The Penguin: A Gritty Take on Gotham’s Underdog Villain

Looking for something fresh to dive into, I headed over to HBO Max, hoping to find something new and intriguing. Scrolling through the options, The Penguin immediately caught my eye. With a dark, gritty thumbnail showing the Penguin in slicked-back hair, a black coat, and an intense, Sopranos-style vibe, it felt like a deliberate nod to the classic anti-hero setup. I figured it might just be the next show worth diving into.

Now, full disclosure-I’m not exactly what you’d call a DC superfan. If anything, I lean toward the Marvel universe, and even within DC, I’m more of a Superman guy than a Batman fan. As for Batman’s rogues’ gallery, well, I tend to gravitate more toward the Joker than the Penguin. So, in all honesty, The Penguin had a bit of an uphill battle to pique my interest. Plus, like many people, I’m starting to feel a bit of superhero fatigue. But the image of Colin Farrell’s Penguin looking straight out of a mob drama, combined with that TV-MA rating, convinced me to give it a shot anyway.

Thinking back to my limited exposure to Batman over the years, it’s mostly the 90s animated series-which I watched more out of lack of options than genuine interest-and the classic Batman movies from the same era, with a vague memory of Danny DeVito’s Penguin and his grimy, fish-eating performance in Batman Returns. I never really dug deeply into the lore. Curious, I took a few moments to dig into the backstory of the show. Turns out, The Penguin is a spin-off of The Batman (2022), a film that’s honestly slipped my mind since its release. Matt Reeves, who directed The Batman, conceived this series to build out the grittier, more complex world of Gotham. And, instead of focusing on more straightforward crime-fighting, this series aims to show us the rise of Oswald Cobblepot-AKA the Penguin-within Gotham’s criminal landscape.

The penguin full trailer – Click here

Despite being taken by Sofia, it doesn’t take long for Oz to escape her clutches, but it’s not an easy or safe escape. Under the pain of mutilation, Sofia begs Oz to confess to the murder of his two brothers in front of his mother; something she already knows of and was in denial of for so many years but was brought back to life due to the EMG therapy performed by Rush. But even in the face of the horrible pain about to befall his own mother, someone he says he’d do anything for, Oz continues to lie so bluntly and easily. Sofia is baffled as Oz states that his mother’s disease is once again confusing her and that she has no idea what she’s saying. But in her rage, Frances stabs her son and immediately has a stroke. Oz, in his rage, breaks free and escapes and brings her to the hospital.

Sofia puts out the word to the other crime bosses that Gotham is the prize for bringing Oz to her, but with the help of Vic, all of the old bosses are assassinated and the underlings step into the space left behind, all pledging loyalty to Oz and not Sofia. In a bid to secure power from the government, Oz arranges for the arrest of Sofia, who becomes a scapegoat for everything that’s happened this season. The play is one of those career-making plays and Oz is seemingly well rewarded for his role in the narrative. Meanwhile, Sofia finds herself back in Arkham, but also finds hope and a new familial connection with Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz in The Batman) reaching out to her half-sister.

But there are loose ends and in a tragic twist, Oz ends up killing Vic due to the fact that he’s seen far too much of his personal and vulnerable side. Oz decides he can’t have that information about him out in the open to be used against him, even as Vic states Oz his like family to him, and opts to strangle him, despite all the work Vic has done for Oz at the cost of his own humanity. I’ll say this for The Penguin; it really made me loathe Oz and I can’t wait for vengeance justice to claim him. And that’s my main issue with The Penguin. This is about the rise of a criminal, not the fall. Shows like The Sopranos, to which this show so clearly feels inspired by at times, or Breaking Bad, had a great balance between showcasing the crime as well as the human element. I don’t think The Penguin succeeded in that, as Oz is a horrible person with no redeeming qualities. In the aforementioned shows, we got sucked into the tragedy of it all because of family values and seeing a softer side to these characters hiding in the darkness. Oz didn’t have that; if anything he got even more evil as the show went on, and I was wondering why do I even care about him? I want him to fail, which makes for an odd viewing experience seeing him get rewarded for his crimes. Breaking Bad and Sopranos knew when to make their leading men suffer and we still hated them, but we had an understanding of why they were doing what they were doing. Oz is a rat who does criminal things purely for selfish reasons. His concept of family is delusional, which makes it not genuine.

On the flip side, Sofia’s arc was much more believable and engaging because she came from a place of oppression and hardship, she was pawned off to Arkham by her own father and her confident was complicit in this internment. Sofia loathes her family and has motivations for doing what she’s doing, so much so that we’re on board despite the madness and violence she’s inflicting all around her. Her ending the series back in Arkham felt tragic, in its own weird way, because the more interesting character lost in the end and was thus relegated back to the one place she never wanted to return to again. Because Sofia was wronged so intensely, we sympathize with her madness, yet Oz continued to be the personification of scum. Walter White was scum as well, but the table turned on him the more evil he got; Oz is rewarded for his crimes. I get that this is a bridge between the two Batman movies and we needed to see Oz rise to become a viable threat, but I can’t help but wonder that said if Sofia should’ve been the protagonist of this series and the title switched to something else (I’d suggest Gotham, but there’s already a show under that title, so alas).

The series concludes with a time jump and a much more affluent Oz operating out of a glitzy tower, complete with comic book accurate tophat. It’s here where we learn that Oz has gone full Norman Bates, keeping his vegetative mother locked away in his tower as she gazes out at the Gotham skyline, unable to communicate beyond the tears of sorrow she feels. Eve comes back to Oz, perhaps lured by the money he’s making now that he’s “the boss”, and roleplays as his mother for him, saying all the things that Francis is unable to say to Oz, such as how proud she is of him for taking over Gotham. The whole scene I was wondering, will it end with the Bat Signal and sure enough, with a pan and a zoom-out as the show closes out, the sign turns on over the city of Gotham, which is hopefully a threat on Oz’s well-being.

The Penguin was a tour de force when it comes to writing and acting. I’m sure both Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti will both be serious contenders at next year’s Emmy ceremony and rightfully so. Despite not really being a fan of Oz as a character and seeing his consequence-free rise, Farrell was great (as was Ryder Allen as the younger version of the character). If there’s any reason to watch this show, it’s for the acting and writing. Was it the best show of the year? No, but it was still a great series and episode four was one hell of an episode, standing as one of the best episodes of TV this year.