FYC: Why ‘The Penguin’ Deserves Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series

When I hear a TV show is being spun off from a popular movie, I see that as a sign to run away fast. But when The Penguin was announced, my first thought was that this makes sense. Oz Cobb was an intriguing character in The Batman, from not being able to tell it was Colin Farrell under that make-up to his flamboyant personality, he made an impression but never overtook the film. We didn’t have a lot of background on him, so there was plenty for a TV show to explore. I appreciated the fact that the creators were avoiding making this homework for the second movie. In The Batman, Oz is presented as Falcone’s second in command and so naturally he is next in line to take over the mob, so if Oz is in the new movie no one will be lost. Basically I was interested in what this show would do with Oz, and what new details of the world of Gotham we would get, and the show surprised me in that almost all of it is anchored in its cast.

We as audience members love our anti-heroes and Oz seemed like a great example of that. A man who came from nothing and is trying to better himself, he loves his ailing mother and wants to make her proud. He has a hooker for a girlfriend but also is trying to help out her and her friends by giving them jobs outside of prostitution. He even takes a young kid from the neighborhood under his wing and, while using him, does seem to care for him. He is also a murderer and gangster but the people he is fighting with are as well so we can empathize with him even though he is evil.

Yet this show doesn’t make it easy for us as we find out more about Oz Cobb, traits we think are virtues take on darker implications. He goes from morally questionable to down right sociopathic behavior. There are bread crumbs that hint at some of these behaviors but the show is very deliberate in how it reveals those details to us. Colin Farrell’s performance lets him inhabit both of these characteristics at once where we are never quite sure what he is really thinking.

His main rival for control is Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), the black sheep of the crime family that was in Arkham for years for strangling hookers. They could have just made her a psychopath who is easy for us to root against. Instead she becomes the inversion of Oz and sometimes becomes an even more interesting character to watch. Sofia goes from a supposedly unhinged serial killer to someone who has been damaged by her family, and we as the audience switch our sympathy to. Her desires to rule take on different implications and she changes as she gets that power. She actually starts to question her own actions, wondering what it is that she actually wants and if she is any better than the people around her.

A scene that stayed with me is one that the show didn’t need plot-wise but enhanced so much about her. Sofia is talking with her family’s longtime rival Salvatore “Sal” Maroni (Clancy Brown) as he is cooking a meal and talks about how he learned his wife’s cooking to pass it down, mentioning his son liked yogurt on it. She eats it and agrees it is better. Sal caring about his own family contrasts with what we learned about Sofia. We get to see these two bond in a quiet way. It doesn’t change what these two are up to, but it makes the characters richer.

Francis Cobb (Deirdre O’Connell), Oz’s mother, seems to just be a woman suffering from Lewy Body Dementia that Oz wants to protect from his enemies. But she is not some simple plot device. We see her motivations as well, though her illness and the secrets she carries masks it, not just from us but from herself at times. Then we have Vic (Rhenzy Feliz), the kid Oz “recruits” into his gang, who is probably the only character that is up front about what he is. Vic lost everything and Oz has given him a home and a family while teaching him how to survive in the world of crime. He gains confidence and we see him grow into a good criminal while never losing the inherent decency that let us as audience members into this world.

Distinct set work, costume, and hair work all make Gotham feel like a city that is lived in. Be it the poor people trying to get by that Vic comes from, to the mansion where the Falcone’s rule over the city, it feels like this could be happening in any big city. Even the violence, while definitely more common in this show than most, feels real, and that death has consequences, and that it could actually happen. That gives all the characters more room to grow naturally.

The Penguin is a show I would go down the ballot giving all the awards, from the creative arts Emmys to the main show. Not out of laziness or lack of nominees, but because it genuinely did the work. It crafted a world and characters to match it, and took the time to develop all parts of it. Sweeps are boring sometimes but when the show deserves it like this one, it would be really fun to see.

The Penguin streams exclusively on HBO Max.