She Had a Tragic Romance with Renee Montoya

Finally, Gotham confirmed what we had all been suspecting: Barbara Kean and Renee Montoya used to be a couple. Oh, sure, they've long-since broken up and now Barbara is engaged to Jim Gordon, but it's officially canon that the complex relationship between them is that of scorned lovers. However, the details of their relationship run a little deeper and more tragic than that. As their conversation revealed on Monday night's episode of Gotham , Barbara and Renee broke up at least partly because they were both battling drug addictions, which seemed to ultimately destroy them romantically.

Once again, Renee shows up at Barbara's house to tell her about some fresh new crime that she thinks Jim committed. (Once again, she's only partially right.) And, once again, Barbara stood strong in her defense of Jim as not the kind of person Renee insists on making him out to be. However, when Barbara came down from her shower to find Renee in her house, she also happened to be smoking pot at the time. As Renee points out, this is hardly the first time that Barbara has turned to drugs to solve her problems.

From the snide remarks the two women made toward each other, we can tell that their relationship was very serious. Both of them battled with addiction, with Barbara remarking that Renee lied to her a lot during their romance and Renee insisting that she'd gotten clean and sober. The pain in Renee's voice as she admitted that made me believe that there's a chance she either hoped that Barbara would wait for her to get clean so they could rekindle their romance or that Barbara leaving Renee was the last straw for her to realize she needed help. Even worse, it appears that their breakup was recent enough that Renee hadn't gotten around to returning Barbara's key yet.

One thing is for sure: they were really in love with each other. So much so that it is literally killing Renee to see Barbara in such a committed relationship to, in her eyes, a crooked cop who doesn't deserve her attention. So much so that Renee almost managed to steal a kiss from a clearly affected Barbara before Barbara turned her head away at the last moment and told Renee to get out. From the fact that this conversation was one that Barbara chose not to tell Jim about, it might come out in future episodes that Jim either has no idea how serious Barbara and Renee's relationship was or has no idea that Barbara and Renee were ever involved.

It's clear that Barbara and Renee aren't entirely over each other, even if Barbara did collect her key back from Renee in this episode. But will they ever get back together? I doubt it. Barbara has made it clear that her love, and her choice, is Jim, whether he's aware he's in a love triangle or not. And, let's be real, Jim and Barbara are just too cute.

Image: Jessica Miglio/FOX