I know why The Penguin hooked me in the beginning. HBO’s noir-ish Batman spinoff is basically a mafia story — never mind the comic book supervillain of the title, with all his quirks and extravagances. It’s this storytelling sleight of hand that makes possible a dark and moody crime saga, populated by the outcasts and irredeemables of Gotham City. A metropolis which, at least here, is basically a fictionalized version of New York City.
Underneath what I assume is several pounds of makeup and prosthetics, Colin Farrell as Penguin alter ego Oz Cobb rages and sneers and shit-talks in a constant scramble to transform himself from small-time drug dealer to fearsome underworld kingpin. Visually, he’s Tony Soprano, minus the respect that comes with being a boss. All around him, warring families clash over money and territory, while a drug economy pulsates just below the city’s surface — an economy that’s stratified into dons, mid-level gangsters, and expendable soldiers.
The show is an extension of Matt Reeves’ 2022 Batman movie, in which the Riddler floods Gotham and devastates its poorer district. But while Farrell’s Oz is very much the centerpiece of The Penguin, my attention has actually shifted away from the title character with each successive episode. The crime story might have been what reeled me in, but the thing that keeps me coming back is Cristin Milioti’s spellbinding performance as the feral, doe-eyed mafia princess Sofia Falcone.
Starting as early as Episode 1, Milioti plays Sofia as a live-wire, terrifying enigma. She’s underestimated, clearly unstable, and out for blood. And come the mid-way point of the season, she essentially pulls off a rebrand that will make your jaw drop, solidifying control of her family’s empire with a move that makes clear she’s the new big bad through the end of the season.
Farrell is great in The Penguin, don’t get me wrong. But his version of Oz is all id, all surface-level, constantly licking his lips and flicking his eyes from side to side in search of an angle. He’s never much deeper than that. Sofia’s insanity is subtler, of the sort that sends a chill down your spine. Like the time she summons Oz to dinner, convinced that he knows more about her brother’s death than he’s admitting. Waving off his attempts to butter her up, Sofa quips: “Let’s not do that. Daddy is dead, and we are … untamed.”
She has one exquisite moment after another like that in The Penguin, all of which have basically turned me into that Leonardo DiCaprio meme, the one where he’s in a recliner and dramatically pointing at a TV screen.
The most recent episode of the show, Episode 5, hit a series high with 1.8 million US cross-platform viewers. According to Warner Bros. Discovery, that was up from the previous episode’s series high of 1.7 million. Sofia’s arc was fundamental to both of those episodes, the most recent of which included a moment when young Victor asks Oz what happened to his brothers — prompting the once and future Penguin to respond: “The city took them.” The same thing, of course, is happening to the show’s two arch-rivals, making for some of the most exquisitely satisfying TV of 2024.
