Maria Mercedes "Fish" Mooney is a fictional character created by producer and screenwriter Bruno Heller for the television series Gotham, portrayed by actress Jada Pinkett Smith.

Pinkett-Smith drew inspiration from various different individuals for taking on the role, including the fictional character of Norma Desmond from the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, played by Gloria Swanson; and Griselda Blanco, a real-life drug lord of the Medellín Cartel.

She has good relations with the Gotham City Police Department, and decides to help detective Harvey Bullock in investigating the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne in return for him leaving her alone.

When her underling Oswald Cobblepot informs on her to the GCPD, she hobbles him — giving him his trademark "penguin walk" — and orders him killed along with Bullock and his new partner, Jim Gordon.

She forces a meeting with the man in charge, Francis Dulmacher, a mad scientist who is running a blackmarket organ transplant farm and recreationally creating human monsters out of his victims' body parts.

In the last episode of the first season, "All Happy Families Are Alike", Fish recruits the young Selina Kyle into her gang, and makes an alliance with Maroni in order to get rid of Falcone.

[2] During the second season Fish's corpse is revealed to have been sent to Indian Hill, a scientific division of Wayne Enterprises run by Hugo Strange, who brings her back to life augmented with cuttlefish DNA.

Later, when Gotham is in chaos from the effects of a homicidal mania-inducing virus, Fish joins forces with Cobblepot and Strange to create an antidote and hold the city to ransom.