Never, ever underestimate Oswald Cobblepot (changed to Oswald Cobb for this series). The series premiere of The Penguin shows that while he will make mistakes, he will always be a step ahead of everyone else.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for The Penguin season 1, episode 1.
The Penguin is spun off from the 2022 movie The Batman, where Oz is a supporting character. But if you haven’t seen The Batman yet, don’t worry too much about it. While I saw the movie back when it first came out, I didn’t remember all the details. And I didn’t need to. The show quickly covers everything you need.
This show is all about Oswald Cobb, more of often called Oz. This is his rise through the ranks to become a villain Batman will need to eventually battle.
The Penguin season 1, episode 1 review: An introduction to the big players
I don’t usually love premiere episodes. They require too much exposition rather than just getting into the story. That’s not the case with The Penguin. We immediately get into the story, with a quick reminder not to expect anyone to survive.
With the head of the Falcone family, Carmine Falcone, now dead, Oz is looking to gain power. He has dirt on people in power, but he’s stopped by Carmine’s son, Alberto, showing up. As tensions rise between them, Cobb makes a mistake: he shoots Alberto after the young mafia don laughs at him.
Sure, this is a great way to gain power if he can cover it up, but it puts a bullet on his back. The Falcone family may be made up of some crazy people, but they’re not all stupid. Sofia Falcone is out of Gotham, and she is sure that Oz has killed her brother.
Oz can’t cover up his tracks on his own. When a bunch of young thugs try to steal his car, he starts shooting at them. He manages to corner Victor Aguilar, forcing him to be part of his bigger goal. It’s toward the middle of the episode that Oz points out to Victor that his former place of living has been destroyed and hanging out with the thugs that he was with was just small fry crime. If Victor wants to make it big in the crime world, he has to think bigger, and Oz is willing to help.
I get a sense that Oswald sees a bit of himself in Victor. However, that poor boy is terrified of the idea of going up against the mafia. I can’t really blame him, but Oz will steer him in the “right” direction.
We also get to meet Oswald’s mom, who lives in a small house that he pays for. My heart broke a little for Oz as he realized that his mom hadn’t taken her medication. There’s a bigger backstory to be told here, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out. His ma is one hell of an Italian-American woman, though. She will not stand down, and you can see where Oz gets his strength from.
Oswald Cobb proves he is a step ahead of everyone else
While Oz made a mistake in shooting Alberto, he isn’t going to let it end his life. He decides not to run away after all. There’s a way around this situation, and it involves the ring Alberto showed Oz right before he died.
That ring once belonged to rival gangster Salvator Maroni, taken by Carmine Falcone during their long feud. Oz decides to go see Sal in prison with an offer. Cobb knows of a big shipment of drugs that Alberto organized. While the Falcones want to move Oz's base of operations, Oz wants to keep them going. Maybe Sal will open that door.
Sal doesn’t budge, though, and I feel like that’s what Oz expected. He's ready with Sal’s ring, throwing it at the crime boss before walking away. It’s clearly not over with Sal, and this moment was just a glimpse of the way Oz think ahead of the other players and thinks on his feet.
And he has to think and talk his way out of some tricky situations, like Sofia torturing him for information on her brother. Before that, Oz hatched a plan with Victor. A car crashes into the mansion. Who happens to be in the trunk? A very dead Alberto with his pinky finger missing.
It turns out that this wasn’t how that was supposed to go down: Oz originally wanted only Alberto's head to be in the car. Victor admits that he couldn’t quite do all the chopping that required, so he cut off the pinky finger and put the whole body in the trunk. It still works. The missing pinky finger is the sign to the Falcones that the Maroni crime family was behind it, since Alberto wore Sal's ring on that finger. Even if the Maronis didn't do it, Oz figures they'll have to own up to it anyway. It's all about saving face in the world of underworld crime. If the Maroni family doesn’t admit to this, then it means someone else got their revenge for them.
Verdict
The entire episode is well-written. You can’t always see how Oz is going to get out of a situation he’s in or what he plans on doing next, but the script still plays fair. I was always on my toes, and I'm excited for the rest of the season.
We see this budding partnership between Oz and Victor forming, and we have the threat of two big crime families going against each other, leaving Oz to grow his empire. Do not underestimate Oswald Cobb.
The Penguin will now move to Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.
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