The Penguin

“Ozwald has always been so goddamn needy.” Doesn’t have one single original thought in its head as far as the gangster genre is concerned, (hot take?) I thought the overall pacing episode to episode was not that great, I’m not sure the gorgeous and gothic hellscape Reeves and Fraser brought to the big screen always translates seamlessly to small screen condensation and I do think the series’ unwillingness to address the Batman-shaped elephant in the room save for the very beginning and the very end is an incredibly distracting “feels like they couldn’t book Pattinson” monkey wrench that it never fully overcomes. But what elevates The Penguin for me is still the commitment Matt Reeves and his team have displayed in fully and emotionally realizing this world. Gotham still looks rather staggering at night, they curated an absolutely outstanding soundtrack that feels honest to the Nirvana-needle dropping first film, I thought Cristin Milioti more often than not singlehandedly pushed the show from solid to genuinely great. And most of all I respect that there was no compromise or softening of the killing blow regarding its main character. Oz is a deeply insecure, greedy piece of shit and the conscious decision to side step any opportunity to endear him to you or to think that there might be something in him worth empathizing with is one that I deeply respect. I judge most shows on the whole picture and this one, although I am not as completely smitten with it as most people seem to be, absolutely stuck the landing. The itch to alter or to make a character as wholly vicious as Oz must have been great, because how do you tell ten hours’ worth of material on a guy who is just fundamentally evil? But the way Farrell is allowed to just remain this backstabbing, gluttonous, greedy fucker who kills anybody who stops him from getting what he wants, even if he says he loves them, and the way they parallel him with an evil that was crafted by her environment and by cruelty dealt to her in Sofia is brilliant. A solid show that was worth the endeavor, and I cannot wait to see the Batman cave his face in.