The Vancouver connection behind TV's Gotham, which returns Monday

File: Vancouver-native Jessica Lucas plays Tabitha Galavan, a sniper who's part of a family vendetta against Gotham City's ruling elite.

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Holy hiatus, Batman! Three months after the last new episode aired, Gotham returns for the second half of the show’s second season on Monday, on CTV and Fox. It’s all part of the new network strategy of keeping viewers keen by splitting 22-episode orders into two uninterrupted runs.

To lure back the Bat-faithful, the series has embraced the dark side of the original DC Comics tales, with police detectives James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) and Harvey Bullock (Ottawa native Donal Logue) trying to protect wealthy orphan Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) from an ever-growing list of hoodlums-in-training.

Add another Canadian to the mix: Vancouver native Jessica Lucas as Tabitha Galavan, a sniper who’s part of a family vendetta against Gotham City’s ruling elite. The character is said to have Olympic-level athletic skills. Lucas says she came by these naturally thanks to her sports-minded mom and dad. Growing up in Vancouver, they had her involved in soccer, track and softball.

“I was always on a baseball diamond or watching my dad play rugby,” she says.

The 30-year-old began acting at an early age. At 13, she got an agent and landed a part on the YTV series 2030 CE.

“I loved the sense of responsibility, I loved getting to act, I had a job, I was making money — I fell in love with it.”

Her next series was Edgemont, a Vancouver teen drama where more future Canadian stars emerged, including Kristin Kreuk (Smallville, Beauty and the Beast) and Grace Park (Hawaii Five-0). Another Canadian, Missy Peregrym (Rookie Blue) joined her on the short-lived series Life as We Know It.

Why do so many young Canadians land jobs on U.S. TV shows?

“I guess the American TV industry seems to like the outsiders,” she says, citing all the Brits, Aussies and New Zealanders she encounters on sets. 

She also feels Canadians bring “a sense of reality and a groundedness.”