Summary
By almost all accounts,The Penguinis one of the most popular shows of 2024. At least part of the reason that it has found such popularity is that because it’s based on a Batman villain, Lauren Lefranc and Matt Reeves have struck gold by putting the character through a more realistic lens. There’s no weird bird affectation, he’s not eating raw fish. He doesn’t carry an umbrella that shoots smoke or acid. He’s simply a mobster given a rather unfortunate nickname because of a birth defect on his foot.
By makingThe Penguinmore realistic they’ve also managed to make him someone who is actually sympathetic. Especially when considering thatOz Cobb is still someonethat gets treated badly by basically everyone in the show at one time or another, he’s someone that the audience can root for. He’s someone they can even like, because he’s not allowing anyone to walk all over him. He’s also very smart. All of this makes him the hero of the show so far, and that’s a problem. At his heart, The Penguin is a Batman villain. And sooner or later Reeves and Lefranc will want people to root against him again. And that’s now going to be quite difficult.
The Penguin Isn’t An Antihero
Over the last few years, there has been a surge in characters in movies and television shows that aremore antihero than hero.Deadpoolcould fit into that particular category. So didThe Mandalorian, at least when that show started. There have been plenty of video games over the years that allowed players to play as antiheroes to. Or at least they could take their character in that direction if that’s how they wanted to go.
Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, and Rhenzy Feliz
8
Streaming On
HBO Max
This surge has made it so that people see antiheroes as the kind of people they want to be. The kind of person theywant to root foron a daily basis. They see someone like The Penguin as someone they can root for but Oz Cobb isn’t an antihero. He’s a villain. He’s the bad guy that is causing pain and destruction in Gotham City.
He’s the bad guy that is causing pain and destruction in Gotham City.
It doesn’t help that Oz is having to overcome and outwit other baddies in the city. Sofia Falcone, for as manypeople might end up liking her, is also turning into a kind of villain that fans of Batman are eventually going to have to find a way to dislike, assuming she doesn’t meet her end in the finale ofThe Penguin. Suppose there’s a showdown between Oz and Sofia and they both somehow survive, that now seems like what fans of the show are most hoping for, and that means that Matt Reeves is now openingBatman 2with a couple of villains that Batman is going to have to stop. In that case, that has an audience rooting against him.
There is a very real chance that the show has simply done too good a job at offering up a character that people like. Theseason has almost run its courseand it feels like Oz could do quite a bit and people would be willing to overlook it or explain it away. This is the problem with doing a show that focuses on the bad guy as though he’s the good guy. The audience gets to know more about the villain but without the counterweight, they start to think the villain is the hero.
The Drawback Of No Batman
It’s understandable why Matt Reeves and Lauren LeFranc wanted to do a showwithout Robert Pattinson’s characterin the show. They knew that once the caped crusader appeared, that’s what the entire show would be about. But it seems in retrospect, that there should have been someone to be the counter balance. Someone there to show that what Oz is doing is not acceptable. That a man who Vic thought was going to kill him the first time he met him, is not a good and just misunderstood guy.
For his part, the actor who portrays Oz Cobb,Colin Farrell thinks that it will be hardfor people to like him by the end of the show. There is one or two acts that might finally turn people against him.However, there is no guarantee. Farrell obviously knows more than most what he might do to turn people against him, but he may be simply overestimating how people will feel about the character.
Should Oz do something that kills Vic, or somehting that kills Sofia, that could be enough to turn some of the audience against him. But it feels like not having someone who is actually a good guy on the other side of him, maybe to even pushThe Penguinto do obviously worse things, is going to backfire when it comes toMatt Reeves’ next project.
The Penguin
Cast
Created by Lauren LeFranc and starring Colin Farrell, The Penguin builds on 2022’s The Batman. The Max series chronicles the eponymous villain’s attempt to reach Gotham’s criminal peak, rising through the underworld in the middle of a power struggle.
