| “ | Look into my eyes, not around them, not above them, but deep into their center... | „ |
| ~ Jervis Tetch starting his hypnosis. |
| “ | This city tore my love from me, so I'm plunging it into insanity! | „ |
| ~ Jervis Tetch vowing revenge. |
| “ | Do you recall when I first came to this fair city, Jim? A balling mess. Wanting nothing more than to address the safety of my dear sister Alice. [...] But you kept me from saving her. You gave me no choice! So no more choices for you either... no saving... | „ |
| ~ Jervis Tetch. |
Jervis Tetch is a major antagonist of the TV series Gotham.
He is a hypnotist who seeks to send Gotham into insanity as revenge for the death of his sister, whom he sexually abused.
He was portrayed by Benedict Samuel, who also played Owen in The Walking Dead.
Biography[]
He acts as the main antagonist in the first part of Mad City arc (before Jerome Valeska took over this role in the second part, which begun after the death of Mario Calvi), as he was the most common adversary to protagonist James Gordon. He returns as a supporting antagonist in the Heroes Rise arc.
In a nutshell, Tetch is responsible for the overall events of Season 3. He is first introduced as a thief who hypnotizes Gotham's wealthiest citizens into giving him their money before committing even worse crimes. He makes an immediate enemy of Gordon when he kidnaps Leslie Thompkins and Valerie Vale, Gordon's former and current girlfriends, respectively, and forces him to choose which one gets to live (Gordon ultimately saves both of them). While fleeing from Gordon, Tetch accidentally kills his beloved sister Alice, a loss for which he blames Gordon. He synthesizes a virus from Alice's blood that unleashes people's hidden desires, and wreaks havoc on Gotham by using the virus to transform ordinary people into killers and thieves. Ultimately, however, Gordon uses a cure developed by Lucius Fox to destroy the virus, and puts Tetch in Arkham Asylum.
In the second half of season 4, he is part of "The Legion of Horribles", an ensemble of villains led by Jerome Valeska. Along with Jonathan Crane and Oswald Cobblepot, Tetch helps Jerome hold the city hostage with a blimp full of poison gas. Ultimately, however, Cobblepot turns on them and helps Gordon defeat Jerome and his minions. Tetch makes a return (which also acts as his final episode) in the season 5 episode "Ace Chemicals".
Personality[]
| “ | I'm not a monster! But if you want to see one, just wait until my brother comes for me. You don't know what he's capable of. | „ |
| ~ Alice Tetch warning Harvey Bullock of her brother. |
Jervis Tetch is depicted as being a manipulative and extremely cruel individual. He appeared to hide his genuine personality beneath a soft-spoken and well-mannered exterior before to Alice's murder. Following Alice's death, Jervis began to exhibit clear signs of mental instability when he led a crusade against Gotham City and was willing to endanger the lives of innocent people in order to alleviate the pain of Alice's death, demonstrating that her existence was the only thing keeping him somewhat in check with reality. Tetch proceeded to perform illegal activities and hypnotize anybody he pleased in the period following Alice's death. His mentality deteriorated to the point that he enjoyed wreaking havoc and killing people. He even came to see Jerome Valeska as a prophet for desiring to plunge Gotham into chaos, and he participated in on Jeremiah's plots just for "fun."
Tetch's incestuous feelings for Alice were another troubling aspect of his nature. Prior to her detention at Indian Hill, he had made an effort to instill troubling ideas in her mind that, in her opinion, were inappropriate for a brother to have for his sister, making it quite evident that he had some form of sexual obsession with her. In addition, he was possessive of Alice and wanted to keep her as his "possession".
Powers and Abilities[]
- Expert tactician: Jervis is an expert tactician, having created an elaborate revenge plan on Gordon. To get his sister back while she was at the GCPD, he had the Terrible Tweeds attack the officers as a diversion to abduct her. He also distracted Gordon by mind controlling many people including Harvey and almost making them jump off several buildings.
