Jerome Valeska

Season 1

Jerome Valeska is the son of Haly's Circus performer and snake dancer Lila Valeska, who is found brutally murdered, a case which is investigated by Detective Jim Gordon. Jerome at first appears to be an innocent, polite young man, and seems devastated by his mother's death. Gordon later brings him into interrogation, where he reveals that he knows Jerome is responsible for her death. Gordon also brings in Jerome's long-lost father, blind fortune teller Paul Cicero, who is one of many men that Lila had a fling with. Having been caught, Jerome shows his true colors when he says he killed his mother for being "a nagging, drunken whore" and starts laughing maniacally.

Season 2

Jerome is incarcerated at Arkham Asylum, and is later broken out with other inmates such as Barbara Kean and Richard Sionis by corrupt billionaire Theo Galavan and his sister Tabitha, and helps to lead a gang of criminals known as the Maniax to spread chaos across Gotham, with Jerome being promised to be a star. Jerome helps to lead an attack on the Gotham City Police Department precinct where he murders many officers including Sarah Essen, and during his reign of terror tracks down his father and murders him.

Jerome and Barbara hold a charity ball hostage, where Jerome kills the city's mayor and intends to execute Bruce Wayne. However, Galavan betrays Jerome by stabbing him in the throat, making it clear it was all an act to make Galavan look like a hero to the people of Gotham. Jerome dies of his injuries, but unknown to others his body is secretly transported to a secret research facility underneath Arkham Asylum known as Indian Hill.^[4]

Season 3

Following Indian Hill's closure, Jerome's corpse is stored in a Wayne Enterprises warehouse along with the bodies of other deceased individuals. Jerome's body is stolen by Dwight and a group of cultists who worship Jerome, with the intention of using Hugo Strange's reanimation techniques to bring Jerome back from the dead. When Dwight seemingly fails at reviving Jerome, he cuts off his face and wears it with the intention of taking Jerome's place. However, Jerome indeed returns from the dead, reclaims his face and staples it back on, and plunges Gotham into the darkness, urging those to come out during the dark and let their true selves out. During the blackout, Gotham is sent into anarchy, and Jerome uses the moment to fulfill his original mission in killing Bruce Wayne. He kidnaps Bruce and takes him to a fairground taken over by Jerome's followers, but the GCPD intercept them and Bruce manages to narrowly escape being shot by a cannon set up by Jerome. The two face off against one another in a hall of mirrors, in which Bruce comes close to killing Jerome after overpowering him and repeatedly punching him in the face. Jerome's life is spared by Bruce, and he is subsequently arrested and sent back to Arkham.^[5]

Season 4

When Oswald Cobblepot is locked up at Arkham, he crosses paths with Jerome, who leads the inmates of the asylum, and who takes sadistic delight in tormenting him. Cobblepot eventually stands up to Jerome and beats him to a pulp, winning Jerome's respect. Jerome later reveals to Cobblepot that he is planning a breakout and wants him to be part of it, but Cobblepot declines as he plans to get out sooner.

Jerome teams up with two fellow inmates Jervis Tetch and Jonathan Crane and they lead a breakout from the asylum.

Sometime after, the GCPD is in the process of interrogating Jerome’s uncle Zachary Trumble on his nephew's current whereabouts. As they leave the diner, Jerome; who had been hiding under one of the tables, appears and taunts his Uncle about how he had shoved Jerome’s hand into a boiling pot of chicken stock when he had tried to steal a snickerdoodle as a child. All of a sudden, an enforcer appears and restrains Jerome, while Zachary tries to pour boiling soup into his mouth. At that moment Bruce and Selina show up, defeating the enforcer while Jerome interrogates his uncle on “a certain someone’s” whereabouts. After saying farewell to Bruce and Selina, Jerome leaves the diner. Soon afterward, he holds all of Gotham hostage with a blimp full of poisonous gas, but Gordon and Cobblepot manage to foil his plan. During a final showdown with Gordon, he falls to his death after pledging to haunt Gotham forever as a force of chaos.^[6]

It is revealed that Jerome has a twin brother named Jeremiah, a scientist who fears and hates his brother. Before his death, Jerome leaves his brother a "gift box". When Jeremiah opens the box, he is exposed to a special form of Crane's laughing gas, bleaching his skin white and driving him insane.^[7] He then becomes a supervillain in his own right, obsessed with "outdoing" his brother in terms of sheer mayhem.