Pennyworth review, season 2 premiere: “Heavy Crown”

Young Alfred returns for a second season of Pennyworth, which promises to raise the stakes above the first while giving us lots of hints of his Bat-future.

With all this talk about The Batman, Wonder Woman 1984, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, many fans may have forgotten about one of the best DC shows on TV right now. The Epix series Pennyworth, which currently holds impressive ratings on both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, has made its triumphant return after a wild ride of a first season and wastes no time kicking things into gear for its second.

Pennyworth follows Alfred after his time with the SAS and years before he served the future Batman as a butler. The series also includes Thomas Wayne, who works for the CIA, and his future wife Martha, a formidable covert operative.

The first season ended with a bang. Alfred — or Alfie, as his colleagues call him — lost the love of his life, killed his father during an attempted assassination on the royal family, and saved the queen, whom he had hooked up with beforehand. The second season starts by catching everyone up with the future Wayne couple. Martha has become a lieutenant, and Thomas has recovered from his injuries in the finale and is back to work at the CIA, except this time he’s going back to London as a station chief. Alfie is enjoying the good life, running his own nightclub and keeping the peace the only way he knows how. He continues to take jobs with his two military buddies Dave Boy and Bazza.

Martha and Inspector Aziz give Alfred a gig: abduct a member of the Raven Union, the new and improved version of the Raven Society led by Lord James Harwood, who is absent from this episode except when he appears in some propaganda footage. They continues to take over in the countryside as they make their way to London with an army, while the Queen has civilians protecting her.

Alfred takes these gigs in order to save up to move to America, because there are only painful memories for him in London. His mother doesn’t want to go, and it seems they may be destined for a rough separation.

Elsewhere at a Raven Union detention center in Norwich, Bet Sykes is a uniformed captain. She is just as dangerous as ever, turning on her superior before he is able to rape a prisoner.

Back on the job, Alfie and the boys pull off the abduction with little problem, escaping in grand fashion with the help of a grenade launcher. But not long after they hand off the prisoner to Aziz, masked thugs attack the transfer vehicle and he escapes.

Martha and Thomas meet back up and we learn that Mr. Wayne is engaged, which doesn’t go over well with Martha. Thomas doesn’t help matters when he tells her that her side will lose, and they part on less-than-amicable terms.

Meanwhile, Aziz accuses Alfie of helping the prisoner to escape, which he vehemently denies. But later at the club, the man who led the ambush sits at Alfie’s table and drinks with him. It turns out Alfie was in on it.

James Purefoy officially joins the show as Captain Gulliver Troy, who appears to be an old military colleague of Alfie’s who wants to work with his old friend again. Alfie refuses, saying he’s getting out before the chaos begins, but Troy points out that Alfie loves a crisis.

“Heavy Crown: wastes no time thrusting fans back into the action and sets the stage for some epic episodes to come. The premiere felt a bit scattered at times, but wraps up nicely, and my anticipation for the next episode is high.

I like all the nods to these characters’ futures, like the moment when Thomas Wayne mentions his newfound appreciation for doctors. Fans know that Thomas is a doctor in the comics; eventually, he’s going to give up the tools of spycraft for a stethoscope.

Jack Bannon, who plays Alfred, continues to be one of the best live-action Alfreds in history. Emma Paetz and Ben Aldridge also continue to impress as Batman’s future parents. But the real series standout is Paloma Faith, who makes Bet Sykes into a fantastic villain.

Pennyworth will air four more episodes in December before taking a hiatus, with the rest coming sometime in 2021. Fans of Batman, DC, and the series in general will not want it.

Episode grade: B+

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