The Penguin Series 2024 Review

6 days ago

I just watched the final episode of the Penguin series and damn it's a freaking awesome one. As usual, i won't make any spoilers for you because i am a cool guy but let me share my excitement with you and start saying more about the series. In other words, let the review start!

So the series, or mini-series to be more precise released in 2024 and the first episode aired on 19 September 2024. In total there are 8 episodes of about an hour each. The creator is Lauren LeFranc, not a big fan to be honest but i would still watch her movies/series. But when you have Colin Farrell in the lead role as well as Cristin Milioti everything will go smoothly.

Plot

For all the Batman fans out there, you already know who Penguin is. If you don't know who Penguin or Oswald Cobblepot is, let me tell you that he is one of the main villains and antagonists of Batman. He has no Superpower or something, he is a crime boss, a very clever and tricky one who always finds a new gig and a way to get away.

Now this series emphasizes in Penguin and how he becomes one of Batman's main Antagonists. No Batman in the series and also don't expect to see Penguin's story from the beginning. It's in a somewhat specific state where after working for many years as a driver for the Falcore family he is now some kind of Deputy leading a small team and selling drugs once again for the Falcone family.

Basically, we get to see how from there he gets to be one of the top Crime Bosses in Gotham. At the same time, we get to meet Sofia, Falcone's daughter who just got out of Arkham Asylum while her brother dies mysteriously from Guess Who. Her father is already dead so we get to also see how Sofia deals with her family legacy and by that i mean the crime syndicate.

What I Liked and What I Didn't

Without making any spoilers once again, i will start from the beginning. The acting is too good to be true, and i don't mean only by Colin. Christin does a magnificent role portraying Sofia and giving her depth, character and different kinds of emotions. The applied for mostly every character with a few lines. Colin though does an outstanding work portraying Penguin in every aspect. To begin with, you really can't tell it's him, he has been transformed entirely into a Penguin. Magnificent work.

I also like some of the fight scenes, the depth of the mostly each character, and the Gotham city vibe was quite awesome as well. Another interesting element that i particularly like is how the creator decided to portray Penguin. You see Penguin is quite smart and adept, he gets easily irritated when they make fun of him and is always thinking about his next move and how he will get everything in the end without caring about who he dies.

I really like that aspect and her motive behind everything. You see at first in movies/series we had the villains who where plain evil guys that wanted to kill/steal just because they were evil. Then as the audience got easily bored with this kind of villains, we got villains with backstories that sometimes were better than the actual heroes and people were rooting for them.

Penguin is neither and it's just as i said above. At first, you will probably say that "well there a bit of kindness in him" but wait till the end. Magnificent work in regards to that as well.

There are only 2 things i didn't like that much to be honest. The first being that i wanted more action and especially more development in terms of the other gangs, mafias etc etc. I believe this would add to the series but i get that it's only 8 episodes. The other thing is that during the first episodes i felt a bit bored. I get that they would try to build something but in my eyes and mind i was like Great (1st episode), oh Well (2nd episode), hmmm (3rd episode), Now we are talking (4th episode and so on).