Dr. Leslie & Jim Are An Original 'Gotham' Couple

Not even Barbara Kean could ruin Jim Gordon and Doctor Thompkins' new Gotham relationship. The characters just finally kissed for the first time and went on their first date in the last few episodes back from the winter break, but it looks like things are heating up for the good doctor and the very rigid detective. In the comics, Jim and Leslie have never dated before, and weren't really connected at all in the Batman universe. This relationship is a new plot development for Gotham, and one of the few things it's doing that doesn't have a comic book precedent.

The comic version of Dr. Thompkins is a mother figure for Batman as a child, and is even the one who comforts him on the night of his parents' murder — it wasn't until Christopher Nolan decided to cut a bit of a narrative shortcut that Jim stood in for that pivotal scene rather than Leslie. But that moment still makes sense with this version of Gordon, because he is very close with the young Bruce Wayne, and is already another paternal figure for him (alongside Alfred, of course), almost like Gotham is splitting the difference between the two characters and making them more compatible. And in the comics, Leslie is with Alfred... so I guess she's attracted to Bruce Wayne's mentors?

In the comics, Jim's relationship with Barbara leads to an often-loving but equally often-duplicitous marriage. Gordon, in an inversion of his professional by-the-book persona, cheats on his wife and eventually divorces her and remarries his coworker, Sarah Essen. On Gotham, Essen and Gordon don't really have leap-off-the-screen chemistry, but neither do Gordon and Barbara, and they're supposed to eventually get hitched too, so I'm fine with Gotham messing with that part of the character's history if it means we get to spend more time with Thompkins instead. She doesn't really get much of a backstory in the comics, but she does have a politely romantic relationship with Alfred, especially since they both were close friends with the Waynes and one another for years.

So far, Leslie seems pretty sympathetic to Jim's difficult career. She's even chipped in and helped decode some of the medical mysteries. She helped to catch the Electrocutioner, and now she's going to help with figuring out what happened to the adrenal glands of the victims of this week's killer, "The Fearsome Dr. Crane." The doctor is killing people experiencing their greatest fears, the latest in a long line of technical geniuses who's using their homemade inventions to terrorize Gotham City.

In the next few episodes, it looks like Gordon and Thompkins are trying to make their relationship work, even though Jim still has the open-ended question of why he's still living in Barbara's apartment, which was temporarily turned into Detective Jimmy G.'s Home for Wayward Future Supervillainesses when Selina and Ivy broke in. And that breakup with Barbara had some problems that Jim never addressed either, especially his obsession with the job. Leslie seems a little more self-adjusted than Barbara, but there's no person who can convince Jim Gordon to pull back from the GCPD — so their relationship might not last long either.

Images: Jessica Miglio/FOX; Giphy