‘Gotham’ season 2 spoilers: Show boss on Michael Chiklis’ character, ties to Gordon
While you are not going to get much of Michael Chiklis in the “Gotham” season 2 premiere, rest assured that his character of Captain Nathaniel Barnes is going to make a big impression. He will be entering the world of Jim Gordon in a big way, and to go along with that, he could be the closest thing that he has to this point to a true mentor. Harvey Bullock is a good cop when he puts his mind to it, but that’s the problem: He can be distracted, and sometimes he lives within the realm of what he can get away with.
With Barnes, you’ve got someone who will share some common threads with Gordon, but as show creator Bruno Heller teases in previewing the season to The Hollywood Reporter, there are some problems with how the character does things that will become major rifts in the relationship over time:
“Finally Gordon has someone who is as gung-ho, committed and reckless enough to challenge the powers that be in Gotham, and bring about genuine change … The problem is that Gordon’s going to discover that, although they might be soul mates in their desire to change Gotham, Capt. Barnes is much more committed to the law. He’s a stickler for it; he’ll do anything within the law, but that’s a hard edge for him. For Gordon, there’s much more of a gray area there. They start out as allies, but as the stakes get higher and tensions get more fraught, they’ll start to get torn apart.”
The only thing that we necessarily would say that we’re hoping for with Chiklis’ character right now is that we are not witnessing some sort of transformation for him to become an eventual villain; that is something that we’ve seen far too much of in other crime / comic-book shows, and to us it will be more interesting if Gordon in some ways becomes the villain in Barnes’ eyes, and the two have to reconcile just how far he is willing to go in order to get the job done.
If you head over here, you can see some more of our “Gotham” coverage right now! We’re going to have our full review of the premiere online a little later in the evening. Also, be sure to sign up right away to have some other scoop on everything we cover sent right to you, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Fox.)
