Joe Pike Leads Another Villainous Crew On 'Gotham'

Keeping track of every single Gotham Season 2 villain just got a little bit harder, because the series is adding even more bad guys to its upcoming episodes. Original characters and arsonists the Pike brothers will join the cast in this week's episode "Scarification." The leader of the crew is older brother Joe Pike, played by Leo Fitzpatrick, a veteran of The Wire who should be more than capable of channeling the appropriate menace to play Gotham's new bad guy.

But Fitzpatrick will be channeling a different set of skills to play Pike than Johnny Weeks, the laidback heroin addict known for hanging out with Bubbles on the HBO series. Pike is more like Telly, the toxic character that Fitzpatrick made infamous after Harmony Korine and Larry Clark's Kids. Telly was a manipulative, despicable bully living seemingly totally alone on the streets of New York, not unlike the way the Pikes are street kids making their way in Gotham. Granted, rather than skateboarding like Telly, Joe and his siblings are arsonists, which is slightly more devious and ties them to DC villain Firefly. Though usually a man in the comics, Gotham will have Joe's sister Bridgit take up the villain's mantle.

Usually, there is honor among thieves in Gotham, but Joe uses his family as fodder for his gang of crooks. It's not going to work out well for their crew either, since Captain Barnes just expressed a renewed interest in bringing Gotham City back to a law-abiding city. That means gangs like the Pike brothers' are going to quickly become a thing of the past... unless Joe manages to snag some kind of protection from a bigger criminal network, like Penguin's mobsters or even Theo Galavan's newly formed plans to take over the city.

Let's just hope Joe Pike is a little more motivated than Fitzpatrick's last TV character, seen in the Broad City Season 2 finale.

Deadline reported that Fitzpatrick will have a recurring role on Gotham , so don't expect the Pike family's entire arc to be wrapped up in a single episode. Joe's story will likely play into the theme of family that Gotham has been really been focusing on this season. While wealthy ones like the Galavans are fighting for the fate of the entire city, even small families like the Pikes will have their role to play... and their buildings to burn.

Image: FOX