Out Come The Freaks

The streets of Gotham are deadlier than ever... Tara Bennett talks dark knight, big city with the people shaping Bruce Wayne’s destiny.

If you’re trying to fight the good fight in Gotham City, it might be easier to just relocate to a new postcode. If we’ve learned anything from the Bat-prequel show it’s that the villains have their claws into the city. Corruption, it seems, is a virus that takes down everyone eventually, even an upstanding, honest guy like Jim Gordon.

Over two seasons, rookie Gotham City Police Department detective Gordon (Ben McKenzie) has been through the wringer, forced to make decisions that have upended his moral compass. Season three finds him alone, working outside Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) and the GCPD grid in an attempt to collect the busload of Arkham Asylum escapees loosed upon the streets in the season two finale.

An ever-expanding rogues’ gallery is infiltrating the city, from legacy baddies like Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor), to newer problems like Basil “Clayface” Karlo (Brian McManamon) and Professor Hugo Strange (BD Wong). An evolving nest of power-seekers – and monstrous Indian Hill experimental subjects – is on the streets, and that’s how executive producer Danny Cannon says they’re keeping the series fresh.

“I was really nervous at the end of last year, spilling monsters out into the city,” Cannon admits to SFX. “We’ve never been a ‘monster show’ but I think with Professor Strange and all his abilities, it organically allowed us to create not CG people, but real people. It’s like an old 1920s freak show. As long as we could keep our feet on the ground and make these things believable, I was into it. What it’s done for the show now is it goes further into creating a world where a vigilante like Batman is needed because the city is out of control.”