The Penguin Episodes Ranked w/SPOILER Review

The Penguin Episodes Ranked w/SPOILER Review 

The Penguin has wrapped on HBO Max (I’m not calling it Max). That means we have eight episodes to talk about and rank, that’s what we’re doing today! Let’s get started!

• SPOILER Review: This was a show that I was very excited about. One of my gateways into fandom was through Batman. Batman is my favorite superhero and my favorite fictional character of all time. The Batman was my favorite movie of 2022 so when they announced that Colin Farrell’s Penguin was getting his own show, I was immediately very excited for it. I dug all of the trailers of the show and now having seen the entire thing, I absolutely loved it. I just think it’s so cool that we’ve reached a point in time where we’re able to have premium television as spin-offs to big franchise films and they’re fantastic. If you showed me the trailer for this movie without any context, I would have told you it’s a movie, but it’s not it’s a tv show. This show has the same vibe and ethics that The Batman has. Matt Reeves was a producer on this show and I believe a lot of the same crew that worked on The Batman worked on this show too. What’s fascinating about this show is that it’s filled with unlikable characters, but that’s what makes it compelling. Oz is the title character but I wouldn’t really call him a protagonist. In a sense, we’re rooting for him but we’re also not rooting for him. Then you have Sofia Falcone, who's another deeply broken and unlikable character. Seeing the two of them constantly come in conflict with one another is what makes it so compelling. The episodes leave off on great cliffhangers that make you want to watch the next episode, but you also want to watch the next episode just so you can see what happens next between Oz and Sofia. Colin Farrell’s performance here is absolutely fantastic. This is a perfect example of when a casting director is smarter than the audience. Nobody on planet earth would ever have fan cast Colin Farrell, this handsome Irish actor to be The Penguin, a character that isn’t handsome. Not at one point when you’re watching this show do you see Colin Farrell, you just see The Penguin. He also disappears into the show through prosthetics, that’s fantastic. I’m not well versed in the Emmy’s and who should and shouldn’t be nominated. But I hope that Farrell and Cristin Milioti are worthy of nominations, if they’re not nominated…I’m going to have some words. 

8. After Hours (Episode 1): I thought this was a great first episode that established the rest of the season so well. In this episode we understood the characters, the threat, the world, and the tone. Despite it being a tv show, it has the same tone and vibe of The Batman but it’s in tv form. That’s what’s so cool about these streaming tv shows, they’re able to have tv shows be interconnected with the movies and still have the same production values, there’s something fascinating about that. I appreciate that Matt Reeves returned to produce the show because he did, it feels like The Batman and since that’s one of my all time favorite movies. One of the big positives for the entire show is Colin Farrell who does a great job of disappearing into this role. You don’t once see Farrell, you just see Oswald Cobblepot, The Penguin. A lot of the esthetic vibes of the episode I greatly appreciated and it’s a solid start to this show. I will say, I think this episode has the worst pacing of the entire show. I feel like the other episodes are able to move at a better pace, this episode seemed to drag just a little bit for me. But overall, a very solid first episode of the show. 

7. Homecoming (Episode 5): After some great episodes with three and four, this was a step back but I still thought it was an interesting episode that provided some solid moments. Some of the best stuff in the episode was continuing Sofia’s arc from the previous episodes, that episode was all about her. This episode picks up where Sofia is after episode four’s cliffhanger. We see her building this relationship of trust and not trust with Maroni. Sofia is mad with Oz about what happened with her brother, she’s building all of these connections to get revenge on him. You see all of the pieces coming together and you get this sense where all of it is going in the final three episodes. That part of the episode was fascinating and interesting to me, I really liked what they did there. All of that stuff was very interesting and the best part of the episode. I would say, I thought the stuff with Oz and him losing all of the drugs wasn’t as interesting. And then having Vic taking care of Oz’s mom wasn’t stuff that I was invested in. Whenever it would cut to that, I would lose interest and would want to go back to Sofia and Maroni. Overall, this is still a very solid episode that I thoroughly enjoyed. 

6. Inside Man (Episode 2): An episode that was able to build off the foundation laid by episode one. This episode fixed the problems I had with episode one which I criticized for its pacing. This episode I thought had much better pacing and worked as a whole better for me. Episode one set up all of these different plot lines and possible rivalries between certain characters, this episode builds off of that and we explore those relationships. The episode is titled “Inside Man”, that title fits perfectly but we see how Oz is manipulating both the Falcone and Maroni families to get what he wants, he’s an inside man for both of them. You see Oz's dispersion and what he wants to get out of all of it and he’s doing it by manipulating everybody around him. With the funeral scene, you start to understand Sofia Falcone a bit more and see her relationships with family members and friends of the past. You see how she’s manipulating others and being this powerful figure in Gotham. There were a lot of moments about this episode that did work for me. 

