The origin story of the long-time Batman nemesis is the best thing on TV right now
An early version of this ran on my newsletter.
Holy smokes, Batman.
It’s no secret that of all the superheroes, Batman has the best villains. They’re quirky and bizarre and above all memorable. Here’s a quick test: How many Batman villains can you name? Whatever that number is, I bet it’s higher than for any other superhero.
However, Batman’s villains retain the faint whiff of their comic book origins better than most. The Nolan trilogy dispelled the camp and humanized the inherently inhuman, but even then, the baddies felt like carnival characters. Grotesqueries to marvel at from the safety of your seat. You can’t take your eyes off Joker, but he’s also at least 50% too unbelievable. You marvel at the show, knowing full well this is all fantasy.
One of the triumphs of The Batman (2022) is how real it felt. The villain is a deranged incel performing for an adoring online mob. Bruce Wayne is at least 3 kinds of screwed up. The Batmobile is a souped-up hotrod. The violence has a weight that is frankly disturbing, as it would be if this was all real. But one of the movie’s neatest tricks is how it made one of Batman’s long-time antagonists a real person.
The Penguin is one the silliest concepts ever devised. A portly man with a purple fetish who waddles around, usually with an umbrella that doubles as a gun, sometimes attended by an actual flock of arctic birds. Nothing about him is serious. Danny DeVito’s portrayal in Batman Returns (1992) leaned into the inherent tragedy of the character, but was never able to fully rise above the character’s inborn absurdity; the film opens with a sequence that implies he was raised by penguins.
The 90s were a different time.
The Batman introduced us to Oswald Cobb (Colin Farrell) and it was immediately clear there was something deeper to the character. A shiftiness to his eyes that hinted at greedy desperation, but his ambitions remained checked by loyalty. Though he’s not physically intimidating, Oswald didn’t cower when Batman punched his way through an entire club of enforcers to get to him; if anything, he had a sense of humor about the whole thing, giving Batman the nickname “Vengeance.”
I’ll just come out and say it: The dude was super likable. Even though he’s a criminal and a murderer. You can’t help but like the guy. Maybe because he was the only one cracking jokes in the sepia-toned wasteland called Gotham.
At the time, I thought it was a strange choice to cast Colin Farrell and then bury him under makeup and prosthetics. But now that The Penguin is airing, I get it. Mark my words: Colin Farrell is going to be nominated for an Emmy. And he should win.
What he’s doing in this show is simply masterful.
The Penguin is the origin story of the infamous titular character, but that suggests the purpose of the show is solely to birth a villainous caricature. The writing and direction is far too subtle for anything so crude.
When the show begins, he’s still just Oswald Cobb, a mid-level gangster trusted to run a handful of businesses for the Carmine crime family. Trusted, to a point, and secretly despised. Or perhaps not so secretly. As Oswald acknowledges to his bosses, “I’m an acquired taste.”
Oswald is the type of guy who knows everyone but doesn’t have any friends. Chances are you’ve known someone like him, a co-worker or neighbor or a third-cousin, someone fate put in your life. They’re unlikeable or unpleasant in a way you can’t quite put a finger on. They’re a burden to be tolerated.
It’s not hard to trace a line from downtrodden and misunderstood to maniacal madman. The Penguin isn’t even the first show to attempt this trick with this same character! In the broad strokes, the show Gotham told the exact same story 10 years earlier: Low-level thug Oswald Cobblepot does his best Littlefinger impersonation by instigating a war between Gotham’s rival crime factions and then steps into the void.
The difference: Oswald Cobblepot is a comic book character. Not just in his cartoonish surname. Cobblepot is a Joker facsimile played by budget Crispin Glover. There’s nothing to the character. He’s an animated construct of clumsy plot machinations. In contrast, Oswald Cobb is a deeply flawed human being who invites empathy even if he’s technically low-life criminal scum. It’s a big difference. It’s the only thing that truly matters. Unfortunately, it’s something comic book adaptations regularly sleep on.
The Penguin’s first sequence involves Oswald relaying a story about an old-time gangster who ran the neighborhood he grew up in. He was a Vito Corleone type, the kind of guy you went to with problems. He was beloved. It’s clear Oswald idolized this guy. He probably decided to become a gangster because of him.
It’s a nice little story, but Farrell’s acting puts it over the top. And when he’s mocked for harboring similar ambitions — to be beloved in spite of his criminal enterprise, or perhaps because of it — the hurt and confusion in his eyes is painful. There are plenty of shows that make you empathize with villains, but rarely has it felt so visceral. Here’s the best comparison I could think of: The scene in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles where Neal (Steve Martin) lights into Del (John Candy). Del doesn’t say a word during the assault. It’s all in his face. Which somehow makes it all the more devastating.
It’s clear Oswald has spent his life being looked down upon. He’s fat and ugly. His physical deformity makes him waddle. His New York street accent implies a certain low-level intelligence. His face becomes strangely rat-like when he smiles, eyes squinted and pointed nose prominent. On the surface, nothing about this guy is appealing.
What makes him so riveting is just how vulnerable he seems. Which is a weird thing to say about a drug-dealing gangster. He’s an underdog in a world ruled by powerful crime families. A cog in the machine, with dreams of being more. Who can’t relate to that? And how do you not love a guy who rides around listening to Dolly Parton sing “9 to 5”?!
I already threw in one Game of Thrones reference, how about another: Oswald is a lot like Tyrion Lannister, both in how he uses prejudices made based on his appearance to his own benefit, and in his soft spot for “cripples, bastards, and broken things.” It’s this latter trait that hints the most strongly at who Oswald might’ve been, under different circumstances, and raised by a different mother. He’s fated to be a victim of both nature and nurture.
The point of this show is to turn Oswald into the Penguin, the feared crime lord of Gotham, which will require toppling two crime families. The question isn’t really whether or not he’ll be successful; it’s will we still recognize him, after. Will we still like him?
Don’t be deterred by the silly title — The Penguin is riveting drama, closer to The Sopranos than Gotham or frankly any other comic book inspired TV show. It’s smarty written and slyly funny, and all of it buoyed by Farrell’s standout performance. After only one episode, it’s too early to declare this 2024’s best show. But that’s on the table.
