Full spoilers follow for The Batman. Mild spoilers also follow for The Penguin.
I adored The Batman but, whether it was its near-three-hour runtime, the fact that the legendary vigilante received another big-screen reboot, or some other reason, I can understand why some people didn’t. Still, as my review of The Batman and its high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes suggest, it had many great things, including numerous scene-stealing turns from Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb/The Penguin, going for it.
When The Penguin, a TV spin-off centered on Farrell’s morally complicated and manipulative antagonist, was announced, then, I was excited albeit apprehensive. Crowd-pleasing as Cobb was in The Batman, aka one of the best Batman movies, his total screen time was a miserly eight minutes. Could this unhinged yet charismatic lowlife really make the step up from minor villain to full-blown protagonist and hold down an eight-part miniseries?
The answer is yes. Admittedly, I’ve only seen The Penguin‘s first two episodes but, if the other six are as absorbingly chaotic as its initial entries, HBO has another unmissable TV hit on its hands.
Hatching a plan
Beginning one week after The Batman‘s ending, which saw much of Gotham flooded as part of The Riddler’s seawall-destroying plan to expose the city’s level of corruption, The Penguin finds its lawless underworld in disarray. The death of crime kingpin Carmine Falcone has created a power vacuum in Gotham’s underbelly and a full-blown gang war between the city’s various crime syndicates is inevitable.
For the weaselly and calculating Cobb (Farrell), the demise of the Falcone family’s patriarch is particularly advantageous. Not only does it present him with the opportunity to worm his way up the career ladder – he was one of the Falcone family’s most loyal servants until Carmine’s death, after all – but, once near the summit, potentially assume control and become Gotham’s new, undisputed crime boss.
The Penguin’s first pair of episodes have only scratched the surface of this multidimensional individual
Doing so won’t be easy, however, especially with Carmine’s children – the alcohol-dependent, impetuous Alberto (Michael Zegen) and cold-blooded, psychotic Sofia (Cristin Milioti) – expected to replace their father. The vindictive Cobb, then, will have to employ every ounce of his cunning to achieve his goal as he embarks on the criminal warpath.
And, thanks to Farrell’s scintillating return as Cobb, scheming and revenge-fuelled he most certainly is. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say Farrell delivers one of the finest TV performances of the year as Cobb, either. The Irish actor’s powerhouse display builds on his all-too-brief showing in The Batman to anchor The Penguin with an Emmy-worthy, character-driven act.
The emotional intensity that Farrell imbues Cobb with is nothing short of terrific. Indeed, the unpredictability that Farrell weaves through his take on the famous Batman villain means you don’t know which version of Cobb you’re going to get. Farrell’s ability to switch between Cobb’s brutish, brooding, callous, darkly comedic, and wily personas from scene to scene – and even within the same scene – with immeasurable ease speaks to the Oscar-nominated star’s natural talents and full commitment to a role that, as he told me during a chat about The Penguin‘s story beats and runtime, he was “excited” to sink his teeth into.
Farrell delivers one of the finest TV performances of the year
Speaking of “natural talents”, Cobb has an intrinsic ability to talk anyone’s ear off. Sure, there are rare occasions where The Penguin‘s lead character sits pensively to plot his next move, or stews in anger over a recent development, such as the bombshell revelation that his ‘drophead’ drugs operation is being shut down. A serial talker by trade, though, Cobb regularly floods the air with wisecracks, bizarre rants, and rhetorical conversational beats that provide a riveting insight into the inner workings of this tragic villain.
Such a skill helps, of course, when you’re trying to play Gotham’s two biggest crime syndicates – the aforementioned Falcones and their arch-rivals in the Maroni crime cartel – against one another. It’s a perilous plan, not least because of his contrasting loyalties to each family, and when his plans are hindered by unforeseen events or fail entirely, the metaphorical noose slowly and continually tightens around Cobb’s neck with each passing moment. But, ever the quick-thinking, clever, and crafty guy, he performs a Houdini-like escape that allows him to fight another day. I feel like The Penguin‘s first pair of episodes have only scratched the surface of this multidimensional individual, and I can’t wait to learn more about him.
Family feuds
And learn more I will, not least through Cobb’s tense interactions with The Penguin‘s roster of compelling and equally morally complex supporting characters.
Chief among those individuals is Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Felix), a young criminal who reluctantly becomes Cobb’s main lackey after an ill-fated run-in with The Iceberg Lounge’s owner. A dynamic filled with tense drama and awkward humor, the felonious mentor-student partnership – if it can be labeled as such, given the verbal and psychological abuse Cobb occasionally inflicts on Aguilar – that develops is surprisingly potent and occasionally endearing in its makeup. Farrell and Felix are a wild but likable double act whenever they share the screen, and Aguilar’s positioning as the audience’s point-of-view character, particularly in episode one, lends itself well to contextualizing Cobb’s motivations, fears, and trauma that inform the toxic yet ambitious survivalist he’s become.
