'We're Beauty and the Beast in one luscious Christmas gift pack. I'll leave it to you to decide which one of us is which.' Photos: Handout
The bird who didn't quite fly the coop in 2022's The Batman is back, and feeling just as underestimated and resentful as before.
Now in his very own HBO series, The Penguin aka Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell buried in heavy yet strangely believable make-up, the character's name truncated from the traditional "Oswald Cobblepot") takes bold... er, strides towards making his grand criminal ambitions a reality.
He's far afield from Danny DeVito's arguably iconic turn in Batman Returns, while perhaps not that far removed from Robin Lord Taylor's please-can't-you-all-just-love-me Oswald Cobblepot from Gotham.
As we saw in The Batman, Oz was a long-serving but underappreciated member of Gotham's Falcone crime family.
As this series opens, the city is still reeling from the devastating flood triggered by the Riddler's followers in the film's finale; while the Falcones are reeling from the murder of boss Carmine (John Turturro in the movie, Mark Strong in series flashbacks).
Oz tries to carve out a niche of his own with his gaze firmly fixed on the heights, but his reach keeps falling just short of his ambition – and also, stymied by his past transgressions against, well, seemingly every criminal in the city.
'I feel so drained... like I've just emerged from a very Long Halloween.'
From the very first episode, we see how adept he is at thinking on his feet, talking himself out of dire situations, quick at planting seeds of doubt over others to steer suspicion away from himself.
He's also impulsive and sensitive, a tad submissive to his mother Francis (Deirdre O'Connell), and poorly regarded by Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly) – the Falcone underboss holding the organisation together since Carmine's death.
That impulsiveness lands Oz in a world of trouble practically before the first commercial break (oh wait, they don't have those on HBO).
He also lands in the crosshairs of Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti, How I Met Your Mother), a reputed serial killer just out of Arkham Asylum (which just has to have about the most chill – or maybe cincai in our parlance – inmate release vetting process in any comics-inspired universe).
The "frenemification" of these two rejects takes up a good portion of the initial episodes, while we get a glimpse of Oz sidekick Victor Aguilar's (Rhenzy Feliz, Marvel's Runaways) tragic backstory in the third.
'Like I told that Scottish guy with the sword, when it comes to crime overlords, there can be only one.'
This early into its debut season, showrunner Lauren LeFranc (Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.) has done a bang-up job of juggling hard-boiled crime drama, comic-inspired grand opera, strong undercurrents of rejected souls struggling for acceptance – and all without any sight or mention of Batman.
And it's all in service of furthering this particular show's story, building towards the moments of profound betrayal among this principal trio that you just know will arrive.
While Oz mostly comes across as a reprehensible specimen, Farrell gives him just enough vulnerability and a strangely compassionate gleam in his eye in his scenes with Feliz to keep this gangster grounded in humanity.
It's plain too that Sofia is a somewhat chilling individual, but Milioti – with a gaze that alternates between knowing and soul-piercing – is mesmerising as she peels back the layers of long-suffered trauma to open up and form a kind of grudging appreciation for Oz.
Affecting his character's stutter to optimal effect without going overboard in the sympathy sweepstakes, Feliz becomes the anchor for the audience in this volatile equation.
He's also the perfect foil for Farrell to deliver Oz's insightful and habitual skewering of people and the Gotham/American dream.
Why? Oz probably sees a kindred soul in the young man, and through this, we viewers also become invested in Victor's struggles since he – unlike Oz – seems to have a shot at redemption.
While I still have some reservations about The Batman, this "shared universe" entry has got me hooked. It's a simmering winner, each episode building the pressure – sometimes subtly, sometimes with a grand flourish befitting the source medium – until you just can't wait for things to hit boiling point.
New episodes of The Penguin arrive every Monday on HBO (Astro Ch 411/ Unifi TV Ch 401).
Summary:
Waddle me this, Batman
