Jervis Tetch (Gotham)

"Look into my eyes, not around them, not above them, but deep into their centre..."

- Tetch starts his hypnosis

Jervis Tetch is a major villain in the third season of Gotham.

Tetch comes to Gotham to find his sister, Alice, who was one of the people Hugo Strange experimented on. Tetch employs bounty hunter James Gordon to find Alice but, after Gordon suspects that Tetch is a criminal, attempts to kill him. As he is prevented to do so by Alice, he is forced to flee.

He is portrayed by Benedict Samuel.

History
After arriving at Gotham, Tetch is employed by Barbara Kean to do his show in her nightclub, the Sirens. There, Tetch calls some of the audience on the stage and hypnotizes them into believing they are animals. After the people have made animal-like sounds for a few moments, much to the amusement of the crowd, Tetch reverts the hypnosis. He then walks through the crowd, searching for another volunteer and choses a man whose wife has an expensive necklace. After hypnotizing the man into feeling completely relaxed and weightless, Tetch tells the man to stand on the back of a chair. Although everybody is shocked, afraid that the chair will topple over and that the man will fall, the man is able to keep his balance, even after Tetch tells him to use only one leg. Tetch then orders the man to come down from his chair. Before he lifts the hypnosis, he whispers the man into the ear.

After his show is over, Tetch talks to Barbara and co-club owner Tabitha Galavan. Barbara asks him whether, with his hypnosis, Tetch can order people to do anything. Tetch admits that he can only make people do what they secretly wish, but tells her that it is intresting what deep down, people might wish to do. Tabitha inquires whether Tetch, who has come to Gotham recently, has a place to stay, but Tetch, looking at the doctor who is secretly still under hypnosis, tells her that something always comes up. Indeed, the same night, Tetch calles his former volunteer and, using the trigger words he implanted on the man earlier, forces him to allow Tetch to enter his home. While inside, he is approached by the doctor's wife. Frightened, she runs off but is stopped by her own husband, who hits her over the head with a hard metallic object. Delighted, Jervis tells the man to wrap his dead wife in plastic and to bury her. He also tells the man to kill himself afterwards.

The next day, Tetch visits James Gordon at his house. He asks him to find his sister, Alice, who was sent to Indian Hill after she was poisoned. Tetch claims that he was not aware what Strange was doing there, and that his sister is now somewhere in Gotham City. Tetch offers Gordon 10.000 dollars and Gordon agrees. Tetch hands him a photo of Alice and his business card and then leaves Gordon to his job.

The next evening, Tetch once more performs in The Sirens, this time hypnotizing Barbara who has taken a liking to his show. After sending Barbara to sleep, Tetch asks the audience what they would like Barbara to do and, after listening to Tabitha, tells Barbara that when she wakes up, she will be madly in love with him. Indeed, Barbara wakes up and attempts to kiss him but Tetch, to the amusement of the crowd, tells her that he has another. The angry Barbara grabs a glass, smashes it and holds a sharp shard to Tetch's throat who saves himself by freeing her from the hypnosis. After the performance, Gordon visits Tetch at the bar of the Sirens. He tells Tetch that he found Alice but lost her again, that Alice shot a man and set fire to his corpse, that Alice claims to be infected and that she does not want to have anything to do with her brother. Gordon threatens Tetch, claiming that his next stop will be the GCPD should Tetch not tell him what is going on. Tetch invites Gordon onto the roof, claiming that he will explain everything there. Instead, he hypnotizes Gordon.

He orders the hypnotized Gordon to remove his gun. Once Gordon has thrown his gun to the ground, Tetch orders him to climb the edge of the roof and to jump. However, as he counts down for Gordon to jump, he is stopped by a woman. Turning around, he sees Alice aiming her gun at him. Tetch is delighted to see his sister, but Alice does not lower her gun, instead ordering Tetch to free Gordon from the hypnosis. Tetch tries to talk to his sister but, claiming that he is evil, shoots at him instead. As she is not used to using a gun, she misses with every shot and Jervis is able to flee from the roof.