TAlthough it stars Colin Farrell, reprising his role from Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022), and the film is set shortly after the catastrophic events in Gotham instigated by the Riddler at the end of the third act, the Penguin is more likely to be seen as a sort of Sopranos for young adults than an addition to the Batverse. The Caped Crusader does not appear, and all the villainy on display – including that of the Penguin, now called Oz Cobb instead of Oswald Cobblepot to move even further away from cartoonishness – is very human in nature.

Carmine, his boss and head of the Falcone crime family, was killed at the end of The Batman. With a power vacuum now in the city, the series follows the Penguin’s attempts to rise from his position as a mid-level gangster, entrusted with running a nightclub and part of the gang’s drug business, but never fully accepted. It’s his desire for respect that drives him through the deadly game of snakes and ladders toward his goal of ruling Gotham, and that makes the Penguin much more than just another money-hungry spin-off of a famous franchise.

Cobb pulls off the first step – murdering Carmine’s son and useless heir to the throne, Alberto – with relative ease, after an exchange between them that is almost as emotionally brutal as Alberto’s subsequent death. This lets viewers know from the start that we’re dealing with a show that is significantly better than it has any right to be, and will likely meet even the highest expectations of fans.

Cristin Milioti plays Alberto’s far more capable sister Sofia, recently released from a ten-year sentence at Arkham Asylum, where she is believed to have committed several murders. The two form a tender bond – Cobb was her chauffeur when they were younger, and she too knows what it’s like to be passed over in favor of weaker men – but that bond becomes strained and eventually breaks as she grows suspicious that Cobb had something to do with her brother’s death.

Cobb recruits a teenager, Victor (Rhenzy Feliz) — a gentle soul who lost his home and family in the city’s flood and is trying to survive on his own — as his driver and assistant. He takes the boy under his wing (no pun intended; this kind of show isn’t), and their relationship is punctuated by moments of tenderness where we get to see what Cobb could have become if… well, if either nature or nurture had been different. The differing contributions of these forces is one of the questions The Penguin likes to play with. To that end, Cobb’s mentally unstable mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell), is introduced and becomes an increasingly important piece of the puzzle of Cobb’s origin story.

The Penguin, however, lets nothing deter him from his story. The action is fast and slick, Cobb is always a hair’s breadth away from triumph or disaster, and the audience is left breathless waiting to see which way the latest twist will take him. Farrell – truly a revelation here, despite being buried under layers of prosthetics – always lets the desperation of an underestimated, unloved being lurk just beneath the ruthless killer’s surface. Glimpses of the man he could have been (with Sofia, with his quasi-girlfriend, and with Victor) are just frequent enough for us to mourn the loss.

The Penguin is a sleek and powerful beast with enough action and heart to win over existing fans and many new ones. And Farrell himself should soon be swimming in a sea of ​​awards.