A new preview of a scene from next week's episode of Gotham hints that the series may follow a story from comic books with the character of Dr. Leslie Tompkins (Morena Baccarin).

In this new clip, Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz), accompanied by Alfred (Sean Pertwee), attends a charity event. For some reason, Alfred mentions that the event has a magician more than once: is this a hint of things to come? A new villain? An existing villain? Or is it just a magician?

Whatever the case, this clip also shows what could indicate a fateful meeting: Leslie approaches Bruce and Alfred and introduces herself as a colleague of Jim Gordon's (Ben McKenzie). In the preview, Bruce asks Leslie about Jim's state of well-being after the attack on the Gotham City Police Department.

However, this scene could provide a clue as to the future of Leslie's character. Up to this point, she's mostly served as Gordon's girlfriend. But in the comic books, Leslie eventually becomes a maternal figure for Bruce, whose parents are now dead, with Alfred acting as a stand-in father figure.

Leslie first appeared in the Batman universe in 1976: in that storyline, it's shown that she comforted Bruce the night his parents died. This inspired her to work with troubled kids. Eventually, though, the character became even more important in comic books: she was rewritten as a close friend of Bruce's father, which prompted her to take Bruce under her wing after his death. In that story, she also learned that Bruce is Batman.

The comics also occasionally linked Leslie as a romantic partner for Alfred.

So will Gotham establish this relationship between Leslie and Bruce or even Leslie, Bruce and Alfred? It's likely, especially considering that this is the first time we've seen the doctor outside of the GCPD or the apartment she shares with Jim. It's time her storyline got expanded beyond "the girlfriend," especially with actress Baccarin in the role.

Whatever the case, this meeting happens next week, so we'll have to keep watching Gotham to find out where this story might or might not go.

In the meantime, who is this magician? Will next week see the charity event get crashed by a villain? This is Gotham, so the answer to that is "probably." However, there's another possibility: perhaps the series is about to introduce viewers to Zatara, who is a magician (both on stage and off) in the DC Universe: he's also father to Zatanna.

Gotham airs on Fox on Mondays.

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