Author: Graeme McMillan

April 13, 2015 8:45am PT by Graeme McMillan

 Fox

“The finale is just absolutely bananas.”

It’s been quite a year for Jim Gordon, the only honest cop featured on Fox’s Gotham.

He’s uncovered conspiracies inside and out of the Gotham City Police Department, been accused of murder, lost (and regained) his position as a detective and even witnessed a murderer whose preferred method of transport was balloons. As Ben McKenzie, who plays the upright hero in television’s meanest city, told The Hollywood Reporter, the worst is yet to come.

“The finale is just absolutely bananas, and I couldn’t even really begin to describe all the crazy things that happen in it,” the actor says of the hour that will put the spotlight on the “downward spiral of Gotham.”

The season finale, he noted, will see Gotham inch closer toward “ultimate anarchy” that will result in “masked vigilantes roaming the streets” — with major consequences for the characters around Gordon.

“Not everybody lives, and the people who do live don’t necessarily end up mentally all there,” he said. “There’s a price to be paid. It’s really crazy.”

McKenzie, however, remained mum on the fate of departing star Jada Pinkett Smith‘s Fish Mooney and if one of the DC Comics’ show’s most colorful villains will meet her maker by season’s end.

In the more immediate future, Gordon has to deal with the threat of Milo Ventimiglia‘s new character the Ogre — and it’s very possible he’ll have to do it alone. “We’re introducing the Ogre, a serial killer who’s searching for his perfect mate,” McKenzie previewed of the story that he cautioned isn’t a tale of simple romantic troubles. “He has very exacting standards that have not been met.”

The Ogre has been active for years without being stopped by the cops, much to Gordon’s disgust. “The reason the Ogre remains free is that any cop that comes after him pays a personal price because someone they love is killed — or tortured and killed,” he says of the story with “Machiavellian twists and turns” that will push Gordon into pursuing the case, no matter the cost to himself or Leslie Thompkins (Morena Baccarin), his current love interest.

“Jim is put in a very difficult situation, and it all comes to a head toward the end in a pretty dramatic way,” he warned.

Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.

Graeme McMillan

THRnews@thr.com

April 11, 2015 12:00pm PT by Graeme McMillan

 Jessica Miglio/FOX

“Every turn, every kill, every moment for this guy, there’s a reason why he’s doing it all,” the “Heroes” alum tells THR.

Milo Ventimiglia is no stranger to the superhero world, with a résumé that includes NBC’s Heroes and voice roles for Marvel animated series including X-Men Anime and Ultimate Spider-Man. But his character on Fox’s Gotham is far from anyone’s idea of a hero.

“They took a name from the comic, and they created their own character,” the Mob City alum told The Hollywood Reporter about the Ogre, who makes his debut Monday. “The character they gave Jim Gordon to fight, right up until the very end, is a pretty bad guy.”

The veteran actor — who next appears in ABC’s summer scripted mystery The Whispers — is having a field day on Gotham, where he’s stretching his acting wings with his role as the big bad. “[It’s fun to have] the opportunity to step outside of yourself and create a character that, in real life, we just can’t do,” he said. “I mean, we can, but we’ll go to jail.”

“The idea of who this guy is, and why he is, is so compelling that every turn, every kill, every moment for this guy, there’s a reason why he’s doing it all,” said Ventimiglia, who is acting opposite longtime friend Ben McKenzie (Jim Gordon). “It may not be your reason, or my personal reason, but there is a reason.” 

Ventimiglia, who recurs for the remainder of the DC Comics adaptation’s freshman season, knew he was signing on to portray a serial killer looking for love and is looking forward to learning more about the mysterious character who goes by the name of Jason Lennon.

“I discovered — as everyone else will discover — his motives, and how he was created,” he said of the role that serves as a reunion for the Gilmore Girls alum with executive producer John Stephens.

The role also marks an extension of Ventimiglia’s own personal interests — the fanboy says he was “raised on comics” and watched Fox’s Gotham from the start to support pals McKenzie and co-star Donal Logue.

“Those were the stories I was following as a kid, the stories that expanded my creative mind and got me excited about being a good guy in life and standing up for others that were oppressed or hurt, or looked down on for whatever reason,” he said. “This is the world that raised me.”

While the ultimate fate of the Ogre will remain a mystery for a few weeks — the actor refused to even reveal if he would be sharing scenes with other villains featured on the Fox hit, though he did say that the character is “on his own path” — Ventimiglia described his time on Gotham as “a perfect storm.”

Gotham airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on Fox.

Graeme McMillan

THRnews@thr.com

April 06, 2015 2 hours ago by Graeme McMillan

 FOX

“The Ogre is the GCPD’s dirty little secret.”

There’s a new bad guy in Gotham — but the Ogre might turn out to be far more trouble than any of the criminals that Jim Gordon has dealt with in the Fox series so far, as this new teaser for the season’s final episodes reveals.

The Ogre, played by Milo Ventimiglia, will make his debut in “Beasts of Prey,” the April 13 episode of the show, and drive the series as it heads toward its finale. As the video explains, he’s a serial killer who has managed to avoid capture by targeting the loved ones of cops who’ve investigated him in the past, but that’s not enough to scare off Gordon (Ben McKenzie).

“This extremely dangerous man will do something terrible to someone that Jim loves — and there’s going to be hell to pay,” McKenzie teases. But with Morena Baccarin, who plays Gordon’s current love interest Leslie Thompkins, reportedly on board for the show’s second season, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a death is in the future — or, at least, not Leslie’s death.

Gotham returns with new episodes April 13 on Fox.

Graeme McMillan

THRnews@thr.com