Season 1 |
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Episode Guide
Episode 1 -| Review Score – 4.5/5
Episode 2 -| Review Score – 4/5
Episode 3 -| Review Score – 4.5/5
Episode 4 -| Review Score – 4/5
Episode 5 -| Review Score – 4/5
Episode 6 -| Review Score – 4/5
Episode 7 -| Review Score – 4/5
Episode 8 -| Review Score – 5/5
It’s been a funny year in the entertainment industry. Marvel have fallen hard. DC have been a smouldering ruin of what could have been for years, and international TV has been absolutely dominating the landscape.
Whether it be the host of K-dramas capturing audiences worldwide, or Shogun’s historic win at the Emmys, Hollywood has been really struggling to try and reclaim some of its former glory in the wake of international TV dominating.
In an age of prequels, sequels and remakes, it’s funny then that The Penguin should release right in the midst of this “fatigue” from audiences. An origin story to a villain, (Because we all know how well that’s turned out for things like Cruella), The Penguin had a tough sell before it even touched off the ground. And that’s before mentioning that it’s a sequel to The Batman, a 2022 movie starring Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader.
While you’re likely to get more out of this by watching that movie first, The Penguin is not just a solid miniseries, it’s somehow managed to deliver one of the best shows released this year. It’s gritty, deeply character-driven and absolutely relentless from start to finish.
Instead of colourful exploits of superheroes, The Penguin takes inspiration from shows like Daredevil and The Punisher. This is very much a grounded affair, with the tone much more closely aligned to a crime thriller than a superhero romp. And it’s all the stronger for it.
DC have always been the ones to achieve this TV feat more effectively, and even within the superhero realm, Swamp Thing managed to do a great job adding horror thrills into the fold before it was subsequently cancelled. That’s before mentioning more conventional efforts like The Flash and Arrow which were pretty good for a few seasons.
The story for The Penguin, split across 8 episodes, is a simple one. Gotham’s power dynamic is on the cusp of big changes following the explosion at the end of The Batman that’s rocked Gotham to its core. Oswald Cobb, aka. The Penguin, seizes an opportunity and tries to become a notorious crime boss in the wake of this drama. The trouble is, he’s not the only one after this illusive prize.
Penguin’s nemesis and foe through the entirety of the series comes in the form of Sofia Falcone. Cristin Milioti gives an Award-winning performance here alongside Colin Farrell’s Penguin and damn do these two absolutely mop the floor up with the rest of the cast.
Both Sofia and Oz have palpable chemistry and there’s an air of unpredictability with the pair that remains a constant throughout. You’re never quite sure what they’re going to do next, and it feeds into the notion of this being a character-driven affair.
Oz’s journey really begins though when he takes young protege Victor Aguilar under his wing. Victor is an interesting character in his own right, and he’s also been directly impacted by Riddler’s maniacal plot during the climax of The Batman.
Orphaned and looking for inspiration, he finds a father figure in Oz, and he slowly starts to become embroiled in the criminal underworld. By the end of the show, he not only overcomes his speech problems, but he becomes a formidable force in his own right.
He never feels like a self-insert or out of place in this tale, especially as we get more clarity around how Oswald sees him, and it’s equally fascinating to see their dynamic shift over the 8 episodes.
Make no mistake though – The Penguin is a show about villainous people doing villainous things. Both Oz and Sofia have some serious flaws to their characters, and they both wouldn’t think twice about killing a room full of people or sacrificing others for their own gain.
This really lends itself into the idea of the criminal underworld and by the time the finale finishes, you get a good understanding of both Sofia and Oz’s mindset, and how they end up in the positions they occupy when the dust settles. And that final shot is absolute perfection too.
While the show centers a lot on the present day exploits, the episodes also do a clever job of jumping back and fleshing out more of the past. Specifically, these flashbacks take place in both Sofia’s time with her family, and in Arkham.
For Oz it stems from his time with his mum as a kid, and how he forged his own identity away from the Falcone family. It works well here and these flashbacks never feel overbearing or weigh then story down.
The moments involving Oz and his mum Francis do feel like they’re dragging the story midway through and seem unnecessary early on. However, stick with this as it all becomes clear toward the end why there’s such emphasis being placed on this.
Sofia and Oz both have clear, defined goals of what they want from life. Sofia wants to be respected and forge her own identity, away from the shackles of her family name, stained with innocent blood. There’s a slight inclination here toward standing up for women’s rights, but the show is never ham-fisted in the way it delivers this from Sofia’s perspective.
As for Oz, his whole drive – much like that of his life in general – is to gain acceptance and respect. Whether that be from his fellow man or woman in the street or from crime bosses, Penguin craves the acknowledgment of his achievements. We see this in the first shot of the series, and it’s reinforced in the final scenes with him too.
However, Francis is really his kryptonite and as the episodes progress, we see exactly how that’s used to drive him forward – or used against him.
The supporting players here serve their purpose well with some big names that crop up, including Clancy Brown and Shohreh Aghdashloo. This only strengthens the show’s resolve, and everybody here, whether it be a lowly guard or a big crime boss player, all feed into strengthening or redeveloping Sofia or Oz’s character.
As an HBO production, the filming quality and general set design is outstanding. One of the key parts of any Batman production is the design of Gotham itself. It’s one of those unique IPs where the city is its own character, and The Penguin nails it. Much like what Christopher Nolan did with his Batman trilogy, Gotham feels like a living, breathing metropolis.
There are so many sweeping establishing shots of the city. We see the underbelly in the sewers, we get sweeping dolly movements across the streets as the homeless warily eye one another.
Conversely, we also see big mansions, councillors living lavishly and all the seedy interiors you’d expect from warehouses and nightclubs to penthouse suites. There’s a surprising amount of variety here and The Penguin absolutely nails it.
Similarly, the soundtrack is great too. There are a lot of discordant pianos and tense, moody chords used in Mick Giacchino’s score, and it all feeds back into this being an off-kilter, unhinged crime drama that you can never quite predict where it’ll go next.
The Penguin is prestige TV at its best and another banger from HBO. It’s funny because with so many mainstream publications harking on about “superhero fatigue”, The Penguin proves everybody wrong and confirms what many of us have suspected for a while. It’s not superhero fatigue but bad movie fatigue.
The Penguin is arguably an unnecessary sequel to The Batman, but it’s also a lovely surprise and somehow one of the best TV shows released this year. Honestly, I did not expect to say that going into episode 1, given how bad TV in the west has become, but there we go.
Character driven and absolutely scintillating from start to finish, The Penguin is must-watch prestige TV, whether you’re a superhero fan or not.
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Verdict - 9/10
9/10