Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Gotham Knights Season 1, Episode 5.In Episode 5 of Gotham Knights, Harvey Dent (Misha Collins) is struggling with mysterious demons. To contend with his past and his present, he pays an old friend a visit — Dr. Chase Meridian (Grace Junot). Chase is a clinical psychiatrist who helps Harvey work through his issues in the episode.
If the character’s name sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve met the good doctor before. Well, we’ve met a different version of Dr. Chase Meridian before, but it took a long time for her to become part of the DC Comics universe again. While the character has only just started making a resurgence in the comics, with Gotham Knights she also returns to screens, albeit played by a new actor.
Before ‘Gotham Knights,’ Nicole Kidman was Dr. Chase Meridian
Back in 1995, Dr. Chase Meridian was introduced as an original character in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. Created by the film’s writers Janet and Lee Batchler, Chase was played by Nicole Kidman, and she made quite an impression on the film and its fans. In the film, Chase is a psychologist, working with the Gotham City Police Department, when she’s captivated by Batman (Val Kilmer). But it’s not long before Chase finds her attraction to Batman dissipating as she gets to know the man behind the mask, Bruce Wayne.
Chase is an interesting character because, while ostensibly created to join a long list of love interests for Bruce, she has a big personality, is actively involved in profiling the film’s villains Edward Nygma/The Riddler (Jim Carrey) and Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), and she helps Bruce work on his childhood trauma. Chase also learns his secret identity, and it’s heavily hinted at the end of the film (though not continued in the film’s sequel Batman & Robin) that she continues to be an asset to the GCPD and to Batman’s investigations. Chase does, unfortunately, spend the final act of the film held hostage by the villains, and is generally portrayed as an alluring damsel, but she is still memorable. While Chase doesn’t break all the rules for how love interests in genre properties are characterized, she’s definitely bent a few of them.
Given that Dr. Chase Meridian is a blonde psychologist with an unhealthy obsession with a violent man, it’s easy to see the parallels between her and Harley Quinn, a character who debuted in 1992 on Batman: The Animated Series. Unlike Harley, Chase doesn’t turn into a supervillain. But like Harley, Chase also made the jump from screen to comics.
Dr. Chase Meridian in DC Comic Books
You’d think a character with as much appeal as Kidman’s Dr. Chase Meridian would have been a shoo-in for a comic book adaptation, but Chase has had a bumpy road from screen to panel. It took nearly two decades for the character to reappear in the DC universe again.
Chase made her comic book debut in the 2013 “Herded Limits” arc of Legends of the Dark Knight (Marc Guggenheim, Federico Dallocchio), but she looked nothing like Nicole Kidman. This version of Chase has red hair, and a tan, and appears to be a person of color. The comic book iteration is also a criminal psychologist and attempts a romantic tryst with Bruce, which fails when Bruce secretly learns what Chase’s professional opinion of Batman is. It’s not like she’s wrong, but hearts are left broken. Though the character doesn’t look like her on-screen counterpart, there are some similarities with her storyline, including profiling Edward Nigma, her romance with Bruce, and being taken hostage.
After the three issues of “Herded Limits,” Chase disappeared from comics completely. But she recently resurfaced in two different series. The new Chase somewhat resembles Kidman more closely with the blonde hair and Caucasian features. After Dr. Meridian is name-dropped in Batman #108 (James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez, Ricardo López Ortiz), she finally makes an on-page appearance in Batman: Fear State: Omega #1 (James Tynion IV Christian Duce, Guillem March, Ryan Benjamin, Riccardo Federici) working in a new Gotham asylum called Arkham Tower.
Chase’s only other comic book appearance (so far) has been in Detective Comics Annual 2021 #1 (Mariko Tamaki, Matthew Rosenberg, David Lapham) where she interacts with Nightwing and tells him about a new Arkham mental health facility she’s building to help everyone in Gotham—this is also Arkham Tower. Since both issues dropped on the same day, the continuity is confusing. Though Chase has taken a hiatus from comic book panels, she’s back again on-screen nearly two decades later.
What We Know About Chase on ‘Gotham Knights’
On Gotham Knights, we briefly meet Dr. Chase Meridian in “More Money, More Problems.” Harvey arrives at her office and asks for her professional advice on a matter. It’s obvious that Chase and Harvey have known each other a long time and that she’s very good at reading people — at the very least, she’s very good at reading Harvey. She sees right through his questions about ‘his client’ and realizes that it’s Harvey who’s afraid he’s suffering from the same mental health issue, identity dysmorphia, that his father had.
Chase’s skills as a psychiatrist are obvious as she knows the symptoms and statistics of the illness. But what really stands out about her interaction with Harvey is that she’s a wonderful friend. She’s desperate to alleviate Harvey’s fear of turning into a monster and is convinced her friend is just too overwhelmed and is shutting down from the anxiety. She may not have the full picture of what’s happening to Harvey (he is destined to become the supervillain Two-Face), but she does believe in Harvey’s ability to help Gotham as mayor. She’s obviously done well for herself since she’s quick to make a donation to his mayoral campaign.
It’s great to not only see Dr. Meridian back in Gotham, but she’s played by Grace Junot, an actor of color, which could be seen as an homage to Chase’s first appearance in the comics. The Gotham Knights version of the character appears to be more in line with the older no-nonsense characterization of her “Fear State” and Detective Comics counterparts. Plus, she and Harvey have a healthy, platonic relationship so at least she won’t have any romantic entanglements hindering her arc. We can only hope to see the character again as she carries on the original Chase’s legacy of helping the broken people of Gotham.
