'Gotham' Season 3 Spoilers: The Joker Will Be Back, But Not In The Way Fans Expect

“Gotham” fans were confused when Cameron Monaghan’s Joker bit the dust sometime during Season 2, but they got their hopes up that the villain will make his way back to the show when they heard his laugh in the finale.

Executive producer Ken Woodruff told TV Guide that fans were right that they heard the Joker’s trademark laugh. However, Jerome Valeska (alter ego of the Joker) won’t be returning just yet.

“[The laugh] was really to keep [the Joker] alive, to keep Jerome and that threat of the Joker alive. We wanted to make sure fans don't feel that we're completely done with [the mythology of the Joker] because we are 100 percent, absolutely not,” he explained.

Woodruff added that it’s not something they’re going to explore right away when Season 3 starts, and they will only start to unravel the mystery of the Joker sometime in the middle of the season.

“We are absolutely planning in Season 3 - but primarily in the mid to second half of Season 3 - to delve back into the mythology of the Joker, and characters that may or may not be the Joker - but more likely characters that are an amalgamation of what we'll come to know as the Joker,” Woodruff teased.

He said there will be an “underground” movement trying to fulfill the Joker’s legacy, and they hope to expand it should the show bag a fourth season.

Meanwhile, Woodruff told IGN that they have already introduced Harley Quinn in the past two seasons, and fans might have just missed her. “You may have already seen Harley as a person that you thought you had met and known for a long time. So we always reserve the right to sort of do that as well,” he said.

As for Ed Nygma (Cory Michael Smith), he will go “full-on Riddler” in Season 3. “I’m out of Arkham as a free man, not a fugitive, so I have this amazing opportunity for rebirth,” Smith told Briotainment.

“Gotham” will return on Monday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. on Fox.