Holy spoilers, Batman! This text discusses main occasions from the season finale of “The Penguin.”
The flood waters have receded, the mud has settled, and Oswald Cobb’s power-hungry Penguin is now precisely the place we thought he’d be following his closing scene in “The Batman” — left with nothing standing in his manner for management of town’s prison underworld. The eight-episode run of HBO’s “The Penguin” lived as much as its billing as “The Sopranos” in Gotham, including all types of complexity and deeper layers to the one-dimensional, but all the time entertaining mobster performed by Colin Farrell in director Matt Reeves’ 2022 blockbuster. Viewers who tuned into the spinoff sequence have been given a satisfying character research, detailing how an overambitious mama’s boy became an insecure man hellbent on proving everybody improper all through his murderous rise to energy. However for many who’ll solely ever find yourself watching the unique film and its deliberate sequel with none expanded materials in any respect — in different phrases, the overwhelming majority of normal audiences — “The Penguin” represents one thing altogether extra spectacular than that.
With its thrilling finale, showrunner Lauren LeFranc and her writers have now pulled off the trickiest balancing act of any superhero franchise. For years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been chasing the concept of #ItsAllConnected, turning its ever-increasing steady of Disney+ exhibits into required homework simply to grasp the plot of the films. (Think about attempting to make sense of “Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity” with out having seen “WandaVision,” as an illustration.) As an alternative of taking that very same method right here, the artistic crew merely resisted the temptation to incorporate main twists or reveals that might have an effect on the larger image. The top result’s that “The Batman” and “The Penguin” have refined what a shared universe should appear like.
One way or the other each important to the emotional journey of Oz Cobb and a very non-compulsory viewing expertise for anybody who’d reasonably simply keep on with the films, “The Penguin” proves that DC simply beat Marvel at its personal sport.
The Penguin prevented the MCU’s largest mistake
When “The Batman: Half II” lastly arrives after its newest delay and audiences sit down at their native theater for the following installment of Robert Pattinson’s masked vigilante, have you learnt what probably the most refreshing factor about it will likely be? How about the truth that the one pre-existing piece of media anybody might want to have watched shall be 2022’s “The Batman.” That is it! It’d appear to be an apparent assertion, however that hasn’t been Hollywood’s standard considering on the subject of superhero sequels lately. When “The Marvels” launched final yr to disappointing critiques, at the least a part of its underperformance could possibly be attributed to the plot forcing audiences to maintain observe of each 2019’s “Captain Marvel” and the Disney+ sequence “Ms. Marvel” to know who two-thirds of the principle leads have been imagined to be. When “Thunderbolts*” hits theaters subsequent yr, effectively, simply contemplate the laundry listing of things that followers shall be required to have working data of: “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” “Black Widow,” “Hawkeye,” the varied “Avengers” motion pictures, and extra.
Fortunately, “The Penguin” could not be extra diametrically against this mindset. Granted, the DC spinoff sequence by no means got here with the cachet of headline-grabbing plot developments that overvalued its personal significance to viewers (like when the advertising for “The Marvels” grew to become actually determined and commenced teasing a second that “modifications every little thing” which, uh, wasn’t fairly the case). No, HBO as a substitute positioned their bets on built-in curiosity amongst followers who loved seeing Farrell’s tackle the Penguin the primary time round and naturally needed extra of it. Likewise, the writing crew remained on the identical web page and easily prioritized a character-building story, reasonably than working backwards and utilizing the plot to determine large quantities of connective tissue with “The Batman: Half II.” The outcomes, frankly, communicate for themselves.
How The Penguin prioritized character over plot
However wait! I can already hear readers crying foul on the whole thesis of this text, pointing to how “The Penguin” contains so many game-changing occasions and introduces so many vital characters that may undoubtedly have to be acknowledged in “The Batman: Half II.” To an extent, that is true. In spite of everything, Gotham did simply survive a ruthless gang battle that destroyed a complete neighborhood with an underground automobile bomb, left each the Maroni and Falcone crime households in ruins and launched a pair of character-defining relationships with rival Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) and Oz’s Robin-like sidekick Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz). It would be downright bizarre if none of that merited a lot as a passing reference within the subsequent “The Batman” sequel, proper?
Nicely, not likely. A more in-depth take a look at how painstakingly exact the occasions of “The Penguin” unfolded reveals that, plot-wise, every little thing ends just about precisely the place “The Batman” left off with no additional rationalization wanted. Within the broadest of strokes, the one “important” occasion that wanted to happen in the whole sequence was Oz stepping up and filling the facility vacuum left by the loss of life of Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). All the pieces else — from Oz’s Oedipal relationship together with his mother Francis (Deirdre O’Connell) and the killing of his brothers to his bitter rivalry with Sofia to his mentoring of younger Vic — quantities to little greater than background particulars nudging the Penguin on the trail from the glorified henchman he ended “The Batman” to the full-fledged crime lord he’ll doubtless be when “Half II” begins.
However make no mistake: all these little particulars have been what made this season so compelling and worthwhile each step of the way in which. For viewers who invested the effort and time into this sequence, they have been rewarded with among the greatest character work Marvel or DC have ever delivered. And when Oz exhibits up once more, as ruthless and highly effective as ever, we’ll have the ability to recognize each element and each tragic selection (like murdering poor Vic in chilly blood) that made him that manner. But, on the similar time, the true magic trick right here is that informal viewers will not really feel like they’re lacking a single beat. Like Oswald Cobb himself, underestimate “The Penguin” at your personal peril.
Each episode of “The Penguin” is now streaming on Max.