From the minute Colin Farrell hops into frame as the scarred and weird Oswald Cobb, it’s clear that The Penguin is going to be unique. Set instantly after the occasions of 2022’s The Batman, the HBO minimal series informs the story of the notorious badguy in a grittier, more grounded variation of Gotham, one that fits into the world Matt Reeves developed for Robert Pattinson’s topped crusader a coupleof years back.
As such, The Penguin feels much more gangster program than comic book series, like a alittle more unreasonable variation of The Sopranos where an whole city can be flooded by a supervillain called The Riddler and a mass killer can be launched from Arkham Asylum and dive right back into her seat at the criminaloffense household table.
The Penguin and The Hangman
If I had to identify what makes The Penguin so great, I’d have to pick 2 things: Farrell’s Oz and Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone. The 2 stars definitely chew on surroundings whenever they’re on screen, pulling your eyes like mosquitos to a neon-blue bug zapper. Farrell plays Oz like a guy split down the middle: at times calm, cool, gathered, and computed; at others, an exposed wire triggering alarmingly close to a puddle of water. Oz can sweet-talk his method out of hairy circumstances, relying on a appeal that he’s cultivated to combat his look—an look that will regularly shock you, as you forget and then keepinmind onceagain and onceagain that this is Colin Farrell (one of the sexiest guys alive) under all of the outstanding SFX makeup and prosthetics.
He is indistinguishable in this reveal, and not simply because a deep scar bifurcates his chin and right cheek or since his pores are giant or duetothefactthat he has gold caps on some of his teeth, however duetothefactthat Farrell’s body language, quirks, and voice are so lived-in, so genuine. He’s sunk muchdeeper into the function than he was in The Batman, using the match like a 2nd skin. He is The Penguin.
But Milioti (who you might understand finest from the Star Trek-inspired episode of Black Mirror, or as the Mother in How I Met Your Mother, or the co-lead in Palm Springs) doesn’t simply hold her own in scenes with Farrell, she commands your attention simply as much (if not more) than he does. As Sofia Falcone aka The Hangman, the child of Carmine Falcone and a foundedguilty serial killer in her own ideal, there is a regularly bubbling cauldron of rage hiding hardly listedbelow the surfacearea, with Milioti’s substantial eyes and ideal sneer telegraphing Sofia’s vicious nature at all times.
In one scene, after Sofia’s cousin techniques her to reminisce about the great ol’ days at Lake Como, we see the cousin balk when her young child actions up to signupwith the discussion. Sofia acknowledges her cousin’s stateofmind shift, and flexes down to get eye-to-eye with the little woman, menacingly repairing her hair, a tip of who is in charge, and what she’s capable of. Milioti, a New Jersey native, easily embraces the patter of an Italian mafiosa, snapping her consonants and dragging out her vowels and spitting out curses with gusto. She is fantastic, and if both she and Farrell puton’t get award noms for this reveal, then there genuinely is no justice in Hollywood.
A comic book Cosa Nostra
I viewed 5 episodes of The Penguin and can securely state it belongs in the pantheon of terrific minimal series like Sharp Objects, Chernobyl, and Band of Brothers. It is, front to back, near