‘Gotham’ EP Ensures Batman Moment Won’t Be Like ‘Smallville’s Superman

Gotham is bringing Batman to the small screen in its series finale this spring, which is exciting news, unless you’re a fan of Smallville. The beloved Superman prequel wrapped its long and storied run on a disappointing note, as Tom Welling’s Clark Kent was only seen as the Man of Steel in two final shots. Of course, there is concern that Gotham‘s take on Batman will suffer the same fight, and the cowl won’t be revealed until the last seconds of the series and the credits roll just as he jumps down into a dark alley.

Fortunately, this isn’t going to be the case. Batman won’t just get one scene in the spotlight when the series finale arrives, he’ll have the entire final episode.

During Gotham‘s final TCA presentation on Wednesday, EP and showrunner John Stephens confirmed that the last episode of the series will feature a 10 year time jump, and it will feature plenty of the Dark Knight in action.

“He’s in the episode. He’s not just in a last scene,” Stephens said. “The last episode is one scene in the timeline of the rest of the season, and then the rest of the episode is in the future. It almost feels in a weird way like another pilot.”

What Stephens is saying is that the series finale will begin with a scene that takes place in the current Gotham timeline. Then the show will take a leap a decade into the future and we’ll see Batman in his fully realized form, cowl and all. This version of Batman will feature David Mazouz‘s face and voice, but the body in the suit will be played by someone much larger, in an effort to get the character’s size more accurate to the comics.

This isn’t the first time that someone involved with Gotham has mentioned a full-on Batman episode at the end of the series. Cameron Monaghan, who plays Bruce Wayne’s rival Jeremiah Valeska, recently noted that the finale will have everything we’ve been waiting for.

“I will say we’ve been given certain liberties in this final season that we haven’t been given before that’s going to make itself pretty apparent as you watch it,” Monaghan said. “All I’ll say is when you have an episode that’s a full-on Batman episode running around in the future, you’re going to have characters that you’ll expect to see. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say at this point that it’s 10 years in the future — that’s been talked about openly by the producers and showrunners – I don’t want to say exactly what my role in that is, but it was kick ass. It’s one of the coolest opportunities I’ve ever had.”

New episodes of Gotham air on Thursday nights at 8 pm ET on FOX.