At last, The Penguin has come to an end with its eighth episode, “A Great or Little Thing”. One of the shocking turns of this episode was the death of Victor. The idea that he would die at some point had previously crossed my mind while watching the show, but I assumed that he was safe after Sofia was arrested and the conflict died down. I was completely blindsided when what seemed like a heartfelt conversation changed into a brutal killing. Also, The Penguin lulling Victor into a false sense of security to then kill him was a neat call back to when he tried and failed to do the same thing back in episode one.
In general, I was surprised at how evil the show made the Penguin, but I am very thankful that it presented him in this way. Loki, another show with a villain protagonist, chose to soften the main character’s worst aspects. This was likely done in an attempt to make the main character more relatable to the viewer, but in my opinion, this choice severely hurt the show. By contrast, The Penguin did humanize its main character, particularly towards the series’s beginning, but still showed him to be completely irredeemable by the show’s end. While he isn’t relatable, The Penguin can be a much more interesting character because of this choice. This was especially seen in the ending, where he chose to keep his mother alive in a vegetative state while he made his girlfriend pretend to be her. Other shows certainly would not have their main character partake in something so messed up, but The Penguin decided to not shy away from this kind of subject matter.
I think that Episode 8 is the show’s strongest episode. My only complaint is that I thought that the Penguin convincing all of the underlings to betray their bosses happened too quickly, but it still didn’t feel too out of place in the show. Overall the show was very good, however, I think that I liked the second half of it a bit more than the first half. I preferred how in the second half almost everyone was against the Penguin, and he had to build himself back up by himself and with what little connections he had. The show did a superb job of escalating the plot. Even though how much power certain characters hold and their allegiances constantly shift throughout only eight episodes, for the most part, it feels like a natural progression.
I don’t think that the show needs a second season, because these eight episodes do a great job at standing on their own, and there probably isn’t much more that can be in a show focussing on this character. However, The Penguin does set up a lot of things to get viewers excited about future movies or shows connected to The Batman. One of these setups was the letter written by Selina Kyle to Sofia Falcone. This not only reveals that Catwoman will be in future things, which was expected but also implies that Sofia Falcone will return later. I found this pretty surprising because I expected her character to be a one-and-done for The Penguin, but it seems that I was wrong. The mention of an anti-corruption commission being formed is also something that will likely come up again, and I could see this being a way to introduce Two-Face. Finally, the show manages to build excitement for the sequel to The Batman by ending with the bat signal. While that is still far away, so far that I will be in college by the time it comes out, I will be eagerly waiting for the arrival of the next movie.
