Gotham: Fish Mooney Returns

Episode 21–“A Legion of Horribles”–of Gotham will see the return of Fish Mooney, played by Jada Pinkett Smith.

By now, we should all know that nothing stays dead in Gotham City, so this should not come as a surprise to anyone. In the most recent promo for Episode 21–“A Legion of Horribles”–of Gotham, we saw the return of Fish Mooney, played by Jada Pinkett Smith.

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The last time we saw Fish was in the Season 1 finale–“All Happy Families are Alike“–when she faced off with her “little bird” (Penguin) on top of a building. Penguin lunged at her and threw her off the ledge into the ravaging waters below. Like all great television tropes, if there’s no body then it means there’s no death. (Heck, if there is a body, it still may mean there’s no death.)

However, Smith went on record saying she doubted her character would ever return to the show. Like I said, “Never say never.” Earlier this year, reports came in that Smith would be returning to Gotham for multiple episodes.

The new promo shows Fish being resurrected by Doctor Strange. And it seems that being “dead” all that time hasn’t even extinguished any of that fiery attitude of hers:

Fish’s resurrection shouldn’t be that much of a surprise to audiences. At the end of one of the episodes in Season 2, when the camera panned around–what was then not known to be Strange’s–Indian Hill research facility, we actually got a glimpse of a body in one of the incubation chambers that looked suspiciously like our notorious mob underboss.

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Fish has had a pretty crazy character arc on Gotham: she’s been unseated as an underboss; kidnapped and brought to an organ-harvesting island; and she’s also gouged her own eyeball out. After her supposed death, fans were wondering who would take her place in the main storyline. If Season 2 has proven anything, Jim Gordon has had his hands full with a whole slew of weird and wacky baddies coming out of the woodwork.

The character of Fish Mooney was a creation of the television show and had no comic book origin. Fans have long speculated that she may have been a predecessor, or prototype, to a much better known villain in the comics–but that theory never really panned out.

Jada Pinkett Smith is set to reprise her role as Fish Mooney in Gotham‘s “A Legion of Horribles” which will air on Monday, May 16, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. EST on Fox.