Is The Penguin a limited series?

The Penguin has been one of the most delightful surprises of the fall TV season, a gritty crime drama that also happens to be a spinoff of a popular superhero movie, but not in a way that feels grasping or pointless. People are gripped by the story of Oswald Cobb's rise through the criminal underworld of Gotham City, and the season finale is poised to blow them away.

So will The Penguin come back for a second season, or is this it? The reality is we don't have a firm answer; HBO has not yet renewed The Penguin for a second season, although there have been discussions about it. Colin Farrell, who plays the title character, recalled talking to showrunner Lauren LeFranc on the subject:

"[Showrunner Lauren LeFranc] said, 'Look, if I could find a way that makes sense, would you talk about it?' And I said, 'Absolutely.' And maybe in a year I would. But when I finished I was like, 'I never want to put that fucking suit and that fucking head on again.'"

So LeFranc sounds like she would come back, and Farrell sounds like he could be talked into it given enough time out of fatsuit he has to wear to embody Oz. The ratings have been very good and the series has gotten critical acclaim. Why wouldn't HBO want to renew this series?

Well, one reason is that they already have a plan to show us what happens next. The Penguin is a spinoff of the 2022 movie The Batman, where this version of Oswald was first introduced. And Farrell will return as Oz in The Batman: Part II, which is scheduled to come out in 2026. The events of The Penguin will lead directly into that movie.

So maybe it's not so much that HBO doesn't want to renew The Penguin for a second season and more that doing so would interfere with whatever plans they have for the character. What if he's scheduled to die in that movie?

Or maybe they could find a way to bring back the show any way. In any case, The Batman director Matt Reeves has said that he wants to do other spinoff shows like The Penguin, even if a second season of The Penguin itself never materializes. “I can tell you this, we would love to be able to do more," he said recently. "[W]e are already talking to HBO about [more]. The opportunity of being able to then on HBO, go and explore characters that wouldn’t be able to have that kind of real estate creatively, as we were able to do with Oz, that is something that we are talking to HBO about. They’re very excited about that idea. That’s something that we really, really hope we’re going to be able to do.”

So unfortunately, we don't have a firm answer as to whether The Penguin will remain a mere limited series or become an ongoing TV show. But the producers are at least dedicated to giving us more TV on this level. The finale of The Penguin — season or series, we'll find out — airs this Sunday night, November 10, on HBO and Max.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.