Gotham's S4 Finale Introduced Man-Bat, Mother & Orphan

CBR

Gotham's S4 Finale Introduced Major Players of the Batman Mythos

By Jon Arvedon

Published May 18, 2018

The Season 4 finale of Gotham introduced several major elements of the classic Batman mythos. What does that mean for Season 5, though?

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the Season 4 finale of Gotham, “No Man’s Land.”

Since its inception, Fox’s Batman-adjacent television series Gotham has been slowly but surely introducing components of the Caped Crusader’s long and storied history to its lore. However, in the finale to Season 4, fans got a taste of what – or rather whom -- is in store for the show’s fifth and final season.

As the episode comes to a close, we see Jim Gordon standing atop the GCPD Headquarters shining a pseudo-Bat-Signal into the sky. Much to his surprise, though, it’s the young Bruce Wayne that greets him.

As Gotham City fell victim to itself, viewers got just a mere taste of which villains will emerge from the shadows next season… including one potential ally.

As two would-be thieves enter a church, we see a hideous creature show its face and – surprising – spread its wings. Longtime Batman fans will immediately recognize this creature as none other than Man-Bat – the half man/half bat villain that was once Dr. Kirk Langstrom.

Additionally, fans got their first look at Mother and Orphan, who appeared immediately after Man-Bat. Of course, it’s no secret that executive producer John Stephens had plans to bring these two characters to the series. “There are a whole bunch of characters I want to see that I feel the viewers at large aren’t fully aware of, like Scarface or Ventriloquist,” Stephens told CBR. “There’s a great dark version of that character somewhere out there who I would like to see come out. Some characters we know we want to see are Mother and Orphan. We want to see Lady Shiva. We are going to see all those characters in Season 5.”

While the introductions of some of these characters remains to be seen, we do get a look at Mother and Orphan, as the former looks on lovingly while the latter hacks away at a corpse.

It’s worth noting, though, that Cassandra Cain/Orphan has spent more time as a hero than villain, even adopting the Batgirl identity for a number of years and becoming a fan-favorite character in the process. Though considering there isn’t a Batman yet to inspire her, she may prove to be less inclined to help Gotham City out at this stage of her life.

Gotham stars Ben McKenzie as James Gordon, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock, David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne, Robin Lord Taylor as Penguin, Camren Bicondova as Selina Kyle, Erin Richards as Barbara Kean and Sean Pertwee as Alfred Pennyworth. The series will return next season.