'Gotham' Chemical Green Band Movie Trailer Teases Birth Of The Joker

Warner Bros. TV and FOX have released a new clip from "Ace Chemicals," next week's pivotal episode of Gotham's fifth and final season.

The clip, set up like a green-band (all ages) movie trailer, seems to be teasing the actual birth of The Joker, something that the series has been building to since the first season.

You can see it above.

It remains to be seen if Gotham will refer to the character by the name Joker itself -- something that the producers have been cagey about in interviews -- but after teasing the villain's creation through the storylines of Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska, it all seems to be coming to a head in what might be the series' most anticipated episode.

"Ace Chemicals" has been teased for quite some time, especially after we learned Gotham was renewed for a fifth and final season. While Bruce Wayne has yet to fully become Batman, his greatest enemy has been brewing throughout the course of the series.

Gotham showrunner John Stephens recently made it clear that fans can expect a major development in the upcoming episode.

"You never see a full transformation into the Joker, but you do see another transformation," Stephens told TV Guide. "Jeremiah undergoes another evolution in his character to become another amalgam of Jeremiah and Jerome that I think audiences are gonna look at and say, 'If it's not the Joker then it's definitely an antecedent or a proto-Joker that lives there.'"

Not only is this new episode focusing on the story of Jeremiah, but it will also feature the return of one of the more beloved villains from Gotham lore. Jervis Tetch, aka Mad Hatter (Benedict Samuel), has made his way back to Gotham, and he appears in a couple of photos from next week's episode.

"It's a weird challenge," Monaghan said recently. "It's definitely not what I expected going into it, to develop one character for as long as I did and be like, all right, time for a new thing that's also distinct. And then I've had to do that again recently in the final season as well — I won't say how or why but there's another huge transition for the character too."

You can check out the official synopsis below.

Gordon races to uncover the criminal element threatening to end talks of Gotham's reunification with the mainland. A very-much-alive Jeremiah (guest star Cameron Monaghan) returns and organizes a twisted recreation of the murder of Bruce's parents, with the help of Jervis Tetch aka Mad Hatter (guest star Benedict Samuel).

Gotham airs on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX. "Ace Chemicals" debuts on February 21.

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