5. Gold Summit (Episode 6): I feel like I’m repeating myself here, but this is another rock solid episode. There's a lot of great elements and ideas in here and I thoroughly enjoyed the elements present in this episode. If I thought the stuff in episode five that was focused on Oz wasn’t as interesting. I thought the stuff with Oz in this episode was really interesting and compelling. Episode five wasn’t great for Oz because his drugs were damaged, but in this episode he rebuilds it. Us as the audience, knows more information than what Oz knows. We see Oz growing his drug empire, but we know what Sofia and Maroni are planning and we know that it’s not going to end well. You even get some character moments with Oz and his mother, you understand more just how much his mother means to him. The conversation between Oz and his mother in the bathroom, carries a lot of emotional weight. It’s satisfying to see Vic rise up more in power, he’s more confident with what he does in this episode. All leading to a cliffhanger with Sofia where you know she’s going to do something bad.

4. A Great or Little Thing (Episode 8): I thought this was a very solid finale to the show that made this come to a nice conclusion. Some people on the internet were absolutely praising it, loving it, and acting like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread was invented. I wouldn’t go that far but as this is a fantastic show. As a season finale, it’s most important job was to close everything and make it come to a nice conclusion. You get the pay off to the rivalry between Oz and Sofia that was built up throughout the entire season. The way it’s done here with Oz outsmarting Sofia was great. It’s this interesting dynamic where you want Oz to be victorious, but you also don’t like Oz so you don’t want him to be victorious. It’s this interesting mix and blend of it all to make for great compelling storytelling. All leading up to the finale minutes of the show where Oz kills Vic, it’s heartbreaking and it makes you hate Oz even more. There’s a sense in which you understand why Oz did it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s heartbreaking to watch. Matt Reeves said this finale will lead directly into The Batman: Part II, I’m very excited to see where that goes. 

3. Bliss (Episode 3): There’s multiple different elements of the episode that I thought were fantastic. First up, the cold open where we saw the events of The Batman from the perspective of Victor and I thought that was a great moment. It provided some solid character development for him and provided a solid foundation for his arc in the episode and his relationship with Oz. I thought the moments between him and Oz were very well done in this episode, where Victor has this opportunity to leave Gotham with his girlfriend, but decides not to go because he feels he owes something to Oz. Even having Victor be more involved with the criminal side of things with selling drugs at a club. You feel bad for him, because you want him to be with his girlfriend but you also know he got himself in this line of work. Also, you have Oz and Sofia building up their relationship and dynamic. We see how the two of them work together and in what ways they benefit one another and just these interesting dynamics that make them very interesting and layered characters. 

2. Top Hat (Episode 7): I thought this episode did a fantastic job at that, where it’s building this tension. We know that confrontation between Oz and Sofia is coming up and both of them are making their final moves to take the other out. Both of them are making strategic plays to do that, Oz kills Maroni as a way to get back at Sofia. Plus, the show did a great job of making you not like him and it’s satisfying when he does die. while Sofia has Oz’s mother captive. There’s something so fascinating about having these two unlikable people butting heads with each other constantly, you feel that tension all throughout the episode as you know what each are capable of doing. I just thought that was handled so well and it makes you excited for the finale. Also, we get to see a young Oz and what happened to his brothers. The actor they got to play a young Oz was great, he captured the mannerisms that the grown up version has so well. We see just how young Oz was when he started to become this mastermind who made things the way he wanted them to be. At first I thought it was a bit weird to have this so late into the season. After seeing the finale, I think it makes sense to dive into Oz’s backstory in this episode. 

1. Cent’Anni (Episode 4): I thought this was a very fascinating episode that focused primarily on Sofia Falcone and what led to us seeing her at the beginning of the show. Therefore, it’s this great character study and this character who descends into madness because of the people around her. In a lot of ways this episode gives the Joker treatment to Sofia and that’s interesting. They were able to do so much in just an hour long episode, it was absolutely incredible the arc that they gave Sofia. We knew that Carmine Falcone was already a bad dude from The Batman, but this episode we learn how sick and corrupted he really is and how he treats his family. You really do see this full arc for Sofia where we see her as this woman with lots of power, we see that power stripped away from him and she regains that power due to how sick and twisted her family is and how they treat her. You get to the final sequence of the episode at the mansion and it’s pretty incredible, it’s so satisfying to see her get her revenge. Weirdly enough the best episode of The Penguin is the episode that has The Penguin as the side character.