The Penguin Review: Return to Oz

It’s remarkable that the character of the Penguin , one of the more ridiculous high-profile comic-book villains in conception, has been so excellently played in live-action multiple times. Burgess Meredith nailed the camp ’60s take of a man in a tuxedo who waddles and quacks like a bird, while Danny DeVito conjured a ’90s grimdark nightmare version of a deformed pervert. In Fox’s Gotham, Robin Lord Taylor played him as a paranoid, closeted social climber plotting his way to the very bottom to the top of Gotham City’s criminal hierarchy. Colin Farrell claims never to have watched Gotham because he didn’t want to even accidentally steal from Taylor, but his version is similarly seen struggling up from the bottom while taking care of a frail mother (Deirdre O’Connell).

Method to the Monster

That aside, Farrell’s Penguin is an absolute masterpiece of both makeup and performance disappearing into a character completely. Mike Marino’s prosthetics are seamless and lifelike, while the Farrell we know from other roles is never visible nor audible in the person of Oswald “Oz” Cobb. Even Danny DeVito, the most physically transformed Penguin prior, occasionally showed through the gruesome getup; Farrell, gone full-method with a snarly American gangster accent, has vanished completely. It’s an actor’s dream and an Emmy-winning combo — to all those who suggested initially that Richard Kind or someone more naturally Penguin-esque should have gotten the role, let’s just say Kind has never delivered a performance quite like this.

Because this is HBO /Max, it’s no surprise that The Penguin aspires to be a Sopranos-style take. The result isn’t as sophisticated, since this is still a comic-book inspired story, after all. But even as the conclusion is absolutely foregone — if you believe Warner Bros. would allow the Penguin to be killed off between Batman sequels, you’re too young to be watching a TV-MA show — the fun comes in the machinations. If you’re looking for characters to root for and identify with, it may not be for you, as virtually every character in it is despicable to some degree. Like his archetype, Mr. Punch, the Penguin exists in a show where the pleasure comes in watching everyone hit each other. Metaphorically and literally.

The Two-Party Crime System

One of the biggest challenges in giving Batman a proper mystery to solve, one The Batman couldn’t fully crack, is that if the movie is being comic-book faithful, we can generally guess that any non-supervillain will turn out to be either Sal Maroni or Carmine Falcone, the opposing mobsters who usually serve as the face of organized, non-insane crime in Gotham. Falcone died in The Batman, while Maroni is in prison, leaving Oz to find a foothold and pit the remnants of the two families against each other for his own gain. He fantasizes about being a Godfather-style kingpin who’s beloved in the neighborhood even as he corners ill-gotten gains, but his penchant for betraying everyone he ever works with makes that unlikely.

A worthy opponent soon emerges in Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), recently released from a decade-long stint in Arkham Asylum for being a serial killer known as the Hang Man. Oz used to be her driver and learned his crime craft by listening to everything and everyone. Now it’s time to see if the student has surpassed the master — and what role Maroni (Clancy Brown) can play in opposition or allyship. Oz picks up a sidekick in small-time thief Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), an orphaned young man with a speech impediment, and proceeds to corrupt him by degrees.

Strong, Weak

In a stunningly terrible bit of recasting, Mark Strong replaces John Turturro as Carmine in flashbacks. They look and act nothing alike — was Strong really more available? Hell, what about Nicholas Turturro? It’s the worst Batman-related recasting since Tommy Lee Jones took over from Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent, but at least he doesn’t have many scenes. Brown, who used to be known for villain roles but more recently for funny cartoon voices, is significantly less intimidating than Shohreh Aghdashloo as his stone-cold merciless wife Nadia. Their pairing does allow for at least one cliche subversion: when this mob boss does his obligatory cooking scene, it’s Persian food that he’s preparing rather than Italian.

The first three episodes of The Penguin, directed by Craig Zobel, maintain the previous movie’s oppressive, dark, rainy, red-on-black atmosphere. After that, things open up a bit, and we see more of Gotham outdoors and in daylight, from the slums destroyed by the Riddler’s flood to the suburban estates of the rich and the CG-extended towers that seem to go on forever. Gotham feels like many different cities at once, as it should, and so vast that you can at least initially understand why Batman might be busy with other things. By the end, however, the body count and explosion count is such that it mildly stretches credibility for him not to step in at all; perhaps the next movie will reveal Bruce Wayne being injured or something.

Not Lost on Us

So many TV shows use flashbacks as an annoying interruption that it’s refreshing to see a series in which you actually want more. By the time the Sofia flashbacks hit in episode 4, you’re likely dying to know exactly what her background is in this continuity, while the Oz childhood flashbacks near the end deliver horrifying clarity. One doesn’t exactly sympathize with Oz, but he has a MAGA-like appeal to the working-class crooks of Gotham and the audience, as the potential wrecking ball who’s looking to tear down a calcified two-family system while ultimately being no better or less power-mad a person than any of them. If he’s a tyrant, he’s their tyrant…at least until he isn’t.

To its credit, the show never paints Oz as a fallen hero who became a victim. Yes, he loves some people in his way, and he feels pain, and some of his points about corruption are spot-on. At heart, though, he’s a narcissistic jerk and always will be. Yet you can’t help but watch him. Even when the show veers into predictability, Farrell’s acting and Marino’s makeup make this Oz undeniably great and terrible in the best ways.

Grade: 4/5

The Penguin premieres Sept. 19th on HBO.