Creator Bruno Heller said that this episode, which takes place seven or eight years before Joker arrives on the scene, kicks off the "beginning of the story of how the Joker came to be." But he wouldn't say whether or not Monaghan was the Clown Prince. All he rested on was the a vague "the origin story of that villain begins Monday."
Okay, well. If Jerome was The Joker then it's not much of an origin story, right? Because he pretty much is already The Joker, just without the makeup and purple suit. And I don't know how you like your Joker origin story, but I like mine Killing Joke-style. That doesn't mean it has to follow the Alan Moore tale beat by beat, but I've always liked the idea that the Joker was a do-right nobody who sadly lost his mind due to the horrors he witnessed and/or endured. And there are many ways to do that. Even Ledger's anonymous Joker in Dark Knight seemed to hint at that sort of backstory.
Tim Burton's Joker was a criminal who became a crazy criminal. Despite Nicholson's wild performance, that's not a very investable arc. Jerome is already out of his mind. The next step on his journey (if he weren't getting locked up) would be him shopping for hair dye. So let's (perhaps) discount him for now. Though I did like the switch that Monaghan flipped in Jerome when he realized that Gordon knew he'd killed his carney mother. Very sinister. Even if I don't know how Gordon actually came to that conclusion out of the blue - aside from the fact that he always thought the psychic (played by Breaking Bad's Mark Margolis) - was full of crap.
All of this opens up the possibilities that A: We still haven't met Joker yet (unless he was the little kid who the fortune teller would whistle at for aid), or B: We've already met the Joker and it's Ed or Fish or Barbara or Jim or some established character hiding in plain sight on the show. Either way, I guess I'm curious how the specific goings-on in this episode relate to his origins. It may not even have anything to do with the circus story either. Maybe Fish's weird, off-putting squatters prison storyline has something to do with it.
This episode actually spent a lot of time with Gordon and Leslie, working to development their budding relationship. How he's hypocritical when it comes to sharing his life with his girlfriends (even though Leslie works with him in the damn precinct) and how hyper and enthused Leslie gets when she's confronted with a mystery. Though we never got a specific explanation about why she became so damn pissed when he refused to immediately believe Margolis' psychic. That seemed to come out of nowhere.
The night ended with them actually settling in for some sex for the first time, but - in all honesty - I think Gordon was probably equally excited to just sleep in an actual bed. The man still doesn't have a place of his own. It's weird. It needs to be fixed. When Leslie spirited him away from the home-cooked meal she'd made for him it felt like she was kicking out an orphan who'd just had his first slurp of hot soup in months. The poor guy was just happy to be in a home.
Barbara slinked her way back into the story (forget about that stuff with her parents, I guess), arriving back at her loft so drunk that she not only didn't care that Selina and Ivy were living there, but she also took their fashion advice. She arrived at the precinct later to watch Gordon and Leslie kiss, and to once again remind us that we don't care about her and Gordon as a couple. In fact, her possibly becoming the rotten jealous ex in all of this might be the best course for her if the show is actually looking for an obstacle for Jim and Leslie. And is willing to embrace the fact that fans don't like Barbara.
Elsewhere on the show, Penguin's been turned into a total dope with this whole nightclub storyline. If we're to believe he has any sort of shrewdness in him at all, him driving the place into the toilet is not the way to do it. Likewise, Fish's ongoing pirate prison tale (now involving some shadowy character known as "The Manager") is equally lame. Her Braveheart-style rabble rousing speech about "family" (it's been a week down there) was terrible, as is the notion that people are now willing to get beaten to death for her.
Also, Bruce confronted the Wayne Foundation board members with very serious adult accusations (while brandishing his black and white Mead composition notebook) and Dick Grayson/Robin/Nightwing's parents, John and Mary Grayson (née Lloyd) were introduced during a giant acrobats vs. clowns brawl. They hated each other at the start, but then Jerome's arrest made them fall (back) in love.
