As far as Gotham is concerned, Ra’s al Ghul is He Who Shall Not Be Named. Executive producer Danny Cannon was able to tease the character at WonderCon, but as members of the cast gathered in March at New York’s Whitby Hotel to wine and dine (but mostly wine) with press, no amount of vodka sodas would loosen their tongues for very long.

We already know that actor Alexander Siddig (Game of Thrones) will join the likes of Liam Neeson (Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins) and Matt Nable (The CW’s Arrow) in portraying Ra’s. But at the event’s press conference that followed an advanced screening of the next episode, reporters avoided the topic even though the last shot of “How the Riddler Got His Name” pointed to his introduction.

As I spoke with Camren Bicondova during the cocktail reception, the Catwoman actress confessed she had “no idea” what his presence will mean for the show, nor did she recall seeing the name in the scripts. Maggie Geha would only say her character, Ivy, doesn’t know the name Ra’s al Ghul — “at least not yet” — while Erin Richards (Barbara Kean) said she wasn’t at liberty to reveal anything at all. However, Robin Lord Taylor (Penguin) was slightly more forthcoming:

My character does not know who Ra’s Al Ghul is. My character, you know, is — yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s like there’s an element that’s coming in that will sweep us all up…I have an issue with Nygma that’s gonna tie me into his story which is going to pull me into Barbara’s story which is then also part of Jim’s story and, you know, it’s coming into the vortex. I don’t know how much I can say.

When I asked if Ra’s has something to do with what Ben McKenzie (Jim Gordon) said during the press conference about all the characters forced to unite over a looming event, Taylor teased, “You’re sort of on the right track.”

Ra’s al Ghul aside, there was much to discuss of Gotham’s return.

The Court of Owls Have a Plan for the City

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According to McKenzie, who directed “How the Riddler Got His Name,” the Court of Owls “really forms the foundation, backdrop for the rest of the season in terms of the plot mechanics for the rest of the season. They have a certain mission [that] involves the fate of the city and it involves all of us [pointing to his cast mates on stage] coming — not really coming together, sorting out how to save the city, not as though we’re actually trying to help each other.”

The surprise emergence of Jim’s uncle Frank (James Remar) will both bring the character closer to the Court and answer some questions about his father’s death. McKenzie explained:

He’s yearning for some connection. Everything in his life at the moment has fallen apart. His killing of Mario, which saves the love of his life also loses her at the same time. So he doesn't have much going on and there’s a connection, perhaps subconscious. He wants to understand what happened to his father. His father was killed in front of him in what appeared to be an accident and his uncle is on the scene and his uncle has information to give him, and Gordon is constantly searching for answers and the answers are never really close at hand, or if they are, they’re never really satisfying. And so that will lead him into contact with the Court of Owls.

“A New Beginning” for The Riddler

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“How the Riddle Got His Name” is a pretty self-explanatory title, though Edward Nygma will also be donning a more comic-book classic rendition of the Riddler’s green suit. Cory Michael Smith told reporters:

Something that I’ve enjoyed during the latter half of this season is that he’s finally claimed an identity, but it doesn’t necessarily answer any deep question about his identity. He’s called himself something, but now begins the journey of finding out what that actually means to him. Who is this new person? This is someone who constantly struggles with identity. We saw that manifested very literally at the beginning of season 2 when he was seeing two of himself and struggling then, and so now he’s just constantly searching for himself. But now, well, he has the outfit, what does that mean? How is he going to behave now? How does he walk into a room now or interact with people? How does he expect people to respond to him? So now begins a whole new journey, a new identity for him.

The actor clarified that “Edward’s not really interested in running the underworld, he’s interested in finding his own identity.” Though, in the 16th episode of season 3, he’ll be put in the crossfire over the war for Gotham’s throne. “There will be alliances made. We’re gonna be running into each other,” he said, motioning to Richards, “but it will cause problems because I tortured those two [Butch and Tabitha].”

Jessica Lucas further explained that a Riddler-Barbara connection “certainly brings Butch and Tabitha much closer together, I would say, and stirs up a lot of trouble between Barbara and Tabitha and that will get more and more intense as the season goes on.”

“It’s pretty obvious by the end of this episode that we’re setting up an epic battle between the two [Riddler and Penguin],” Drew Powell added.

Erin Richards Responds to Harley Quinn Comparisons

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With Harley Quinn’s ascension to fan-favorite Batman villain status, fans have been drawing connections between Joker’s mad gal and Barbara. Richards doesn’t find it frustrating at all. “I’ve sort of seen and have been playing a little bit with that part — not as Harley Quinn but just in [Barbara’s] own right, like the kind of madness,” she said.

