Commentary: Just Like Batman, The Penguin Is A Freak

In the realm of comic book stories, there are the special characters, superheroes and supervillains, and everyone else. There’s a clear distinction between those elevated to the level of “super” and those who aren’t. For instance, Batman is a superhero while the cops are regular people. And the same could be said for villains. The Penguin is a supervillain while gangsters like Carmine Falcone are not. This distinction is articulated by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight when he says he took Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), an otherwise normal person, and brought him down to the level the Joker and Batman share. This line that separates the two is also highlighted very well in The Penguin.

The HBO series picks up where the movie left off as Gotham is in ruins after the Riddler’s (Paul Dano) attack. With Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong in episode flashbacks) dead, there’s a power vacuum which his son Alberto (Michael Zegen) is set to inherit. Due to his impulsive rage, Alberto is killed by Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), further complicating this power grab. Regular gangsters like Sal Maroni (Clancy Brown) continue to conspire to rule Gotham’s criminal underworld, but Oz — not quite yet the Penguin — tries to make moves of his own to outsmart everyone.

While giving interviews for The Batman, Robert Pattinson described his version of Bruce Wayne as a “freak,” and it’s hard not to imagine that word when seeing this version of the Penguin. He’s ugly, walks with a limp, has a cartoonish accent, and stands out from all of the “regular” people around him. He’s a freak in the same sense as Batman. They exist in a different class of character from everyone else, similar in the way Ledger’s Joker talked about. This show seems to highlight that difference in the Penguin compared to other gangsters, and it will be exciting to see how the program amplifies this as it reaches the latter half.

The Penguin streams Sundays on Max.