"Shameless" star Cameron Monaghan appeared on "Gotham" as deranged circus worker Jerome Vasalka during the first season. Now he's back, and fans will be able to witness his transformation into the Joker.

Monaghan first appeared in the episode "The Blind Fortune Teller," where he played troubled character Jerome. His appearance immediately ignited the rumor mill, and set fans into a frenzy about whether or not Monaghan was the Clown Prince of Crime.

Back in February, showrunner Bruno Heller promised that Vasalka's appearance marked the "beginning of the Joker saga" although he hadn't definitively stated that Vasalka was the Joker.

However, Monaghan basically confirmed that he was the iconic villain via a sadistic mugshot he posted on Instagram, which was then tweeted out by the official "Gotham" account, along with the caption, "Life's a bowl of cherries... but this is far from the pits. We've put a smile on your face, haven't we?"

Also, photos of Monaghan wearing a straight jacket on the set in the Bronx recently surfaced. During the same series of photos, he's surrounded by a school bus of similarly clad youngsters and gasoline.

"We're going to find out how the hell Jerome, the proto-Joker we met earlier in this season, connects with the Joker as people known him. That's the big focus of the beginning of the second season. We're going to tell the story of how the Joker came to be," Heller told the Hollywood Reporter May.

Beyond the Joker, the upcoming season will have countless surprises. There will be a bevy of new villains, allies and storylines.

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