The Penguin, the review of the Batman sequel series

As much as it may seem like a disguised insult, that the new crime drama The Penguin (on Sky and streaming on NowTv) you don’t remember much about the franchise is a compliment. The series is a spin-off of The Batmanthe film by Matt Reeves of 2022, yet another re-reading of Gotham City and its various heroes and villains. But, apart from a few references here and there, The Penguin (created by Lauren LeFranc) is mostly a work in itself, a tough and rewarding gangland saga, centered on an almost virtuous politics.

The titular character is not a bizarrely rotund, umbrella-wielding dandy named Oswald Cobblepot, as he has long been in the Batman universe. Now he is Oz Cobb, a lanky, crude and ruthless human puppet, trying to make his way to the top of Gotham’s criminal hierarchy. To interpret it under layers of makeup, as in The BatmanAnd Colin Farrell: a powerful act of physical transformation complemented by Farrell’s more analog changes in voice and bearing. It is an immense and engaging interpretation, mesmerizing both in the breadth of the gestures and in the attention to detail.

Oz is probably a sociopath, yet he exudes an old-fashioned neighborhood charm. First he beats up a politician and then helps him out of a narrow parking lot. He comes close to killing Victor (Rhenzy Feliz), a meddling street kid, but at the last moment decides to take him under his wing instead, as if the threat of death suddenly vanished wasn’t a problem at all. Whether it is a calculating strategy or a real conflict between morality and absolute emptiness, we continually see the unscrupulous wickedness masked by the affability of a normal person.

To further complicate the picture, there is the question of Oz’s mother, Francis (the great Deirdre O’Connell), a now decrepit authoritarian old woman to whom Oz is deeply devoted. She is perhaps the last thing to truly tie Oz to the realm of social convenience, even if their relationship is far from pleasant – as is explained in depth (perhaps too much) as The Penguin proceeds.

The series is a tangle of plots. At first it seems that the story of Victor, his protégé, takes center stage, but then it takes a back seat to allow Oz to deal with his problems with his mother figure. And so a fearsome antagonist can emerge: Sophia Falcone, the confused scion of a criminal family just released from Arkham asylum, played with affectation by Cristin Milioti. She too, like Oz, is a villain with complex emotional nuances. Sophia has suffered a grave wrong in her life, but she chooses to process the pain by doubling down on her family’s wickedness.

Sophia and Oz struggle for control in a Gotham devastated by the events of The Batman. The floods leading up to that film’s climax have destroyed a run-down neighborhood, and the drug war is being fought on multiple fronts. In this bedlam there is an opportunity, which Oz hopes to exploit. Both he and Sophia adopt a populist platform in an attempt to co-opt the gangs to their cause. The Penguin imagines a sort of proletariat of the criminal class, rising up to claim its autonomy from the oligarchs of organized crime. It’s an ingenious trick, a passionate allusion to the debate going on in the real world, but in gangster language.

The Penguin it is an intelligent series, capable of expertly balancing gritty violence and melodrama, social criticism and caustic humor. Its flaws lie in its excessive ambition to tell too many stories at once. The characters get lost in this narrative tangle or are forced to change motivational course in no time. A more solid and limited narrative arc for the season would be welcome, making the dark showdown of the finale much more satisfying. In eight episodes a huge amount of plot is burned, so much so that one wonders where the series could go if Farrell agreed to continue the arduous prosthetic path for another period of service.

Although it is undoubtedly a difficult undertaking, it is hoped that Farrell will agree to repeat the experience. The actor gives an endlessly compelling performance, which is well matched by those of his co-stars, particularly O’Connell, Milioti and Carmen Ejogo in the (too marginal) role of a kind of Oz’s girlfriend. All of them intensely populate the series’ well-rounded version of Gotham, a morass of tribes and cultures struggling to survive amid the entropy of all things.

The series could almost certainly have prospered on its own, freed from the genre that originally gave it birth: in fact, it does not present the synergistic tension that weighs so heavily on the Marvel series that Disney+ has filled with in the last four years. This is where DC finally finds its advantage, perhaps accidental: its choral mythology, its myriad stops, starts and reinventions have created several voids into which creative thought can sneak. If The Penguin were it to act strictly in service of a larger narrative, I doubt it would have as much bite and personality. Which could be the realization of the Penguin’s dream: order arises from chaos.