In Gotham City, three kids, Duela (Olivia Rose Keegan) and siblings Harper and Cullen Row (Fallon Smythe and Tyler DiChiara) — the children of some of Batman’s enemies — are hired to break into Wayne Tower and steal something from Bruce Wayne’s safe, but it’s a set-up so they’ll be blamed for his death (the circumstances of which also reveal that he was Batman). Wayne’s adopted son, Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan), is set up to appear to have hired them and paid them the $100,000 for the job.
The prevailing theory is that his motive was Wayne’s decision to change his will.
With help from one of Turner’s classmates at Gotham Academy, Carrie Kelley (Navia Robinson), who reveals that she’d been working as Batman’s partner — Robin — they escape police custody.
They’re also assisted by his best friend and fellow classmate, Stephanie Brown (Anna Lore), a hacker and coder who uses her skills to help the others prove their innocence.
Duela realizes, based on the image of an owl on the back of a watch Cullen took from a dirty cop during their escape, that the Court of Owls — which has allegedly controlled Gotham City from behind the scenes for more than a century — is responsible for both Wayne’s murder and the frame up.
Turner recognizes the owl image from a coin District Attorney Harvey Dent (Misha Collins) — one of Bruce Wayne’s closest friends — had showed him (sixth century Athenian, according to Dent) that had been discovered near Wayne’s body.
The young fugitives realize that in order to clear themselves, they not only have to prove that the Court of Owls actually exists (it’s considered a Gotham City fairy tale), but also murdered Bruce Wayne.
They also have to avoid the cops (and anyone seeking the hefty award for their capture), as well as the Court’s assassin, “the Talon.”
For his part, Dent heads up the investigation into Wayne’s death and the search for his alleged killers. He comes to believe both that the Court is real and that youngsters are innocent, but belief is far from proof.
That is the basic premise of Gotham Knights, which ran for one season on the CW and which aired its series finale last week.
I enjoyed this show and hope that it somehow gets a second life on another network. It had a lot of potential.
Apparently one of the things that worked against it was the release of a video game of the same name last year, one that involved costumed characters from the Batman mythos, creating certain expectations about the TV show. The series didn’t involve costumed superheroes.
But maybe it would have in future seasons.
One reason I hope Gotham Knights gets a second season (however unlikely that is) is that by virtue of not being a traditional superhero show, it could go in any number of directions.
For example, my thoughts while watching the first episode were that Turner Hayes and company would presumably clear their names at some point. But then what? Bruce Wayne’s identity as Batman is now public knowledge, so even if he were so inclined, what would be the point of his adopted son adopting the mantle?
But then I thought what if they weren’t able to clear their names because the Court of Owls is too deeply entrenched in every aspect of Gotham society? It would have been interesting to see Gotham Knights take on a Blake’s 7 vibe where these “criminals” work to take down the corrupt Federat — er, the Court of Owls that controls Gotham.
The character of Turner Hayes was created for the show. Presumably, the writers and producers didn’t have the rights to the characters of Dick Grayson, Jason Todd or Tim Drake (or even Bruce Wayne’s biological son, Damien) and/or they figured that a new character gave them a blank slate to work with.
Turner — who discovers the Batcave along with Stephanie in the first episode — didn’t know his adopted father was Batman. He doesn’t understand why Wayne didn’t tell him.
Carrie, who’d once saved Batman’s life — which led to her becoming Robin — said he didn’t want Turner to “follow down that path.”
“You both lost so much,” she says. “He was impressed that you never gave in to the darkness like he did. Your father may have been a hero to all of Gotham, but he always used to tell me that his hero was you.”
On top of discovering that his adopted father kept secret that he was Batman, being falsely accused of his murder and having to live as a fugitive, Turner also has to contend with the apparent fact that the world’s greatest detective couldn’t (or didn’t want to) solve the mystery of his biological parents’ murders.
Duela is the only one of the three young criminals I recognize. As originally presented in the comics decades ago, she was briefly a member of the Teen Titans (as the Harlequin, not to be confused with the later character of Harley Quinn) and claimed at various times to be both Two-Face’s daughter (calling herself Duela Dent) and the Joker’s daughter. She identifies as the latter in the TV series and was born in Arkham Asylum (where she heard “bedtime stories” about the Court of Owls).
