For all that you could say about FOX's Gotham, if there’s one thing that resolutely stood out about the show was its propensity to double down on the crazy. The series, which seemed like a poorly conceptualized procedural set in Gotham pre-Batman, slowly turned into an edgy Elseworlds-esque take on the Batman mythos. One addition that not only captured all that the series had to offer but stands as a resolute reminder of what made Gotham work was Jada Pinkett Smith’s Fish Mooney.

It’s no secret that Gotham struggled to find itself earlier in its run. Confused about tone as well as which influence it should follow (the darkness of Tim Burton’s series or the realism of The Dark Knight saga), the freshman run felt muddled, with the case-of-the-week approach grinding the overarching story of the season to a halt. It didn’t help that so many of the characters that would become centerpieces in the series were only just beginning to start their five-season-long journeys. In the interim, there felt a serious vacuum of an enigmatic presence on screen. Enter Fish Mooney.

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Image via FOX

Created by series developer Bruno Heller, Fish Mooney is an original character for the show and is an underling of crime kingpin Carmine Falcone (John Doman). Pinkett Smith has stated that she drew upon the real-life drug lord Griselda Blanco, as well as Gloria Swanson’s Sunset Boulevard character Norma Desmond, and it certainly shows. Fish Mooney is one of the most exciting characters in the series, her shrewd business acumen pairing nicely with her relentless hunger to be the most powerful person in the room. She is a dichotomy of sorts, being one of the few female power players in Gotham at that time yet remaining very feminine and even motherly to many of her henchmen, including Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor). She also gives off a very calm aura, which makes her sudden strikes all the more deadly.

While Gotham had no shortage of rogues from the infamous villains' gallery of The Caped Crusader, with everyone from The Madhatter to the Joker popping up, they took a while to fully develop into the evil masterminds we’re familiar with. Additionally, much of the early Gotham was part-cop procedural and part-mafia drama, with characters like Sal Maroni and Falcone being the chief power brokers in the city. Therefore, a character like Fish Mooney felt necessary to disrupt the status quo from within. Mooney started out as a smaller fish in the larger male dominated crime empire of Gotham but from day one, we were made privy to her greater career aspirations as well as her influence within the GCPD and the city overall.

Her relationships with the key characters of Gotham helped many of them reach their potential. Take Cobblepot, whom she hobbles when he rats her out to the police, and later learns from her how to be the great crime boss he becomes. Her dying words, “Make this city yours or burn it to the ground,” become fuel for him as he levels up to be a big Batman adversary. She similarly teaches Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova) how to thrive in a city dominated by men, becoming a mentor figure for some time.

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Image via FOX

The series struggled in its early days to coopt a direction to take its stable of popular characters in, Fish Mooney though, suffered no such qualms. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that she felt more fully realized than any of the other characters that were introduced to us, including Jim Gordon himself (Benjamin McKenzie). Fish made every scene so much more fun because there was no indication if she would flip the switch or not. Time and time again, the show proved that she was a woman of remarkable tenacity (who doesn’t have the scene of her ripping her own eye out burned into their brains?) and wit, almost always being the smartest or most capable person in the room. She valued and rewarded loyalty but could also be incredibly violent to those who wronged her, and her temper and tendency to punish would sometimes come at the expense of a smarter plan and be her own undoing. Her flaws and skills made her a worthy adversary and a fully realized character, holding her own amidst a pantheon of more recognizable villains.

Not every step the writers mapped out for her was a success. Her superpowered storyline wasn’t the best direction for the character. While it made sense that the writers brought her back after killing her off in Season 1 because the show sorely lacked her energy in Season 2, giving her powers never worked for a character already expert at manipulation. Thus, her power to compel others to do her bidding made her return seem short-lived from the moment she appeared on-screen. It also undermined her own pre-existing capabilities and put her on track for her weakest storyline on the show to date.

It’s a shame that Fish's character never quite made it to the comics the way characters like Harley Quinn and X-23, who started out as animated series creations, did. Smith’s scenery-chewing and ability to be campy in a way that harkened back to the Burton films made her Gotham’s most vibrant character, and there’s no denying that she could be a great addition to the crime-infested hellhole that is the Gotham City of the comics today. Her look is also quite striking, with her short height, spiky hair, and heterochromatic eyes, and could look quite captivating in the hands of the right artist. Plus, her role affiliation with the crime bosses of Gotham and role in the cartel would make her the sole female head of a criminal organization in Gotham.

In all the madness that transpired in five seasons of Gotham, Fish Mooney stands out as a great reminder of what the series was able to take from the Batman mythology and create characters that would fit seamlessly into what we know about the city.