Barbara Kean has come a long way since she was introduced in Gotham. Here’s why Barbara Kean’s more sinister ways has caught our affection!
Many fans of Gotham were frustrated with Barbara Kean last season. It seemed like she was just there because of her character’s history with Jim Gordon in the comics. But her storyline on the show was lacking. No one even really got Barbara and Gordon as a couple, and when they broke up she seemed kind of pointless. The writers’ attempts to make her character interesting fell short.
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That is until they flipped the switch and decided to put Barbara through something that changed her forever. Barbara was taken by The Ogre and had some major psychological damage done to her, and by the end of their time together she had murdered her parents. However, Gordon naturally believed that The Ogre was the one that had murdered Barbara’s parents. It wasn’t until Barbara tried to kill Leslie that they realized how disturbed she really was.
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On the Gotham season 2 premiere Barbara was reborn as a crazed villain sent to Arkham. Of course, with her charm and beauty she was able to wrap all of the other prisoners around her finger. This carefree, albeit deranged, character is much more entertaining for fans to watch. Plus, it’s been interesting to watch a villain go from totally wholesome to completely evil. Most of the villains on the show were already devious to begin with.
Watching Barbara and Jerome interact has quickly become one of our favorite things ever. To make it even more interesting, there’s a fan theory that Gotham might be turning Barbara into Harley Quinn. While Barbara doesn’t have the same origin story as Harley in the comics, we can definitely see the comparisons in how they act. Except, of course, that Barbara isn’t falling head of heels for Jerome, yet.
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We’re so excited to see where Barbara will go now that she’s working with Theo and Tabitha Galavan. It’s clear that they are putting a lot of effort into molding Jerome and Barbara, who stand out from the rest of the Maniax. While the others were definitely criminal enough, they didn’t have any special qualities. Jerome definitely knows how to work a crowd with his dark humor, and Barbara’s evil ways stand out as she uses her beauty as a weapon.
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Barbara herself doesn’t see anything wrong with the way that she is. Which is totally okay with us, we love her just the way she is. As Barbara says, she just has “issues”, but we’ve definitely seen in improvement in her role on Gotham. We look forward to where her story goes and hope that she becomes a pivotal villain!
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