Cult of Jerome

"You will be a curse upon Gotham. Children will wake from sleep screaming at the thought of you. Your legacy will be death and madness."

- Paul Cicero's foreshadowing quote predicting Jerome's effect upon Gotham City.

Four copycats of Jerome Valeska are minor villains in the series Gotham, appearing near the end of the second season's third episode "The Last Laugh".

The first copycat was a man watching Jerome's performance at the Children's Gala laughing. The second copycat was a young boy in a dysfunctional family, laughing maniacally at Jerome's broadcast while his parents were arguing. The last two are a pair of men who at night see the news of Jerome's reign of terror on Gotham and his attack on the Gotham City Police Department. The pair begin to laugh maniacally in a similar manner to Jerome. Noticing a passing bum, they follow the man into an alley and knife him to death. Then one of the men proceeds to stab his friend repeatedly to death.

It seems that the Jerome copycats have evolved from just the first four as there is a nightclub entitled to Jerome with people wearing clothing similar to Jerome when he was still part of the Maniax.

Trivia

 * The two men act as one of many candidates for the origin of the supervillain Joker, with the surviving man possibly continuing on Jerome's legacy.
 * These four candidates give the viewers more of an emphasis that Joker is an ideology than just a person, making Jerome's death help the unknown man undertake the identity.
 * The multiple copycats could also be a reference to how Joker prefers his origin story to be multiple choice, given that Gotham is a prequel series.
 * They are played by Joey Elrose, Dante Melucci, Joshua Alscher and John Dewey, and are credited as Shadowy Figure, Young Boy, Young Man One and Young Man Two respectively.
 * The Jerome copycats maybe a nod to The Jokerz from the Batman Beyond series, in which members of the gang imitate the deceased Joker and try to continue his legacy and madness.
 * The nightclub owner, Jeri and some of the people there don on the classic Joker image wearing clown face paint with glascow smiles. The screen of performance shown Jerome's mugshot and news report footage of his crimes. Jeri and others also mindlessly attacked Jim Gordon as soon as they recognized him as a GCPD officer.