The Rise of Cobb

I’m not a huge fan of Matt Reeves’s 2022 film The Batman. I know there are those that love it, with all its dark and grimy imagery and its unrelentingly bleak tone, but those are the exact reasons I couldn’t stand the film. Yes, it’s dark, and drab, and angry, and it finds Batman at a low point in his life, but it doesn’t ever find a way to muster hope, to present him as a hero, to show the world that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. BatmanOne of the longest running, consistently in-print superheroes ever (matched only by Superman and Wonder Woman), Batman has been a force in entertainment for nearly as long as there's been an entertainment industry. It only makes sense, then that he is also the most regularly adapted, and consistently successful, superhero to grace the Silver Screen. doesn’t need to be a beacon of hope the way SupermanThe first big superhero from DC Comics, Superman has survived any number of pretenders to the throne, besting not only other comic titans but even Wolrd War II to remain one of only three comics to continue publishing since the 1940s. should be, but as a hero he should present a worldview that things can be better, even if he has to beat a bunch of faces to make it happen. The Batman didn’t ever give us that, and I found it to be a slog just sitting through the film.

Needless to say I wasn’t exactly excited for a spin-off TV series from the film. While Colin Farrell’s performance as Oswald Cobb (aka the Penguin) was great in the film, for the few scenes we saw of him, I wouldn’t say that the character was compelling enough to warrant his own series, nor did I want to spend another eight hours in this bleak and drab world. But I was surprised by what I got when I tuned in for The Penguin. The series is very bleak and dark at times, this is true, but there are moments of levity, or hope, of looking forward, even as the series focuses on the darkest underbelly of Gotham’s crime syndicates. And it gives us more of Farrell’s fantastic Penguin, which I don’t think will ever be a bad thing.

Does this TV series make me excited for The Batman - Part II? Not really. This almost feels like an unrelated sidestory to the film, aided in no small part by the fact that the only returning actor we have for this show is Farrell himself. Bereft of the Batman, Commission Gordon, Selina Kyle, or any of the rest of the main players from the film (only a couple of whom even mentioned at all) this series could take place in its own world, its own offshoot reality from the main movies. Maybe that’s the point, so that you don’t have to watch this series to care about what happens in the next film. But it does mean that this series gets to sink or swim on its own, and if you then decide to continue not caring about the films, well then you just don’t have to.

The series, as you would expect from the name, focuses on Farrell’s Oswald Cobb, who has the unfortunate nickname of “Penguin” due to his club foot and distinct, waddling walk. Penguin used to work for Carmine Falcone (played in the film by John Turturro but played in flashbacks in this series by Mark Strong), but with Falcone’s death a the hands of the Riddler, there’s a power vacuum in Gotham, one that Oswald wants to fill. The only issue is that the Falcone family still expects to rule the city.

Carmine's son, Alberto (Michael Zegen), expects to wear the crown, but during a late night drink, one-on-one, with Oswald, Alberto laughs at the Penguin, mocking him. This leads Oswald to shoot the younger man, killing him and leaving the Falcones without their leader. One person that wants to fill that role is Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti). Sofia thinks Penguin killed her brother, already having a healthy distrust of the man after he helped put her in Arkham for a series of murders she didn’t commit (her father, in fact, was the infamous Hangman, although Sofia was held without charge for years for those crimes). She wants Penguin dead, and to take power for herself, now that she’s free of the asylum, but the rest of the family couldn’t care less about her. Like Oswald, she has to find her place in this new world where her father is dead and power is up for grabs, and she’s going to have to battle the Penguin, and everyone else, to get it.

The Penguin is set as a story about the rise of Gotham’s next kingpin. We presume it will be Oswald, since he’s the title character, but the trick the show plays early on is that it gives us a compelling second character that could, very well, be the next kingpin (or, really, queenpin) to rule them all. We aren’t sure who will come out on top, or if both of them are going to do such a good job of bloodying each other that neither wins and someone else takes the crown. That’s what keeps The Penguin investing: we want to see what happens next, to know who will take over, and the show gives us a couple of strong characters to watch in the process.

