Here’s why Gotham season 4 episode 11 “Queen Takes Knight” was so important for the Joker, aka Jerome Valeska. The Joker is arguably the most iconic comic book villain of all time and has tormented both Batman and Gotham City for decades. There have been several memorable portrayals of the character too, from Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s Batman to Heath Ledger’s terrifying performance in The Dark Knight.

The TV series Gotham explores the titular city before Batman was around to keep it safe. The show deals with cop Jim Gordon trying to maintain some kind of order over the crime-infested city, while young Bruce Wayne slowly begins his journey towards becoming the caped crusader. The show also introduced the character of Jerome Valeska (Cameron Monaghan), a deranged young psychopath who is clearly modeled on the Joker. That said, Gotham never labeled the character that way and it was eventually revealed the show was prevented using the classic depiction of the villain so he could be retained for the DCEU movies.

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Instead, the character of Jerome acts as something of a seed for the future Joker to emerge. Monaghan’s performance made the character a memorable villain, but Gotham only used Jerome sporadically throughout the first three seasons. After being absent for the first half of the fourth season, Jerome made a triumphant comeback in Gotham season 4 episode 11 “Queen Takes Knight.”

This episode finds Oswald Cobblepot sent to Arkham Asylum after being bested by Sofia Falcone, with The Penguin being beckoned in his new cell by a mysterious voice with offers of help. Oswald looks through a grate to the next cell, where Jerome’s scarred visage suddenly appears. Gotham season 4 episode 11 set up the endgame for Jerome, with the character soon joining forces with Oswald, The Scarecrow and others in a plot to drive the entire city insane. Jerome finally came into his own as the major villain of this portion of the season, but in a shock twist, he later falls to his death in episode 18 “That’s Entertainment.”

Jerome had beaten death before but this was the end of the road for the character, but it’s later revealed he sent his twin brother Jeremiah a gift box filled with toxic laughing gas. Jeremiah soon inherits his brother’s madness and becomes yet another prototype for The Joker, which leads to the No Man’s Land storyline of Gotham season 5. Gotham season 4 episode 11 is when the show really brought Jerome to the forefront, with the show’s unique take on the Joker putting his plan in place to shape the future of the city.

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About The Author


Padraig Cotter
(3486 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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