HBO's "The Penguin" is a "Sopranos" take on the Batman villain

“Can you imagine? To be remembered like that?” 

While fans impatiently wait for the upcoming sequel to 2022’s hit film THE BATMAN, the new TV series “The Penguin” on HBO and Max should help to satiate that hunger for the expansive Batman universe. 

Now 2 episodes deep, “The Penguin” aired its second installment this past Sunday and promises a gripping drama ahead in the weeks to come. 

Matt Reeve’s 2022 film THE BATMAN starred Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader in a rebooted universe that included Paul Dano as The Riddler, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, and Colin Farrell as crime boss The Penguin, this drama follows the latter as he deals with the fallout of the 2022 film which now sees Gotham City’s crime families dealing with the power vacuum caused by the assassination of Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), head of the Falcone crime dynasty. 

Where THE BATMAN owed to the films of David Fincher (Zodiac, Se7en) and the comic books of Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale (“The Long Halloween”), The Penguin series owes a considerable amount to HBO’s mafia drama “The Sopranos” as well as shades of the DC series “Gotham” which arguably walked so that this could run. 

Farrell, a dashing Oscar-caliber actor, is buried under the same mountain of prosthetics and makeup he wore in the 2022 superhero drama but it is a testament to his talent as well as the effects by Mike Marino and Naomi Donne that we never “see” that it’s Colin Farrell in makeup, we just see Colin Farrell. 

As such, any worries audiences might have had about stretching his character from an awesome supporting role to a full leading position should be all but vanished if these two episodes are anything to go by. 

Immediately, we understand that Oz “Penguin” Cobb is a deeper character than his appearance in THE BATMAN let-on after a powerful monologue kicks off the series where Carmine’s son Al, heir-apparent of the Falcone empire played by Michael Zegen (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) is asking Oz if he thinks Al is capable of possessing the same power Carmine did. 

Oz tells him there are different kinds of power and digs deep into his memory to recount a childhood hero, an old-school gangster named Rex Calabrese- a hero to the children in the rougher neighborhoods where Oz grew up, and the masses who would treat everyone with respect. 

“He helped people,” Oz says as the rain pours against the windows of his club, “if someone was sick, he’d find a doctor. Short on rent, he’d front you the cash. He knew everyone’s name too- if he saw you on the street he’d ask how you were. You felt like he meant it, too.” 

After the gangster in Oz’s story dies, he recounts: 

“In my neighborhood, they threw a parade in his honor.”

Alberto laughs at this, dismissing Oz’s emotional nostalgia for delusions. 

In response? Oz fills him with bullets, setting in motion a chain of events that leads to him “fostering” a delinquent youth named Victor (Rhenzy Feliz) and pitting him against Alberto’s sister Sofia (Cristin Milioti) a recently reformed serial killer freed from Arkham Asylum while navigating a brewing civil war between the Marone and Falcone crime families.

Along the way, we see that Oz has a romantic relationship with a prostitute named Eve (Carmen Ejogo) and still travels to the down-trodden Gotham suburbs to care for his dementia-ridden mother Francis (Deirdre O'Connell) who wears her dresses and pearls and still seems to think she’s caring for her sons which include Oz’s two brothers who, seemingly, met grizzly fates many years ago. 

The youth Oz takes under his “wing”, Victor, has a stutter which Oz immediately identifies with, himself having a club foot which earned him the “Penguin” moniker that he doesn’t take kindly to. 

We get to see a lot of Oz in these two episodes, and we get to understand him as a character who not only owes a lot to James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano but a man who is a “Batman” villain proper- a multi-layered individual both sympathetic and repulsive that sets The Dark Knight’s villains apart from any other heroes. 

The other knock-out in this series so far as been Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone who we see is still plagued by her nightmarish and traumatic stay in Arkham Asylum and how the death of her brother has impacted her. Alberto, who Oz so carelessly kills in the show’s opening minutes, was the only one who had come to visit her in Arkham. 

Sofia served a stint in Arkham for the murder of 5 “or more” women and was titled “The Hangman” by the press.

Now exonerated and on the streets, Sofia still deals with the cold looks and hushed whispers from the general public but also members of her own family who call her a monster. 

There’s a fantastic moment in the second episode where, at Alberto’s funeral, Sofia is approached by her female cousin who recounts the summers they used to spend at a lake in Italy. You see Sofia’s eyes soften and her humanity return, as she thinks this is a genuine moment of connection. 

“We should take a girl’s trip,” Sofia’s cousin says about the place where these girls spent the best years of their adolescence. It’s then when the woman’s daughter approaches, and Sofia’s cousin immediately recoils in fear as Sofia bends down to greet the girl. Sofia notices this, of course, and you can see Milioti’s face aflame with a mixture of rage and, most importantly, pain. 

With all of the inter-family drama and socio-economic struggles though, you might be mistaken in thinking “The Penguin” is a humdrum drama, but I assure you that it’s not. Owing, again, to the tonal high-wire act of The Sopranos (it’s not quite there, but you can see where it’s borrowed from) “The Penguin” is just as funny and violent as it is dramatic, and there were several laugh-out-loud moments my friend and I were nearly in tears at through the fist two episodes.

So far “The Penguin” is hilarious, well-acted, and an excellent companion piece to THE BATMAN in a way that will make sure this is one adventure worth tuning into every week.