Oswald is, honestly, the less interesting character of the two. He gets a strong first episode, where he meets his eventual faithful lieutenant, Vic Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), and comes to bond with the kid. The show, though, struggles to convey a key aspect of the Penguin: that he’s the smartest, most cunning guy in the room. Penguin has a lot of irons in the fire, and the show gives us a case that he’s a man that can work with what he’s given and turn shit into gold, but it stumbles when it makes it seem like others see intelligence in the character. He’s presented as a smooth talker, a con man that gets people to his side, a slick man that always has a plan behind his plan, but then he opens his mouth and, while not sounding dumb, nothing he says ever aligns with how the world wraps around him.

That’s nothing against Farrell’s performance, mind you. Farrell is great, lost in the role to such a degree that you don’t even recognize he’s in there. No, I put the blame mostly on the episode writers and showrunner Lauren LeFranc. They’re clearly in love with the Penguin character, and want him to come across as the worthy kingpin because he’s just so damn smart, but many of his wins come not from his cunning and intelligence but just sheer happenstance. For a smart character to seem like he always has a plan and can deal with anything it’s first important to make it seem like he’s smart enough to have a plan at all, and I don’t think The Penguin does a good enough job of that for its lead character.

Sofia Falcone (ne Gigante, as she later changes her name) has a similar problem in that she has to react to what happens around her without necessarily having a plan at any given time, but that feels like less of an issue for her. She’s not presented as the smartest person in the room so we don’t have the same expectations for her. Hell, she’s rebelling against the fact that everyone always uses her, treating her like a prop and not someone to be respected. Even her father, Carmine, had originally intended to have her take over the family when he retired (or died), but then on a whim he blames her for his crimes and has her take the fall, getting abused and tortured in Arkham for a decade, never even checking on her, leaving her to rot. Her going by the seat of her pants to take back her power feels fine. It works for her.

Plus, Milioti is great in the role. I mostly knew her from comedic performances, such as playing the future mother on How I Met Your Mother, as Zelda Vasco in A to Z (which was a cute, but very short-lived, show), or as the woman sucked into a time loop, Sarah Wilder, from Palm Springs. She’s very fun and funny in her roles, but here she has that same charisma channeled towards a very dark, tortured character. You can see the bright, sunny girl trying to come out, but then the world she’s trapped in comes down on her and she has to fight to just keep herself alive instead. Milioti nails it.

And credit to Feliz, who brings heart to his role as Vic. I think if the show were just Penguin bashing up against Sofia it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting, but because Vic is there, acting as Penguin’s sidekick, giving him a friend to rely on, someone that always has his back, it helps. We have someone that we actually want to root for, someone that seems like a good person, deep down, just trying to do right in the world he’s been shoved into. Vic is really too good for the world he’s in, and much of that comes from Feliz’s performance as the young guy.

Of course, without spoiling too much, everyone in the show does eventually get what they deserve, one way or another. They’re often warned about the paths they’re headed down, and even when they say their life goals, what they want and hope and dream for, the twisted reality of Gotham shows how wrong that all can become. That’s a message this show wants to emphasize, the fact that what you want may not be good for you, and that is the one thing that really feeds back to The Batman in the end. This city, Gotham, is twisted and broken and wrong, and no one comes out of it happy. You get what you want, but also what you deserve, and every bad choice leads to a bad end, one way or another.

In a way The Penguin is a version of The Batman that I wanted to see, and from another perspective it’s just as bleak and dark and depressing as the film. It is pretty unrelenting, especially near the end, and you realize that no one and nothing will bring happiness. It makes for an interesting series, but that escapism, the bit of superhero worlds that everyone wants, is still missing. I liked The Penguin but I don’t know that I’d ever want to go back and watch this specific season of television again.