The Penguin is big, bold, intimate and exciting (SPOILER-free series review)

Tomorrow, HBO drops the first episode of The Penguin, a new miniseries about Batman's third or fourth greatest villain. The Penguin, real name Oswald Cobb, is played once again by Colin Farrell, reprising his role from 2022's The Batman. The actor is hidden under layers of prosthetics and makeup to the point where I don't think most people will know it's him until they see his name in the credits, or his utterly different face in the trailer:

Farrell's remarkable transformation is one of the narratives threatening to steal the spotlight from the show itself, but The Penguin more than holds its own. This is a well-written, fast-paced, superbly acted crime drama that feels a part of the wider Batman universe without being weighed down by it. There's a lot to like and little to complain about...but I'm sure I can find a few things.

The Penguin spoiler-free review

The success of The Penguin starts and ends with Colin Farrell's incredible performance. Yes, the layers of makeup are impressive, but I think he would be nearly as powerful if he stepped out of the fatsuit.

Farrell creates a living, breathing, convincing portrait of a criminal sociopath on the rise. The Penguin is a fast-talking street kid who can bluff his way out of any situation. The Penguin is a vulnerable momma's boy who can't stand to be laughed at. The Penguin is a budding mentor who believes his own bullshit about wanting to help his community. The Penguin is a heartless monster who will betray anyone if he thinks it will benefit him. The Penguin is a guy who will stick a pair of pliers up a politician's nose one minute and then help him pull out of a tricky parking spot the next. He's funny, he's sad, he's dangerous, he's sympathetic, he's brutal...Like all great characters, he has lots of contradictions, but Farrell holds everything together. It's a cliche to say that he disappears into the character but I can't think of another way to describe it.

I will say that Oz's exaggerated New Joizy accent feels like a bit much. Still, very rarely did I think about Farrell when watching this show; I just saw Oz. I didn't think much about Batman either. When you hear that HBO is making a show about the Penguin, one objection might be: why? Why make a whole TV miniseries about a supporting villain in a movie from two years ago? Well, if they can make a show this good, better to ask why not?

The Penguin takes Oswald on a proper arc from second-tier mob enforcer to unlikely kingpin, no assist from Batman needed. There are tons of twists and turns along the way...perhaps too many. The series premiere is excellent — it quickly familiarizes us with the main characters and starts them on their journeys in unexpected ways — but the few episodes after that are probably the weakest stretch of the show, as the plot hurtles from one twist to the next without giving us time to breathe or reflect. It's exciting, even fitting for a character like Oz who rolls with the punches, but I think another episode or two could have helped flesh out some details.

But I have that complaint about a lot of TV shows these days. The powers that be have decided that every prestige show get eight episodes per season, so a series like The Penguin had to decide between simplifying the plot or overstuffing itself. It chose to gorge, and that's okay.

The Penguin players

Farrell's Penguin is obviously the star here, but he's ably supported by a great cast. Deirdre O'Connell gives the second best performance as Oswald's mother Francis, a tough cookie of a working class mom dealing with worsening dementia. The show pulls back new layers of her character right through to the final moments; she's a big part of the reason The Penguin gains so much focus and momentum in the back half.

Rhenzy Feliz turns in a likable performance as Victor Aguilar, a down-on-his-luck kid who joins Oz's crew early on; he's our outsider's perspective on this larger-than-life figure, a useful mirror and sounding board for the Penguin. Even the minor roles are cast with excellent actors: the always-reliable Clancy Brown is crime kingpin Sal Maroni and The Expanse's Shohreh Aghdashloo plays his wife Nadia. Honestly, they don't do much with Aghdashloo beyond having her growl out some threats in her famously distinctive voice, but that's almost enough.

And then there's Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, the daughter of the biggest crime boss in the city and a dangerously unstable woman with vengeance on her mind. Sofia is the second lead, and while she doesn't dazzle quite as much as the Penguin himself, she puts on one hell of a show.

The Sopranos meets superheroes

That brings up a point I'd like to discuss: so The Penguin is a Batman spinoff show, but it's also trying to be grounded in reality to the point where we forget it has anything to do with Batman. The Penguin has drawn comparisons to The Sopranos, a slice-of-life drama that just happens to be about a gangster. And that element is there, but sooner or later, The Penguin has to get back to the business of being a superhero spinoff; there are some explosive twists that feel more like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster than out of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad or Mad Men. The innovation of The Penguin is to combine the DNA of those antihero prestige shows with the last decade-and-a-half of superhero cinema. The results are very entertaining, if less thoughtful and substantive.

Sofia Falcone brings that larger-than-life va va voom to the show. The Penguin is a Batman villain, but Sofia Falcone is his Batman villain. While the Penguin's backstory is quietly tragic, hers is melodramatic. While he dresses like a new money thug, she dresses like something out of a Godfather graphic novel, all luscious furs and clingy gowns; between this show and Joker: Folie à Deux, DC fans are going to have a lot of options this Halloween.

There's a bit of tension between these two polls: grounded gangster reality on the one hand and supervillain opulence on the other...but only a bit. Cristin Milioti gives a charismatic, textured performance that keeps Sofia from flying off the rails. And while I found Oz more compelling as a protagonist, the sheer bigness of her character is a lot of fun, especially later on. Still, she's emblematic of the fact that The Penguin can never fully embody its pretensions of realism. At the end of the day, it's part of a superhero franchise. It needs to set up the next movie and to deliver spectacle.

Mostly, The Penguin manages to have its cake and eat it too: it's a superhero-adjacent spectacle that also manages to be an intimate drama about broken people trying to fill the holes in their hearts. I think it's going to be a big success.

Series Grade: A-

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