Gotham‘s penultimate episode airs tonight as season 5 draws to a close and this new clip tells us fans that we can expect a very exciting name-drop that alludes to a key figure in Batman mythology: the Dark Knight’s future sidekick, Nightwing.
The scene in question can be found below and sees Lucius Fox (Chris Chalk) supplying Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) with some new gadgets for his fight to save Gotham. “Remember the Nightwing Project?” Lucius says to the teen hero. Bruce then replies: “Portable next-gen stealth tech.”
“Put it on any aircraft and it’s invisible to radar,” Lucius explains, “but unfortunately, it also seems to serve as a beacon to certain animals.” Something tells us those “certain animals” might just include bats.
If you’re reading this article, I probably don’t need to tell you that Nightwing is the grown-up alter ego of Dick Grayson once he shirks his juvenile superhero identity as Robin. The use of the name here is just something to make fans’ ears perk up, but we’ve actually met Dick’s parents, John and Mary Grayson, back in season 1. Star Sean Pertwee revealed that the intention was for Mary to be pregnant in the episode, so a young Robin is out there in Gotham City somewhere.
This Nightwing tech should come in handy, too, as Bruce stands alongside Jim Gordon and Selina Kyle as well as unlikely situational allies Penguin and Riddler in a final battle with Bane and Nyssa al Ghul, who wish to tear Gotham to the ground. The odds are certainly stacked against them, though we kinda know all of them will make it out alive, as the series finale of the show will jump forward 10 years to give us a glimpse of these character as their more comic book-accurate selves.