Robin's Parents Confirmed for GOTHAM and No Harley Quinn Plans... Yet
It was recently reported that the Graysons might make an appearance in Fox's Gotham. There have been a lot of villain introductions so far, so it would be nice to see the rise of some other heroes. The news came from series star Ben McKenzie, who teased the inclusion of Dick Grayson's parents. Dick is the character who become the sidekick Robin. The actor said,
“The Graysons may appear this season. I’m not 100 percent sure yet, but I think so.”
That news has now been confirmed by showrunner Bruno Heller, who says that it will happen this season. At this point, though, Robin will not be introduced as he's not even born yet when we meet his parents. Here's what Heller told EW:
“We’re going to do a prenatal origin story for Robin down the line. There are no MRIs involved. There’s an episode coming up where we learn how Robin’s parents got together.”
That should be fun to see. Another character who has been rumored to show up in the series is the Joker's crazy sidekick, Harey Quinn, but according to Heller that's not happening anytime soon.
“One of the things about the size and scope and ambitious of this production is that—it’s not that there’s lots of chefs in the kitchen, but there’s a lot of people with opinions and views and inside knowledge. That aspect of the show—which characters to use and when — is a source of constant discussion. And that may well have been an issue that came up and was dropped. We haven’t got Harley Quinn in it. Riddler’s girlfriend is coming up. And Harley Quinn is definitely planned for later on, but so far no.
The awesome news to take from this is that they do plan on introducing her somewhere down the line. Probably not this season, though. It's been previously been teased that the Joker, Mr. Freeze, and Scarecrow will make an appearance. Poison Ivy will also make her return. Heller went on to talk about the show.
“You can’t just keep pumping these characters into the show in a comic book sort of way, because you get the Super Friends effect—which isn’t a bad effect, but then you have spaceships and need to go underwater and get wacky villains and the rest of it. You have to work as a character piece first. First it has to be real.
“We front-loaded [the show with iconic characters], which we had to do, both for story purposes and marketing purposes,” Heller says. “We had to let people know it’s not just a hum-drum police procedural, it’s about these larger than life characters. If you do that you can’t just say, ‘Here’s one larger-than-life character, now wait for next season.’ Once we introduced those initial characters—Penguin, Riddler, Ivy, Selina—then we’ve slowed down with those aspects and we’re bringing in those iconic D.C characters in a much more measured way, which was always the intention. You have to have that amount of spice in the show to make it pop and different. Once the wheels are turning, it’s much easier to bring those characters in in subtle, organic ways. That’s the plan, anyway.”
I love what they've been doing so far. This is one of my favorite shows on TV right now, and I hope they keep it going strong!