Cobb and Sofia’s dynamic… drives The Penguin’s melodramatic and blood-soaked story
There are other relationships that are ripe for exploration – and may take on greater prominence in later episodes – that tentatively provide glimpses into different aspects of Cobb’s life. Interactions with Eve Karlo (Carmen Ejogo), Cobb’s escort lover, have a sultry yet slightly dishonest quality, while the close bond Cobb shares with his mentally ill mom Francis (Deidre O’Connell) is simultaneously saccharine and incendiary.
However, it’s the twisty-turny nature of Cobb and Sofia’s dynamic that drives The Penguin‘s melodramatic and blood-soaked story. Initially, given her understated introduction midway through its premiere, I expected Milioti’s Sofia to lurk in the shadows for a while before taking on a greater role as the plot progressed.
I’m glad that wasn’t the case. From the moment she takes Cobb out to dinner for a seemingly innocent catch-up, Milioti’s Sofia is an unsettling presence whose mild-mannered exterior conceals her animalistic and ultraviolent tendencies. The discomforting and ice-cold aura she exudes, coupled with her mental instability, makes Sofia an incredibly dangerous individual that even Cobb has to walk on eggshells around. Indeed, sequences built around the pair play out with nail-biting brilliance that gives the untamed dynamic of The Penguin‘s Machiavellian-inspired leads plenty of room to shine amid the criminal underworld’s wider power struggle, and their own inter- and intrapersonal issues.
The most absorbing aspect I noticed about this relationship is how much it shifted in the two episodes I’ve seen. From close associates to adversaries, and then frenemies with a common goal when Sofia is effectively displaced within the male-dominated Falcone crime family, there’s a real Killing Eve and True Detective season 1 tonality to their bond. I fully expect the paradigm to change time and again, too, but it’s nonetheless intriguing to see the duo ally themselves with the other – and likely use each other for their own nefarious means – as they aspire to become Gotham’s new crime lord.
Fresh, yet faithful
Shocking no one, there’s also a clear synergistic energy between The Penguin‘s gritty, downtrodden-flavored aesthetic and vibe and that of The Batman. Considering both projects exist in Matt Reeves’ Bat-Verse – now known as The Batman Epic Crime Saga – that’s to be expected, as is the big-budget, cinematic, prestige television feel that many HBO shows carry these days. Oh, and there’s the odd intriguing reference to wider Batman lore that long-time fans of the Dark Knight should keep their eyes out for because, trust me, there are a couple mentioned in The Penguin that may set up some tantalizing things to come in The Batman Part II and beyond.
The Penguin is another crime epic home run for HBO
What I wasn’t anticipating was how hard The Penguin goes in the violence stakes. The Batman wasn’t a wholly family-friendly flick, in fact – the Tim Burton-directed Batman movies aside (read more about them in our Batman movies in order guide) – I’d argue The Batman is the iconic DC superhero’s least kid-friendly movie due to its adult-leaning material, and stark commentary of societal oppression and marginalization. Even so, it toed the line of what passes for a PG-13 film, so I was pleased to see that The Penguin didn’t overlook the more vicious elements of the Batman universe alongside its bleak overtures.
If I had one complaint about this TV spin-off – and it’s an incredibly minor one – it’s that The Penguin‘s first two episodes feel a little long. Yes, it’s an HBO drama production, so episodic runtimes exceeding 50 minutes are par for the course. But, while I’m not asking for the bizarrely inconsistent nature of Marvel TV shows that air on Disney Plus, there were a couple of instances where I thought it was unnecessary for certain subplots to be dragged out. Let’s see if I still hold that opinion further down the line.
My verdict
Bound by its morally complicated and love-to-hate characters, engaging and thematically dense plot, and equally fresh and faithful take on the Batman franchise, The Penguin is another crime epic home run for HBO. Its engrossing deconstruction of what it means to be a villain – one viewed through the prism of the seduction of power and opportunism – means, even just two episodes in, I already believe that it deserves to sit alongside The Sopranos, True Detective, The Wire, and more in the studio’s crime drama pantheon.
I picked out The Penguin as one of 14 shows I’m excited for in late 2024 and, after seeing what it has to offer, I feel justified in doing so. With many powderkeg revelations to come amid its overarching cat-and-mouse narrative that’s sure to contain reams of interfamilial discord, I simply can’t wait to immerse myself in the rest of Oz Cobb’s story. It’ll have plenty of competition on the TV front around its launch date – Marvel’s Agatha All Along and Netflix‘s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story to name just two – but don’t be surprised if The Penguin is eventually labeled one of the best Max shows of all-time.
The Penguin launches on HBO and Max (US) on Thursday, September 19. It’ll debut on Sky and Now TV (UK), plus Binge (Australia), on Friday, September 20.
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tom.power@futurenet.com (Tom Power)
