10 Best Gotham Scenes That Could Have Only Happened In One Of DC's Most Bonkers TV Shows

Gotham is one of the most divisive yet entertaining DC television series over the past 20 years, and some wild scenes helped it stand out. Following a young Jim Gordon and Gotham's colorful criminal underbelly, the show traded realism and grit for a unique brand of dark comedy that felt straight out of a Batman comic. Even so, Gotham gained a reputation for outright bizarre writing and a lack of continuity with the Batman franchise during its five seasons.

A huge part of Gotham's appeal was its unflinching commitment to its tone. While it is not the darkest or the most accurate adaptation of the Batman mythos, the Fox series aimed to entertain and surprise. It wasn't exactly a critical darling in its heyday, but the quality of Gotham was consistent throughout its run. With an abundance of cartoonish violence and morally grey characters, Gotham was nothing if not entertaining, for better or worse.

10 Professor Pyg Does The Meat Pie Tango

Gotham Wasn't Afraid To Have A Macabre Musical Moment

While Gotham had a host of peculiar characters, Professor Pyg took the cake, or more accurately, pie. In season 4 episode 9, "Let Them Eat Pie," he unveils his cover of "Cell Block Tango." Only, his song is a darkly comedic parody of the Chicago hit in which Professor Pyg reveals the pies he serves Gotham's aristocracy are made of human meat. While such a revolting plotline isn't unusual in the Batman universe, forcing dinner guests, including the Penguin, into cannibalism during a musical number is the sort of thing only Gotham could pull off.

More generally, Professor Pyg is the type of over-the-top character most television series and movies would shy away from. However, Gotham thrived on exactly that sort of absurdity. As such, Professor Pyg's portrayal successfully walked the tightrope between horrific and hilarious.

9 Penguin & Butch Kill Azrael With A Bazooka

It Was One Of Gotham's Most Outrageous Moments

In most series, a character is confirmed dead when the body is shown, but Gotham operated differently with its deaths. Multiple characters returned from the dead courtesy of Hugo Strange throughout the show's run, including Theo Galavan. Resurrected as the "ancient" warrior Azrael, he is sent to kill Gordon. That plan goes sideways due to the intervention of the Penguin, who orders Butch Gilzean to take him out. Because Gotham and camp are synonyms, he does so with a bazooka, completely destroying Azrael.

Though such a comical choice of weapon could break audience immersion, Gotham avoided this pitfall solely because it leaned into the absurdity of using a rocket launcher for murder. After killing Azrael, Penguin emerges from the flames, looks Gordon in the eyes, and says, "you're welcome." This scene exemplifies Gotham's ability to mess with the audience by providing a surprise and a laugh in rapid succession.

8 Jim Gordon Investigates At A Baby Resort

Gotham Didn't Shy Away From Showing Its Citizens' Strange Pasttimes

Gotham is a weird city, and the series of the same name often showed just how bizarre its inhabitants are. For instance, in season 4 episode 15, Gordon and his partner, Harvey Bullock, find themselves at a spa of grown adults dressed as babies during an investigation. An employee serving milk to the patrons chides the GCPD for violating the resort's anonymity policy. This level of weirdness gets to Bullock, who quips "what fresh hell is this?" upon seeing the guests.

Gotham doubles down on the quirky scene when the cops spot the Ventriloquist posing as one of the babies and take him in. Gordon perp-walking a man in a bib is the sort of imagery only Gotham was daring enough to put on network television, and it stands out as one of the show's more surprising comedic choices.

7 Penguin Kills Martin

Gotham's Penguin Was A Master Manipulator

Gotham season 4 pitted the Penguin, the self-proclaimed "King of Gotham," against Sofia Falcone, daughter of the notorious Don Carmine Falcone. The two play a game of cat and mouse. The Penguin kidnaps Sofia, so to get even, Sofia later abducts Martin, a mute child with whom the villain has struck up a friendship. After they arrange an exchange, the Penguin declares that he will not allow Martin to be used against him. He then blows up the car the young boy just entered.

Gotham surprised audiences by allowing a main character to kill a child he cared about, a move few other shows would attempt. The end of the same episode does reveal that the Penguin protected Martin from the blast, but the scene remains equally memorable and out of pocket. Moreover, the Penguin outsmarting Sofia further shows the care Gotham put into characterizing its villains.

6 Bruce and Jerome Bring A New Meaning To Face-Off

Gotham Referenced The Joker With A Gnarly Carnival Fight

Though DC had strict rules about which characters the series could use, Gotham skated by restrictions on using the Joker. Jerome Valeska, introduced in the first season, was a Joker-like character who shared traits and story elements with the comic book villain. Notably, Gotham adapted a plotline from "Death of the Family" wherein Joker removes his face and wears it as a mask. Jerome's face is removed involuntarily, but like the Joker, he "wears" his own skin by stapling it in place.

