‘The Penguin’ Episode 5 “Homecoming” Reveals Oz’s New Secret Base — and a Potential Link to Robert Pattinson’s Batcave?

When it comes to Easter eggs, HBO ‘s The Penguin plays it rather cool. Unlike tons of other comic book adaptations, The Penguin feels less interested in seeding future spin-offs than it does in telling a complex human drama. Okay, sure, we’ve gotten to meet Magpie and Ventris , but overall, The Penguin does all it can to expand the grounded Gotham City that EP Matt Reeves established in his 2022 film, The Batman . Which is why we were curious to see the end of The Penguin Episode 5 “Homecoming” potentially provide a literal path to lead Oz Cobb ( Colin Farrell ) to Robert Pattinson ‘s Batman in the upcoming sequel to The Batman .

What was even more curious was Matt Reeves and fellow EP Dylan Clark’s reaction to Decider’s fan theory when we floated it at the end of a recent junket interview…

Did The Penguin Episode 5 just give fans a major clue about a possible plot development planned for The Batman Part 2?

**Spoilers for The Penguin Episode 5 “Homecoming,” now streaming on Max**

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At the very end of The Penguin Episode 5 “Homecoming,” Oz Cobb leads right hand man Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz) past a boarded up entrance to the long defunct Gotham City Trolley. Oz explains that the underground trolley used to be a great public works project that connected the entire city. However, as the rich and powerful became more greedy, they stopped funding it. So that by the time Oz was a kid, the trolley stations were completely abandoned…and perfect for mischievous boys like young Oz and his brothers to explore.

“Welcome to our new base of operations,” Oz announces as they find themselves in an abandoned trolley station, lit by generator light. The plan? They will regrow the Bliss operation out of the sole surviving plant with help of the underground base’s dark, humid conditions.

Now, what we at Decider noticed was the weird fact that Oz and Victor aren’t the first characters in The Batman universe to take advantage of these abandoned stations. In one of The Batman’s most memorable sequences, Bruce Wayne rides the Batmobile through Gotham to the sounds of Nirvana’s “Something In the Way.” His moody bike ride ends when he uses the private, though defunct, “Wayne Terminal” to access the Batcave.

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Anyone who has ever taken public transit will know that even if stations aren’t on the same line, there is theoretically a way to travel from one point to another…eventually. So if both Penguin and Batman are aware of the underground system, how long until they stumble upon each other?

“Here’s the thing,” Matt Reeves said with a smile as Dylan Clark chuckled. “How can we possibly tell you if that’s what we’re doing?”

“That’s amazing, by the way,” Clark said. “That’s the greatest.”

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“You know we can’t give you an answer to that,” Reeves said.

“But it’s a great thought,” Clark said. “Yeah, we love that.”

“We know that that that there’s a lot of different subterranean ways to travel under Gotham, whether or not they should meet underneath is something that we’re certainly wouldn’t tell you,” Reeves said. “But you know, what’s exciting is that you’re asking those questions.”

“You’re thinking that way,” Clark said. “That’s what we love about making these stories because there’s a lot of fans that will start to put some pieces together and theorize about it.”

“It may not be true, but it’s exciting to actually fan that flame.”

Yeah, so our harebrained theory may not be true, but consider our interest in the underground trolley network hidden beneath Gotham fully piqued.

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