In an era of constant spin-offs and “world-building”, HBO’s “The Penguin” justifies its existence beyond its place in the DC canon. Set mere days after the explosive climax of 2022’s “The Batman,” this limited series soars above expectations.
I think anyone who pays attention to franchise filmmaking is tired of the constant TV spinoffs. Whether it be the Avengers, the Jedi, or somehow even Sonic the Hedgehog, it seems the only way to keep a brand alive is to splatter it across streaming services.
Now it’s Batman’s turn. After Colin Farrell stole the show in Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” two years ago, it made sense to expand his role and offer audiences a chance to spend more time with his iteration of the Penguin.
Luckily, with Reeves returning to produce and showrunner Lauren LeFranc at the helm, “The Penguin” tells a dark and entertaining enough story to span eight episodes. The series introduces Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone and Rhenzy Feliz as Victor to provide the Penguin with some much-needed support.
In the film, Penguin is so fun to watch because he isn’t the center of the story. There’s no complexity to him; he’s a cartoonishly evil guy. Going into the series, I was worried his thin characterization would get boring— and it does.
The Penguin is no Walter White or Tony Soprano; he doesn’t believably lead a series like this. The scenes centered around his rise to power within Gotham’s criminal underworld are a riot, but the emotional core of the show lies with Sofie and Victor.
Sofia is the daughter of a prominent mobster named Carmine Falcone and sister to Alberto Falcone, who are both dead. She wants to take charge of the family crime operation in an act of rebellion against the rest of the family who once betrayed her and locked her away in an asylum.
This storyline is incredibly compelling as we’re placed on Sofia’s side almost immediately thanks to a flashback episode that details her horrific life growing up among gangsters. She has a vendetta against the Penguin, and whenever I’m watching a scene with Sofia, I root for her.
Similarly, I was always rooting for Victor. A kid from a poor neighborhood in Gotham who the Penguin strong-arms into being his henchman. Victor forms a bond with the Penguin and ultimately finds his place within the criminal underworld. It’s a surprisingly touching arc for a show full of evil people.
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The people are certainly evil. I enjoyed that even though the filmmakers want us to understand the Penguin and the criminals that make up this empire, they all do terrible things. No one is ever redeemed, it’s a bleak and miserable world and one that I greatly enjoyed existing in.
However, parts of the show’s effort to give Penguin a backstory felt sort of weak to me. A lot of time is spent exploring Oz and his relationship with his mother. We see numerous flashbacks to adolescent Oz and the gangsters that he looked up to in his youth.
Too much time is spent here in the latter half of the show. The ultimate point of these scenes — without spoiling what happens — is that Oz is an irredeemable devil of a man with no soul. That’s a pretty awesome characterization of such a goofy character, but it’s not a complicated enough characterization to justify dedicating so many scenes to his backstory.
By the end of the show, every character arc receives an over-the-top dark conclusion. There’s nothing more engaging to me than a drama show in which nearly every character slowly marches toward their demise (literally or professionally). “The Penguin” sticks the landing on this and doesn’t shy away from all its talk of Gotham being the most crime-ridden city on Earth.
The real joy of “The Penguin” is watching Colin Farrell in unbelievably well-done makeup and prosthetics transform into this character. It’s at its best when Oz is stumbling through alleyways and shouting very colorful language in a cartoonishly New Jersey accent. Only when it tries to read into the Penguin that it begin to falter.