Josh Reviews The Penguin

Colin Farrell’s performance as the Penguin was a standout in Matt Reaves’s 2022 film The Batman.  I instantly loved this reinvention of the Penguin.  I loved his look; the prosthetics were amazing — Colin Farrell was completely unrecognizable, and yet the character felt perfectly real.  I loved that he was still disfigured and weird looking, but that this was definitely a human dude (unlike the more creature-like way the character was depicted in, say, 1992’s Batman Returns).  When they announced a TV spin-off for the Penguin, set between the events of The Batman and the in-the-works film sequel, I was excited but worried.  Excited because clearly this character worked, and I was eager to see more; and worried because when has a comic book super-villain spin-off, divorced from the main hero, ever actually worked?  I hated films like Catwoman and Elektra back in the day, and Sony’s recent attempts to create a Spider-Man movie universe without Spider-Man have not interested me one bit.  (Did anyone like Morbius?  Or Madame Web?  Is the upcoming Kraven going to be any good?  I guess the Venom series has some fans… but every one of those films looked awful to me, and I’ve skipped them all.)

I am therefore surprised and happy to report that The Penguin show for MAX is a stone cold masterpiece.  In my wildest dreams I never expected to love this show as much as I do.  It starts off solid but unremarkable; after watching the first episode, I thought this was an interesting crime story, which was a cool take on a Batman villain TV show.  But the show just gets better and better with each episode.  It’s riveting, exciting, emotionally complex, and deeply satisfying.  I applaud show-runner Lauren LeFranc, and I hope DC/Warner Brothers locks her into a new DC show or film project immediately.  (It’s so cool that we’ve gotten two amazing superhero shows running simultaneously for the past two months — The Penguin and Agatha All Along, and that they were both helmed by female show-runners.)  If you (like me) were skeptical about The Penguin, I urge you to watch this show immediately.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.

The show is anchored by its two leads.  Colin Farrell takes what worked in The Batman and elevates it even beyond what we saw in that film, creating a richly layered character.  The sharp writing melds beautifully with Mr. Farrell’s perfectly modulated performance.  The show is very skillful in how it hooks us into rooting for Oz to overcome the mountain of obstacles and enemies stacked against him.  We buy into Oz’s “triumph of the little guy” narrative; at the same time, the show never loses sight of the fact that this is a villain.  In fact, the show goes out of its way to remind us over and over again that Oz is a monster.  This is brilliantly done.  They don’t sand off the character’s rough edges the way many “anti-hero” TV shows often do.  Instead, they lean into those rough edges.  Oz is incredibly watchable, and I suspect most viewers will, like me, become complicit in rooting for this villain.  (Without delving into any spoilers territory just yet, let me also say that that I was impressed that Ms. LeFranc and her team had the guts to stick the landing and not flinch in terms of how a show like this needed to end.  This is a Shakespearean level tragedy, folks; that’s what the show needed to be, and I was so happy they delivered on the promise of the show’s set-up in the devastating final minutes of the finale.  Bravo.)  The makeup is, if anything, even more impressive here than in the movie.  We get to watch this guy for eight one-hour episodes, and there wasn’t a second in which I didn’t find the makeup 100% convincing.  Mr. Farrell has also made adjustments to the physicality of the character — he really has a Penguin-like waddle here, which I noticed right away and loved.  (And that one glimpse we get of his club foot — gruesome!!)

This show is called The Penguin, but it belongs equally to its main antagonist: Sofia Falcone/Gigante, played extraordinarily by Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother, Palm Springs).  This is a staggering performance by Ms. Milioti, bringing to life a compellingly written character.  When we first meet Sofia in the show, we learn that she’s spent a decade institutionalized in Arkham Asylum, after apparently murdering five women and earning the (supervillain-like) nickname “The Hangman”.  As the show peels back the layers of Sofia’s character and history, we realize that her story is horrifyingly tragic.  And, at the same time, as we develop more and more empathy for Sofia as the episodes progress, the character gets more and more twisted, and the tragedy just builds and builds.  I won’t spoil the ending here, but I’ll just say that, as was the case with Oz’s story, I was blown away by the storytelling choices Ms. LeFranc and her team made, and I found the resolution of Sofia’s story to be deeply satisfying and heartbreaking.  Ms. Milioti takes this inspired writing and story structure and just knocks her performance way, way out of the park.  She brings an intensity to Sofia that makes her dangerous and unpredictable, while at the same time always showing us her intelligence, ferocity, and steel internal core.  Every single scene that Ms. Milioti is in is dynamite.  This is an incredible, iconic performance.  It’s Sofia who makes this show the masterpiece that it is.

