The Penguin (4/5 Stars)

HBO’s new television series, The Penguin, starts off where the latest Batman reboot (Robert Pattinson’s 2022 The Batman) ends. Oswald Cobb, Colin Farrell reprising his role, breaks into the luxury apartment of the late crime boss Carmine Falcone to steal some blackmail material he knows is hidden in a wall-safe. He is surprised by Carmine’s son, Alberto Falcone and quickly turns on some subservient charm to distract from his trespassing. It works and they both relax over some drinks and start talking about Alberto’s inherited role as the boss of the Falcone family. Alberto feeling about it is one of smug entitlement. In an unguarded moment, Oswald describes a crime boss from his childhood, a guy who was feared but also respected, who helped the poor and knew everybody’s name. That was another type of power, Oswald reflects sincerely. Alberto finds Oswald’s take on power to be weak. He laughs and insults Oswald. In response, Oswald takes out his gun and shoots Alberto until he is dead. He sits there with a satisfied grunt until another moment passes and he realizes how enormously stupid his actions just were.

The Penguin above all else is an impressive exercise in character development. There are a lot of twists and turns that the murder of Alberto sets off in this eight episode arc in which Oswald schemes and cajoles and wrests power from the various organized crime syndicates of Gotham, but this first scene is especially important. The murder is not premeditated. It is an impulsive act. So despite where everything ends up, let it be known that Oswald did not have a plan. He may have a vague ambition of being the boss, but much of what he does here is scene-by-scene improvisation and self-preservation.

This matters as to the study of Oswald’s character. Much is made of whether the man can be trusted and whether he says what he means. It’s complicated and Colin Farrell’s performance is one in which Oswald seems to believe what he is saying in the moment, but as soon as options are limited or something different develops, well, he can adapt. Like the first scene, Oswald has this romantic idea of a godfather crime boss, but this isn't really who he is. He's too angry, too thin-skinned, and too reckless for that. 

Why can't Oswald measure up to his ideal? Well, that’s what makes The Penguin such an interesting TV series. The main impetus for Oswald’s character defects is also what makes him sympathetic. He has a disability, a bum leg. Combined with his ungainly height and weight, his bum leg makes him waddle, like a penguin, which is what people call him behind his back when they aren't saying it to his face. He is not helped by an ugly scar that crosses his face horizontally under the nose. (A shout-out to the magnificent makeup work here). Because of his poor looks and disability he is overlooked and mistreated. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he is continually underestimated. A curse because his personality does not allow him to forget or ignore slights, which results in impulsive and sometimes stupid reactions. A blessing and a curse because he uses the way he is treated as an excuse to treat others poorly, which is helpful to his ambition if not his soul. And since he understands how mistreated people feel, he knows how to persuade and/or manipulate other mistreated people. 

There is this modern tendency in storytelling to treat disabilities as boons. The X-Men are a prime example of this. The series is a metaphor for discrimination (humans v. mutants), but the mutants all have superpowers. That is, their differences make them superior to normal people. In real life however, disabilities are exactly what they appear to be, a detriment to the people who have them. It is possible that a disability can provoke a more resilient type of character. For example, you hear some very successful people who have dyslexia claim that the inability to read correctly made them more creative with problem solving.  I do not doubt their experiences, but it is also true that the majority of people with dyslexia just straight up have a harder time learning and as a result don’t learn as much. There are many historical examples of people overcoming their disabilities and rising to greatness: Catherine the Great, FDR, etc. But most of the time, a person’s defects make them worse. It is a tough reality and it is rare that a movie shows it. But this is what makes The Penguin so interesting. Given what we are seeing on the screen, I think it is fair to say that Oswald would have been a better person if he didn’t have a limp. He would have been treated better and would have treated other people better in return. When Batman goes head to head with Oswald Cobb in the next movie, the best way to outfox him would be for that handsome billionaire to make fun of the Penguin’s waddle. It would likely provoke an impulsive error.

The weakness of The Penguin has to do with a story-line that too often solves political problems with murder. (One can contrast this with Shogun, a TV series that understood its society and people so well that the story resolved itself without the need of an actual battle.) There are several plot points where a multitude of people are liquidated just as soon as their presence in the storyline is no longer needed. Some are executed in crowded rooms with many people in them, as if the writers were in such a hurry that they didn't give the doomed men the courtesy of being dragged outside first and murdered on the lawn so that their blood wouldn't spill all over the nice carpets and hard-wood floors. It must be said that these types of murders should be much more traumatic to their many witnesses than are ever shown. Would you work for a boss that murdered an employee in the middle of an office meeting? Even minor characters deserve a little more for their deaths than what they get here. (Sometimes it is a major character that gets this treatment. I still haven’t forgiven the later seasons of Game of Thrones for how they dispatched Littlefinger).

There is also the character of Sofia Falcone (played by Cristin Milloti), which is in turns well-developed and also supremely outlandish. Her backstory is that she was the favored daughter of Carmine Falcone, but upon the outcome of a seemingly innocuous conversation, her father frames her for the murders of 10 women and has her committed to Arkham Asylum as a dangerous psychopath. Sofia is played by Cristin Milioti, a small woman. The type of corruption that would result in this type of framing and institutionalization is far out even for Gotham. I mean, come on. How does a small woman strangle anybody? They should have framed her for poisoning instead. Or just institutionalized her. That would have been enough.

Sofia Falcone makes a bunch of moves of her own, but ultimately, even though she has capacity for ruthlessness (and a decent wardrobe for it), her heart isn’t into it like Oswald's is. She makes the mistake of seeking revenge on a sociopath. She thinks she can hurt Oswald, like emotionally. But by definition, you can’t torture a sociopath emotionally. That’s what makes them so dangerous. And in particular, Oswald here has an uncanny ability to escape fatal situations while his enemies are pausing for dramatic effect. 

The look of The Penguin continues Matt Reeve's moody portrayal of Gotham as a very rainy, neon red, and dingy place. There is another nod to Nirvana, this time with a cover of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" which Kurt Cobain famously covered from a Ledbelly song in his MTV Unplugged performance. And in the first two episodes, there are several scenes with very tasty martinis. Like most TV series, I bet it could have been a few hours shorter, but this is a good interlude between Batman movies. It is said a lot about franchise heroes, that after a few movies, it is the villains that become the attraction. Nowhere is that more true than for the Batman franchise and with this series has become truer still.