Now, Richards feels “that she has maybe left behind that part of her that was the Harley Quinn type, where it was just kind of madness for madness’ sake.” Her main motivation now is becoming the queen of Gotham.

“She’s always looking for her place in the world and she’s suddenly found it. She’s like, ‘Oh my god, I can run this thing,” Richards explained. “But then there might be a kind of interesting thing happening at the end of the season.”

Poison Ivy Will Blossom Into Her “Darker” Self In Season 4

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Without delving into too many spoilers, Geha’s Ivy will form a relationship with Penguin, after his allegedly watery death from the end of Nygma’s barrel. But the actress is more excited about what Season 4 will bring.

Geha teased a “darker” Ivy to the room of reporters, but she told Collider, “I’m just really looking forward to season 4 because I think that will be a place for her to really grow into the person that’s in the comics.” She further teased Ivy’s upcoming pseudo-supernatural connection to plants that will be explored later on: “She definitely has a way with plants…and nobody can make the plants grow better than Ivy.”

On Ivy’s relationship with Penguin, Taylor told press, “One of the hardest things he went through the previous episode was losing every alliance that he had — literally everyone he had worked with at some point had turned against him — all by himself…But then it’s the perfect opportunity to come in with another character.”

He described their connection as a “real Odd Couple”: “someone who is as cynical, has been through it all as Penguin meeting someone who still has that desire to learn and to grow. That is something you will see blossom.”

Penguin's Musical Moment

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Gotham will be the next show to get a musical moment. While “How the Riddler Got His Name” isn’t anything as like the Supergirl-Flash crossover, a hallucinatory moment for Nygma will result in Taylor’s Penguin donning his classic comic book costume (complete with top hat) for an Amy Winehouse cover.

“I’m not playing the Penguin, I’m playing [Nygma’s] idea of who the Penguin was in this case,” Taylor said. He added:

If you notice in the scene, it’s the first time we introduce the top hat. I’m wearing the traditional Penguin outfit, and so there’s this beautiful — in a way, I keep coming to, before I was shot, I keep coming to Riddler and telling him, ‘I defined you,’ and in this episode, too, ‘I made you who you are.’ And then weirdly in his fantasy he made the Penguin who he is.

Taylor also pointed out that recorded his cover “in the same studio that Amy Winehouse sang that song.” (Which song we’ll leave for you to find out.) “Randomly production rented it out, the exact booth and then I was like, ‘Well, this is a really sad tribute to her’ because I can’t sing.”

Queer Characters

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While Gotham is inspired by the Batman comics and meant to pave the way for Bruce’s ascension to Dark Knight status, it’s never been more apparent that the show has become more of a new interpretation. One clear delineation came when Penguin revealed a romantic love for Nygma. Reflecting on that moment, Taylor told reporters at the conference:

I don’t want to get too heavy or political, but I have to say the fact that we introduced a queer element to a traditional villain storyline, something that’s been around for a very long time, I thought that was very brave and I thought that, even though it’s not the traditionally trajectory that things tend to go, I thought that really what we brought to it, both Cory and I, was a place of emotional honesty and the fact that that was treated and was embraced by both Warner Bros. and Fox I think is something that should be applauded.

The actor explained later to Collider his frustrations with some fans regarding that moment. He recalled “a lot of people coming at me and saying like, ‘I love what you do with the Penguin, but I really hate this gay thing because it’s not canon.’” His response is a spiel he’s given many times before:

Penguin was raised by penguins, and that was apparently fine, and you know Jack Nicholson, the Joker killing Batman’s parents in the first one [the Tim Burton movie]. I haven’t really seen a lot of people shitting their pants about that. But, you know, when we introduce a queer storyline: ‘Eh, we love you and we love the show, but this really bothers me because you’re really messing with the character’s origins.’ And I’m like, ‘You’re homophobic, that’s homophobic. That’s it, right there.’ So, yeah, my favorite thing is going back to the comics, now that I’ve said this in public … I like finding the weird-ass second-stream Penguin or whatever Action News comic stories that have completely divorced its way — like, Penguin’s driving a blimp. You know what I mean? That’s what I love because it reassures me that what we’re doing, even though we get a lot of people coming at us about it, this canon shit, this is to be reinterpreted and reimagined, and go back in the comics and look at how many different times it’s been done and how beautifully it’s been done, how it should be done. How stale would it be if we were just telling, you know, The Dark Knight Rises in another two years, every five years?

Gotham will return on Monday, April 24 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.

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