Following up the 2022 movie The Batman is the new HBO miniseries The Penguin. This series follows the aftermath of the events in The Batman, and mainly focuses on how they affected Gotham City’s criminal underworld. Colin Farrell reprises his role from The Batman as Oswald Cobb, also known as the Penguin. Other key actors in this show were Cristin Milioti who plays Sofia Falcone, the psychotic daughter of recently deceased crime boss Carmine Falcone, and Rhenzy Feliz who plays Victor Aguilar, a young and nervous henchmen of the Penguin. Initially, I was skeptical about the show’s quality. The Batman is my favorite movie, and I had doubts that this show would live up to that movie’s quality. Specifically, I became worried after hearing that Matt Reeves, the director of The Batman, would not have much involvement with directing or writing the new show. After watching the first episode, though, all of my worries about The Penguin were eliminated.
Colin Farrell once again not only plays the part of the Penguin amazingly, but thanks to impressive prosthetics he looks the part, too. The main thing I enjoyed about this episode was how the way that the Penguin is viewed changes throughout it. At first, the Penguin is presented as an unpredictable and ruthless force. This was shown to great effect during his interaction with Alberto Falcone. With the way that Alberto was set up both in the episode and in marketing, I thought that he would be a recurring character throughout the series. The show then took an incredibly unexpected turn by having the Penguin murder Alberto over a simple insult. The episode then further subverts expectations by choosing to develop a more sympathetic side to the Penguin after this moment. Memorable examples of this were when it was revealed that the Penguin needed a leg brace to walk due to his deformed foot, and when it was shown that he cared for his dementia-ridden mother. However, the episode takes one final twist by bringing back that ruthlessness to the character when he has the dead body of Alberto delivered to his sister, Sofia Falcone.
The way that the audience’s perception of the Penguin was reflected through Victor Aguilar was expertly done. It was nice seeing Victor at first barely being able to make eye contact with his boss then having a friendly conversation with him at the end of the episode. This relationship between the two men is something I am very excited to see develop throughout the series. Sofia Falcone also managed to be a disturbing presence in the episode. Going into The Penguin, I assumed that Sofia and the Penguin would be working together, but I was proven wrong when she took on a more antagonistic role. A smaller, yet still important, character in the episode was Salvator Maroni, played by Clancy Brown, who was previously only alluded to in The Batman. Having heard so much about him in that movie, I was very glad to see this recent apperance. While he has only shown up in one scene so far, I’m sure he will be much more prominent later on.
Another way that the episode shocked me was with the graphic content portrayed. While The Batman at times pushed the boundaries of its age rating, it was still very clearly Pg-13. By contrast, The Penguin featured bloodier violence and even brief nudity. The part towards the end of the episode where the Penguin was being brutally tortured with a razor wire was a particularly shocking sight. I think that this greatly worked in the show’s favor, as it has a very gritty tone that the content is able to keep up with. I also thought that the occasional moments of comedy served the show well. The brief moments of levity stopped the show from being constantly gritty and depressing. The joke that I found funniest was probably when the Penguin berated Victor for offering pickles from his burger that he already started eating.
The Penguin has really exceeded my expectations so far. It is always keeping me on my toes by taking turns where I don’t expect them to happen. All of the characters have been enjoyable to watch, and because of that I am looking forward to getting around to watching episode 2.
