What is Indian Hill on Gotham?

In tonight’s episode of Gotham, “By Fire” (as in Trial), quite a bit happened. SPOILERS ahead.

The character of Firefly met a grisly end, or so it seemed. After a hose in her flamethrower was shot, a backfire of flame engulfed her. Gordon told Selina she had died at the hospital.

Well, not so, as we found out in the final scene she was taken to a place called Indian Hill. There, her true fate was revealed. One of the orderlies wheeling her away said her clothing melted to her skin, making her fireproof, and that she was being taken to where “the other monsters” are.

Indian Hill was first mentioned on the show about a year ago, a place on the Arkham grounds that was described as a “toxic waste dump on top of an Indian burial ground.” We know there are “Monsters” there, though none are easily identifiable.

The clearest shots are of two – a bandaged man and a woman in an all-black skin-tight catsuit. The bandaged face of the man, who is being held up by his arms, naturally instantly will make some people say “Hush,” as that is his modus operandi. Of course, we’ve seen the young, as in Bruce’s age, Tommy Elliot on the show already. He didn’t suddenly age twenty years. There are other bandaged characters in the pages of DC Comics, too – Negative Man of the Doom Patrol and the Unknown Soldier both come to mind, though neither would frequently be referred to as a monster.

As for the woman, well, she’s even harder to identify. She looks fairly well off, not tortured, and not restrained in any way. We’ll see more of her soon, I’m sure.

So who else might we be seeing as Indian Hill gets explored? Well, dollars to donuts says Dr. Hugo Strange, who has been heavily teased by the producers, will be in charge of the facility. The fact that they said the word “monsters” very pointedly opens up many more possibilities, too. Clayface was teased as far back as Wondercon last spring, and other “monster” characters in Gotham like Solomon Grundy and Killer Croc could certainly be more likely to show up now that a place like this is fully in play. Hugo Strange also once created “monster men,” and that could be our bandaged fellow above, too.

It’s another mystery, but one that drastically changes the face of the show – as the subtitle of the season, “Rise of the Villains” intimates, there could be some major – and monstrous – new villains coming soon.