Harvey Dent is officially coming to Gotham, FOX’s highly successful prequel series about the titular DC Comics city, long before Batman appears to be its protector.
Nicholas D’Agosto, best known for his recurring role on Masters of Sex as Dr. Ethan Haas, will portray the ill-fated district attorney of Gotham City in FOX’s series, initially in a one-off episode appearance, though his contract apparently comes with an option for a series regular role in a prospective second season for the show. Does this mean that the second season of Gotham could potentially focus on the development of Dent’s future villainous alter-ego, Two-Face, just as the current first season focuses mainly on a pre-Penguin Oswald Cobblepot?
In any case, Two-Face is one of Batman’s primary foes throughout DC history, being scarred by an acid attack during a courtroom trial, whereupon his personality splits into two polar opposite halves of good and evil. As a crime lord and violent schizophrenic, Two-Face decides which half of his split personality wins out according to a flip of his lucky double-headed coin, which he scratched out one side of to reflect his transformation.
The character is described by TVLine as being, “Handsome, warm and engaging.” Even when dealing with riffraff, he apparently remains perpetually cheerful and devoted to his cause. This sure seems to ring true with the formerly idealistic and just Harvey Dent.
Harvey Dent has so far been portrayed three times in live-action, though Two-Face has only been realized twice. A pre-Two-Face and African-American version of Harvey Dent was portrayed by Billy Dee Williams in Tim Burton’s original 1989 Batman movie, though the character was retconned to be Caucasian again when Tommy Lee Jones portrayed a fully-realized Two-Face in 1995’s follow-up flick, Batman Forever. In the rebooted Batman movie trilogy helmed by Christopher Nolan, Aaron Eckhart portrayed both a pre-scarring Harvey Dent, and then Two-Face later on in 2008’s Oscar-winning comic book movie opus, The Dark Knight.
It’s currently unknown which episode Harvey Dent is set for, though we’re bound to have more details soon.
Keep skulking back to Eggplante for all news and updates on Gotham.