The third major character is Rhenzy Feliz as Vic, a young, poor kid living on the streets of Gotham’s slums.  (The show explores the repercussions of the flooding of Gotham City at the end of The Batman; as usual in both real life and the fictional Gotham City, the rich folks are fine, but the poor people who lived in Vic and Oz’s neighborhood of Crown Point have gotten the shaft and are basically left to fend for themselves.)  This is brilliant on a thematic level, and it gives the show a relevance I hadn’t expected.  It also works well on a story level, as Vic basically represents where Oz started out.  The “kid sidekick” is usually a problematic aspect of comic-book superhero stories for me, but Vic is a wonderful character on the show.  Mr. Feliz does terrific work here, giving Vic a likability and innocence that we connect to, but also an edge that allows us to understand why he’s drawn into Oz’s world.  We know that every step Vic takes into Oz’s universe is probably a bad idea, but at every step we understand exactly why the character makes the choices he does.  Once again, the writing is strong, and Mr. Feliz’s performance elevates it.  And once again, I was impressed that Vic’s story resolved in a way that felt to me like exactly how it should have.  Impressive!

Those are the big three, but the show is filled out with a terrific assortment of other interesting characters.  Carmen Ejogo (the Fantastic Beasts films, Alien: Covenant, True Detective season 3) is brilliant as Oz’s girlfriend Eve.  Eve doesn’t get a huge amount of screen time on the show, but Ms. Ejogo does a tremendous job in imbuing her with intelligence and dignity.  I love how much agency Eve has, and also how much integrity (despite her being involved with prostitution, drug-dealing, and other assorted shady stuff).  Time and again, we see Eve playing the people around her just perfectly so that she can find a way to overcome her tough circumstances.  (The showdown scene between Eve and Sofia, late in the show, is one of the best scenes I’ve seen on television in years.  To say that I was on the edge of my seat is an understatement.)

Mark Strong (Stardust, Sherlock Holmes, Kick-Ass, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Green Lantern, Shazam!, Kingsman: The Secret Service) plays Sofia’s father, mob boss Carmine Falcone.  (Mr. Strong takes over from John Turturro, who played the role in The Batman.)  I’d have loved to have seen Mr. Turturro return, but Mr. Strong does a great job.  Somehow they made him look enough like Mr. Turturro that I can blur my eyes and accept him as the character, and Mr. Strong’s wonderful voice and intensity make him a perfect fit for this cold, brutal guy.  The great Clancy Brown (Highlander, The Shawshank Redemption, Lost, Lex Luthor on Superman: The Animated Series and Bruce Timm’s subsequent DC animated shows, Savage Oppress on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ryder Azati on Star Wars: Rebels and Ahsoka) plays Sal Maroni, the main rival to the Falcone family.  Mr. Brown doesn’t seem all that Italian to me, but I can go with it, because he’s such a great heavy, and it’s fun to see him in a role he can really dig his teeth into.  Then there’s Deirdre O’Connell, who is fierce and scary as Oz’s mom Francis.  I can’t believe I’d ever be so interested in the Penguin’s mom!!  Ms. O’Connell is commanding in her portrayal of this tough old broad who, in so many ways, shaped Oz into the by-any-means-necessary dude he is when we catch up to him on this series.  (It’s also fascinating to see, in the last two episodes of the season, the way the monster that is Oz shaped her.)

Michael Kelly is fun as as Johnny Viti, the consigliere to Carmine Falcone.  Here’s another guy who doesn’t seem that Italian to me, but who cares, Michael Kelly is great.  He never had enough to do, to suit my tastes, as Mike on Jack Ryan, so it’s nice to see him get to play here as this refined counselor to criminals.  (Mr. Kelly really shines in that scene in which Sofia has him chained up in the basement.)  It’s nice to see Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog, The Expanse, Star Trek: Beyond) in a small but important role as Sal Maroni’s wife, Nadia.  I was also happy to see Michael Zegen (Joel Maisel on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as Sofia’s brother Alberto Falcone.  He doesn’t have too much to do, but he’s great in several pivotal scenes.  Theo Rossi (“Shades” on Netflix’s Luke Cage show) is all kinds of creepy and weird as Dr. Rush, the Arkham doc who becomes obsessed with Sofia.  What a strange character!  He was great.  I was thrilled to see François Chau (Dr. Pierre Chang on Lost; Walter on the Amazon Prime Video version of The Tick) as crime boss Feng Zhao, and Emily Meade (who was so wonderful in The Deuce) as a younger version of Francis Cobb in a some late-in-the-season flashbacks.  I was also happy to see Peter McDonald, who appears in a few scenes as GCPD Detective William Kenzie, reprising his role from The Batman.  That voice!  Additionally, it was nice to see Jayme Lawson, who also reprised her role from The Batman, as Gotham’s mayor-elect Bella Reál.

The show looks great.  I was very impressed by the way they were able to create a Gotham City that felt real to me.  The show takes place all over Gotham, and they do a great job at delineating the different neighborhoods of the city, showing us how different life is for the rich and the poor.  I’m sure there are a lot of digital effects and set extensions, but the show always felt grounded and real to me.  Even in today’s landscape, in which we seem to get a lot of TV shows looking just as terrific as movies, I was impressed by the un-showy yet completely compelling way that the world of The Penguin was brought to life.

