Batman philosophy, another brick in that wall gets built, in episode 14 — and it gets built via Jerome. And Jerome will really be standing in for the person we know probably is out there,” executive producer John Stephens says, obviously referencing the Joker. “To us it’s very significant that that guy ends up informing this part of the Batman mythology.”

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Given that the last time Jerome was alive he was hoping to kill Bruce — on orders from Theo Galavan (James Frain) — something tells us their interactions will not be friendly. With Monaghan as Joker surrogate, seeing young Bruce Wayne going toe-to-toe with the man who may become his most intense rival when he finally dons the cowl is bound to be something special.

And it’s something producers have had in mind since before Jerome died in Season 2.

“When we killed him in Season 2, the plan was always to bring him back to life. At the end of Season 1, we knew that we were going to do a reanimation story at the end of Season 2, so we though, ‘Let’s kill somebody key, that no one’s going to think we’re going to kill — then we’ll bring him back to life next season,'” Stephens explains. “Jerome was the most obvious candidate for that.”

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He’s not necessarily going to be the person he was way back then, though. After all, he’s died and come back to life. That’s bound to change a person.

“He’s not as nice as he was before,” Stephens says. “He’s definitely changed. The way we talked to Cameron about it is that somebody who’s basically gone through death and come back to life has a different point of view, a much grander point of view… [He] wants to see himself on a much larger stage.”

Of course, the executive producer also teases the madman is “more psychotic than he was before.” So get ready for some crazy.

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“Gotham” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

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