HBO is reeling in more DC programming, a show that couldn’t be more opposite to their previous offering, James Gunn’s Peacemaker. That would be The Penguin, a spin-off of Matt Reeves’ non-DCU, non-DCEU film The Batman, a film in which Colin Farrell’s Penguin played a supporting role. Now he’ll get about ten times as much screen time as Robert Pattinson’s Bruce/Bats ever got in that film.

The show aired on Thursday but will be pushed to Sunday and will be HBO’s “premium” offering that night, previously showing House of the Dragon. And yes, the show deserves that time slot. Spoilers follow.

So far, The Penguin is far from anything resembling true superheroism, a pure mafia drama dealing with the aftermath of events when Riddler swept Gotham, and Batman certainly won’t be cleaning it up single-handedly, and I’d be amazed if he even got a cameo. After Falcone Sr.’s death, there’s a power struggle in the underworld, and the show opens with the shocking execution of his son and successor by Oz, simply for laughing at his dream of being a revered gangster.

The show then devolves into a strange buddy drama, with Penguin recruiting a young boy to help him with his new plans rather than executing him when he witnesses the disposal of Falcone’s body. Apparently he wants an apprentice. Now playing both sides, Falcone’s and Moroni’s, Penguin escapes blame for the murder at the end of the episode with a surprisingly brilliant plan.

I know we saw him do this in The Batman, but it’s almost impossible to believe that underneath the makeup and rubber is Colin Farrell, in what is arguably the most impressive prosthetics work I’ve ever seen. Do you know how difficult it is to create a character in a down-to-earth mafia drama who has a pile of crap on his face and is wearing a fatsuit? But it works, it really works, and Farrell is excellent here. Not only is he visually unrecognizable, but his acting is something I’ve never seen from him before. It seems he’s going to be far more interesting than he got to be in The Batman, and it’s now easy to see why they gave him his own series.

And although she has less screen time, it seems very clear that Cristin Miliotis’ Sofia Falcone, recently released from Arkham, will have an equally formidable presence on the show, one who has seen through Penguin and understands his moves better than anyone else. It seems that she The villain in the series (well, Oz is a villain, but you know what I mean), and so far she’s earned that title.

We know James Gunn is planning a more lighthearted version of DC compared to the DCEU and now this Reeves stuff, but it’s hard to deny that Reeves’ vision of Gotham here is close to the best we’ve ever seen. There will probably be a movie trilogy, that Penguin miniseries, and at least one or two more HBO shows when it’s all said and done. And he and his team have two out of two, and I’d bet they could do six out of six if given the chance.

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