In the comics, Harper Row is a vigilante known as Bluebird. I’m not familiar with her adventures in the comics. In both the comics and the series, she is protective of her transgender brother, whom she’d shielded from their abusive father.
In the series, Harper, an engineer, earned straight A’s, but dropped out seven months before graduation to protect Cullen.
In Gotham Knights, at least, Cullen Row bristles against his sister’s over-protectiveness. At one point in the series, ready to fight his own battles and insisting he not need Harper’s protection, he makes the risky move of impersonating a cop to infiltrate the GCPD and get the century-old cold case file about the death of one of Bruce Wayne’s ancestors (allegedly at the hands of the Court of Owls) because the file might lead to a clue as to why Wayne was killed.
Cullen adopts this fake cop identity again from time to time as needed.
He’s also a talented artist and at one point crafts fake Court of Owl masks that Turner and Duela use to infiltrate a Court gathering.
Carrie Kelley first appeared in the 1986 four-issue miniseries Batman: The Dark Knight (later retitled The Dark Knight Returns), in which an older Batman comes out of retirement.
In the series, Carrie’s mother, Dr. Lisa Kelley (Angela Davis) is a physician at Gotham General Hospital, who isn’t thrilled to learn about her daughter’s involvement with these “criminals.”
She reconsiders her stance when she sees Carrie in action, saving lives.
In the comics, Stephanie Brown was introduced as “The Spoiler”, who worked to spoil the plans of her criminal father, the Cluemaster. Later, she would adopt the roles of both Batgirl and Robin.
There’s no indication in the series that her father, Arthur (Ethan Embry), who hosts a popular clue-oriented game show, is a criminal, but he has been illegally obtaining prescription drugs to feed his wife’s (Sunny Mabrey) habit. Both try to pressure Stephanie to look the other way.
As for Harvey Dent— who is not yet Two-Face — even as he investigates the murder of Bruce Wayne, he finds himself dealing with instances of blacking out and losing time. Worse, certain circumstantial evidence in his possession suggests he may have been responsible for the murder of Mayor Hamilton Hill (Randall Newsome), who had been an underling of the Court and Dent’s rival in the upcoming mayoral election.
The story of how and why Harvey Dent (originally Harvey Kent, but I guess DC didn’t want two characters with that last name) became Two-Face has varied over the years, but in most versions a criminal named Boss Maroni throws acid at him in court, scarring the left half of his face, as a result of Batman’s damning testimony.
Originally, this sent Dent (nicknamed “Apollo” for his good looks) over the edge and he became Two-Face, using Maroni’s two-headed silver dollar, one side of which was scarred in the attack, to decide whether to carry out a crime.
Later iterations of his origin would establish that Dent has Dissociative Identity Disorder (he uses the term “identity dismorphia” in the series) and in some versions, (including the Dark Knight (2008)), the coin was his own.
Since Batman is dead in Gotham Knights (and it would stretch credulity to have a masked vigilante testify in open court if he weren’t), I wondered as the season unfolded if Dent would actually become Two-Face.
He does, but I can’t help but wonder whether this would have happened so soon and under the same circumstances if the show had been renewed. Keeping it vague to avoid spoilers, I’ll just say that In order to save a certain person’s life, Dent willingly releases his alter-ego (figuring he can find a way out of their predicament that Harvey cannot). One thing leads to another, Harvey’s alter-ego fights with a certain someone and that person throws acid in his face.
In the end, the Court of Owls suffers a major setback, but so do the young fugitives, having endured losses of their own. But they’re determined to carry on as the “Gotham Knights.”
And Two-Face, once Gotham’s “white knight”, District Attorney Harvey Dent, is out there somewhere, using a Court of Owls coin that ironically saved his life when he was shot to determine the fate of those who cross his path.
Gotham Knights still has lots of untapped potential. It’s worth a watch on the CW streaming service or on DVD.
Copyright 2023 Patrick Keating.
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