TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Gotham Season 04 Episode 17: Mandatory Brunch Meeting

The origin of the Joker is one of the biggest mysteries in all of comics. To this day, there’s no definitive origin to the character, and the current DC Comics say that there are THREE Jokers. But, the one story that most agree is the “definitive” tale is “The Killing Joke”, where we learn that “one bad day” made the Joker go from a simple man to a full-on psycho. And tonight’s “Mandatory Brunch Meeting” made numerous references on the comic while also putting some VERY interesting twists on the character Jerome.

Since his release, we’ve all been wondering what Jerome’s plan was, and we got two big reveals in regards to it. One, Jerome has a twin brother! And two…THEY MADE THE JOKER TOXIN! Seeing it at the end of the episode was not only haunting, but it was a big step in the direction of Jerome becoming the Joker…despite many saying he’s still not.

Finding out about Jerome’s brother was shocking in numerous ways. Not the least of which was because his brother Jeremiah is actually incredibly sane, and is a skilled architect. But more than that, we found out that it was because of Jeremiah that Jerome went fully off the edge.

Because Jeremiah could see his brother’s violent tendencies when they were young, and lied to their mother to get him away, and because of this, Jerome was treated badly, and thus it could be argued that Jeremiah created Jerome’s new persona. And because of that, Jerome wants him dead…eventually. But first, he wants to turn the town mad, and to do that, he needs the Joker Toxin. Oh boy.

Meanwhile, Penguin made a move to get himself back in power. He’s keeping Jerome in view to know what he’s planning, but he’s helping Butch so that when Jerome falls, Penguin can return to power. It’s very interesting, and it’ll be fun to see if this goes anywhere special.

Finally, Nygma opened up a new club in the Narrows that kills people if they lose a Riddle’s match against Riddler. Naturally, Leslie showed up, and challenged him to make it stop. It was very compelling seeing these two battle each other, and then, Leslie using her knowledge of Ed and Riddler to win, and then convince Riddler to join her was a good shock. I really look forward to seeing where this goes.

Bruce also was involved, but they seemingly left him high and dry half way through and it was confusing for sure. Next week is teasing something big though for him so I’ll wait.

In the end, “Mandatory Brunch Meeting” pulled off some big shocks and continues to build up the Jerome storyline to something very special.