- Hypnosis: Jervis' main attribute is his ability to hypnotize anyone without any difficulty at all, using a stopwatch and the power of suggestion. His power of hypnotism has recently improved to the point where he can get others to do whatever he wants them to do simply by having them hear his voice. Not even people with high will power like Jim can resist this.
- Mind control: Whomever Jervis has hypnotized is under his mental control. While keeping people under his control, Jervis can make them do anything including killing others. However, he can only mind control those who can hear him.
Equipment[]
- Stopwatch: Jervis used a stopwatch that helped him hypnotize people as long as they looked into it.
List of victims[]
Murders[]
Kill count: 14
- Unnamed Doctor and Wife - Hypnotized the doctor to kill his wife and then himself
- Amusement Park Owner - Hypnotized and then killed with a mallet
- Unnamed Woman - Abducted and dressed as Alice, then slit her throat
- Dave and Amy Walters - Hypnotized them to jump off a building
- A Doctor and Journalist - Fried their brains using an electric chair
- Three Unnamed Arkham Guards - Hypnotized Tortuga to kill them
- Tortuga - Hypnotized to slit her own throat
- Unnamed Couple - Crushed with giant wrecking ball
Attempted[]
- Jim Gordon- Hypnotized to kill himself (Overcame hypnosis.)
- Valerie Vale- Shot in the stomach (Survived.)
- The elite of Gotham City - Attempted to poison them with the blood of his sister (was unable to go through with the plan.)
- Shane- Hypnotized him to get run over by a truck (saved by Jim Gordon and because of that the hypnotized Amy and David Walters jumped off a building and they died.)
Appearances[]
Season 3[]
- Mad City: Look Into My Eyes
- Mad City: New Day Rising
- Mad City: Anything for You
- Mad City: Follow the White Rabbit
- Mad City: Red Queen
- Mad City: Blood Rush
- Mad City: Beware the Green-Eyed Monster
- Heroes Rise: Light The Wick
- Heroes Rise: All Will Be Judged
- Heroes Rise: Destiny Calling
- Heroes Rise: Heavydirtysoul
Season 4[]
- A Dark Knight: One of My Three Soups
- A Dark Knight: Mandatory Brunch Meeting
- A Dark Knight: That's Entertainment
Season 5[]
- Legend of the Dark Knight: Ace Chemicals
Trivia[]
- The Mad Hatter's arrival in Gotham was foreshadowed in season 2, in which Hugo Strange read Alice in Wonderland and Miss Peabody commented "Mad as a hatter" when she first saw the resurrected Theo Galavan. Originally, the Mad Hatter was intended to debut on season 2, but it was ultimately decided to keep him for season 3.
- According to Alice, Jervis used other techniques besides hypnosis to get into a person's head by preying on their fear, hope, and regret.
- It is implied by Alice in "New Day Rising" that her brother harbors incestuous feelings for her and may even have molested her. This sexual interest in an "Alice" could have been taken from the comics, specifically the one-shot Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, where Tetch is sometimes strongly implied to be a pedophile and sexual predator.
- Tetch has a tendency to make rhymes within his speeches, a similarity he shares with Zigzag from The Thief and the Cobbler.
- Despite the obvious nods to the Alice in Wonderland stories (Alice herself, the Tweeds, White Rabbit and Red Queen drug) there is no explicit mention of this version of Tetch being obsessed with Alice in Wonderland.
- In season 4, he goes by the name "Mad Hatter" and even has a card in his paper hat reading "In this style 10/6" (which the Hatter from the Alice in Wonderland books has in his hat).
- In season 5, he keeps a photograph of his sister Alice inside his hat. He also wears a new costume which includes a teacup holster, as well as more colourful clothing, making him slightly more closer to his comic book counterpart. He is also shown to now speak more in rhyme than usual, showing his severe mental deterioration over the course of his time on the show.
[]
- Mad Hatter on the Near Pure Evil Wiki