Many of the characters in this show (as well as in The Batman) were originated in Frank Miller & David Mazzuchelli’s Batman: Year One and expanded upon in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Batman: The Long Halloween.  (Both are spectacular Batman comic book stories and well-worth your time.)  It’s fun to see characters such as Carmine, Sofia, and Johnny Viti brought into live action.  Other than Carmine, though, they’ve made huge changes to these characters.  Sofia and Johnny, for example, have been completely reinvented, but I love what they’ve done on the show.  (In the comics, Sofia’s “Gigante” surname is something of a joke, because of her huge size.  Here on the show, they turned Sofia’s choice to call herself a Gigante into a wonderfully moving moment.  What a great change.)

I have a few more things to say, but SPOILERS ahead.  Stop now if you haven’t finished The Penguin — and if you haven’t seen any of it, I encourage you to go watch it now!!

• This show is beautifully plotted and structured, with revelations paced beautifully so that we gradually deepen our understanding of these characters.  The flashbacks to how Vic lost his family to the flood at the end of The Batman, seen at the start of episode three, were heartbreaking.  The lengthy focus on Sofia’s decade in Arkham in episode four was extraordinary, and the episode when I knew this series was something very special.  Then there were all the flashbacks to young Oz in the final two episodes of the show.  I love that we get Oz’s perspective in episode seven, and then in the finale learn the devastating truth that Francis knew immediately what Oz had done to his brothers.  Wowsers.
• The Penguin’s monologue about looking up to Rex Calabrese in the premiere episode was a great moment; it was then cool to get to meet a young Rex in flashbacks at the end of the season.  One of the many examples of how well structured this show was, with all sorts of cool small connections weaving through the eight episodes.
• Don’t think I didn’t notice that the reporter murdered by “The Hangman” in episode four was named Summer Gleeson, a character from Batman: The Animated Series!  Nice pull.
• I loved all the parallels between Vic and Jason Todd (the doomed Robin from the comics).  Vic meets Oz by attempting to steal his tires, which is how Jason met Batman in the comics.  And when Sofia breaks into Oz’s apartment at the end of episode seven, where Vic and Francis are, she’s holding a crowbar.  (In the comics, Jason was beaten to death by the Joker with a crowbar.)  These choices subtly contributed to the threat obviously hanging over Vic throughout the series.  Would he make it out alive, or would his story be a tragedy?  I loved Vic, which is why it’s so impressive that the writers stuck to their guns and ended Vic’s story the way it clearly had to end.
• Wow those final moments of the finale are devastating.  The writers made all the right choices.  This show called The Penguin needed to end with him on top; but at the same time, it’s still a tragedy because of all the human wreckage left in his wake: Sofia, Francis, Vic.  Oy.  I was worried they’d kill off Sofia; but ending with her back in Arkham was a perfectly wrenching, heartbreaking choice (and it leaves this amazing character still in play for possible return appearances in future shows/movies).  I loved seeing Oz in his tux and hat at the end, an homage to the character’s classic look.  That was very clever.  (They also, curiously, gave the character an excuse to carry an umbrella, as he always did in the comics and the classic Batman TV show from the 60’s.  His brothers drowned and his mother knew they weren’t carrying umbrellas in the rain.  That was an easy connection to make, to show Oz now obsessively always carrying an umbrella!!  I’m surprised they didn’t go there!)
• The scene of the criminal gangs all pledging loyalty to Oz at the end of episode six by all opening their cans of beer was pure brilliance.  What a moment.
• I loved the way the show allowed Sofia to move into true supervillain territory by the end, but because her character was so well-developed by that point (and because Cristin Milioti was so incredible in her performance), I never questioned any of it and it all felt “real” and correct within the plot.  What do I mean by “supervillain territory”?  I mean blowing up a huge section of Gotham (with a bomb with a classic countdown clock, for that matter); I mean capturing the main character and tying him to a chair in an iconic location from his past.  Heck, even Sofia’s outfits in those final episodes (and, wow, her outfit in the nightclub in the finale is a knockout) are sort of costume-esque!  I loved how all of this was played.
• I loved the connection drawn at the end between Sofia and Selina Kyle, who in The Batman was revealed to be an illegitimate daughter of Carmine Falcone.  I would love to see these two characters cross paths in a future story!

Where do we go from here?  I wish there would be more seasons of this show!  Will Sofia, or any other characters from this show, appear in The Batman 2??  (We know Colin Farrell will be back as Oz in that film, in some capacity.)  Will they make additional seasons of The Penguin?  Will they develop a different TV show to take place after The Batman 2?  I have no idea.  But this show is so terrific, I’d love to see the story, and the surviving characters, continue.  But if this is all we get, I am completely satisfied.  This is a show I can’t wait to rewatch from the beginning (someday, if I can ever find the time!!).  Bravo to Lauren LeFranc and Matt Reaves and Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti and everyone involved in this terrific show.  This is how you do it.

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