After his makeshift facial reconstruction, Jerome kidnaps and then fights a young Bruce Wayne in a Hall of Mirrors. Gotham takes full advantage of the disorienting setting to show how poor Bruce feels as he almost loses his cool on Jerome. The future Batman's repeated punches loosen Jerome's "mask," so when Gordon knocks the villain out, his face falls off. This prompts Bullock to say the most "Gotham" line in the entire series: "at least you get to say you punched a man's face off."

5 Fish Mooney Defies The Dollmaker

Gotham's Fish Made It Clear She Would Rather Harm Herself Than Lose

While Gotham adapted a lot of existing Batman characters, it also created a few of its own. Fish Mooney, played by a very in-her-element Jada Pinkett Smith, acted as the Penguin's mentor and rival in Gotham's criminal underworld. Though she had a few standout moments, one Fish moment wins the prize for Gotham's goriest surprise. When the crime boss is kidnapped from jail by the Dollmaker, she refuses to let him sell off her body parts.

In a show of dominance, Fish scoops out her eye and stomps on it, thwarting the villain's plan. She is willing to permanently disfigure herself in order to avoid being at his mercy. The Dollmaker is impressed, and he provides her with a replacement eye. Fish then plays him by pretending to be his right-hand woman. The stomach-curdling scene exhibits Gotham's unhinged storytelling. It may have been gross, but it served a huge purpose in Fish's story arc.

4 Penguin Feeds His Stepmother Her Children

Penguin Avenged His Father In The Most Unsavory Way

It's no secret that the Penguin was one of Gotham's best characters. The villain was both chaotic and calculating, and Robin Lord Taylor's performance only heightened his campy characterization. One of his chief qualities on the show was loyalty. If the Penguin is your ally, he will fight to the death for you, unless you cross him. In Gotham season 2, the Penguin's mother is murdered by Galavan, which causes him to reconnect with his father, Elijah. Sadly, Elijah dies when he ingests a poisoned drink intended for his son.

Upon discovering his stepmother is the guilty party, the Penguin avenges his father. He serves her dinner, then as she eats, he reveals she is making a meal of her children's remains. After letting the realization sink in, the Gotham villain kills her. The violent scene is as horrifying as it is captivating, largely due to Lord Taylor's manic acting.

3 Ra’s Al Ghul Manipulates Bruce Wayne Into Murder

Gotham Made A Huge Change To Batman's Backstory

With a show that takes as many risks as Gotham, some of them were bound to ruffle a few feathers. In particular, depicting a young Batman posed a significant challenge. Bruce was only 12 in the first season of Gotham, so he was not supposed to know most of the villains yet. The series worked around this constraint by making Gordon the cop who responded when Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered. Later seasons ran out of ways to separate Bruce from his future foes, and he did interact with Selina Kyle, the Penguin, and others while still a teenager.

Perhaps the most egregious example is when Gotham pitted a high school-aged Bruce against Ra's Al Ghul. Introducing such a pivotal character into Batman's story early fundamentally rewrote his origin, and the series doubled down by having Bruce outright kill Ra's. Not only is Ra's supposed to survive well into Batman's adult years, but his death violated one of the hero's biggest rules: no killing. To its credit, Gotham played this moment off as the inspiration for Bruce's moral code. Even so, the scene felt wildly out of character for the future Caped Crusader.

2 Penguin Freezes The Riddler

Penguin's Affection For The Riddler Turned Cold And Bitter

If there's one thing Gotham excelled at, it was making villainy fun. The Penguin and the Riddler's on-again, off-again relationship is the best exhibit of how the series steered into the skid in terms of campiness. The chemistry between the two was compelling, whether they were best friends or bitter enemies. Because of this fun dynamic, Gotham pulled off some truly outlandish storylines. One example is the show's third season, which showcased the Penguin/Riddler duo going from mad love to bad blood.

The criminals had a falling out after the Penguin fell in love with the Riddler and killed his significant other. The resulting chaos ended in a comical scene only Gotham would attempt. The Penguin ordered Mr. Freeze to encase the Riddler in ice, and the subsequent storyline showed the latter on display as a human popsicle in the Iceberg Lounge.

1 Butch Becomes Solomon Grundy

The Former Enforcer Was Reborn To A Classic Nursery Rhyme

Gotham, being a prequel, was no stranger to teasing its audience with future Batman characters, such as Nightwing. As a result, the reveal that Butch's real name was Cyrus Gold, the former moniker of DC villain Solomon Grundy, seemed easy to dismiss as a reference. However, Gotham season 4 doubled down on the connection after Butch found himself six feet under. In one of the wildest reveals in Gotham's history, Butch returns from the dead while an 1842 nursery rhyme plays in the background:

Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday.

This is the end

Of Solomon Grundy.

While Grundy is a classic Batman villain, adapting his character for a live-action series ran the risk of being too bizarre. Gotham teetered on the edge of inexcusable absurdity with Grundy's Lou Ferrigno-like appearance, but the character's inclusion was played with such a comical sincerity that it just barely worked.