Y. M. Nelson: Howdy nerdy romantics! Today we are talking The Penguin. A show that it is currently finished its first season. It shows on Max. Formerly known as HBO Max, and it is a DC Comics live action show.

So, let’s get into it. Let’s talk to Penguin. Before we do, I want to give a spoiler alert. I try not to spoil much on these episodes, but I do plan on spoiling a couple of things here. So, spoiler alert, ​[kaxon warning].

We are talking The Penguin. 

This is the Nerdy Romantics Podcast and I’m your host, YM Nelson.

Okay, let’s get into it. So, first thing I want to talk about with The Penguin has to do with how I first experienced it. And specifically talking about gangster culture. 

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[00:01:33] The Penguin as a gangster series

Y. M. Nelson: Okay, so let’s get into it. This iteration of maybe origin story of one of Batman’s arch villains, the Penguin, is essentially, when you first start out with it, a gangster series. I loved that. I loved that about it. I don’t know how everybody else feels about it because I like to record my podcast episodes devoid of what everybody else is saying about this show. I will say when I first actually did come to the show or did hear about the show.

The biggest thing was that Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as the Penguin, and it’s totally true, but we’ll talk about him later. Right now, gangster culture in this, and it being a kind of gangster series, was a plus for me.

Because as y’all know I am not a comic book nerd. I’m a superhero nerd. So, my reference, of course, is well, I do know the way he is drawn in comic books, and it’s a lot more sinister than the way he is, he was portrayed, and I believe the movie was Batman Returns where Danny DeVito plays the Penguin,

it was very comical, of course, in Batman Returns, I believe there was also the Riddler in that. So but the character has always come across to me as comical. And In this way that that this show is is laying out his origin story is one that gives me A whole Godfather feel.

You know, for those who love Scarface, the Scarface feel too. But you know, I love that. And I love that it’s not necessarily comical. Towards the end, when he is really becoming the Penguin, and he’s really becoming that villain that we know, that is really frightening. So, you know, there’s no way that you’re not going to take him seriously. 

So, this is really a tale of two mafia-like families going at it in Gotham, and the Penguin is in the middle of it. It’s the, the Falcones, which we definitely know and understand. And the Maroni family, which , to me, was a new family. Whether that is a new family in the comic book or not, let me know in the comments.

But the Falcone family, we know who that family is. And at the, at in the beginning, he’s aligned with the Falcone family. He is a driver for the, for Falcone’s daughter Sophia. And at this point you know, Sophia has been in Arkham. And he is actually more of a right hand man to Carmine Falcone, and then Carmine Falcone ends up dead.

And so the next person to take over for Carmine is is his son. So, he goes to the son and, you know, tries to, you know, manipulate or whatever with the son and then ends up killing the son. So he still isn’t head of the family at this point. There, there will be another kind of head of the family.

But, he has managed to oops his way into being a big part of the Falcone family. Because he’s not getting what he wants, he pits the Falcone family against their rival family, the Maroni family. And, of course, as we know, with mafia families, there’s always drugs involved, so that’s what’s going on.

There’s a drug war, we’re trying to get the newest, greatest drug out, and we’re trying to own these streets. So Oswald, or the Penguin Oswald is in here is basically, he reminds me, in kind of the beginning of Fredo in the Godfather.

 He has a very manipulative undercurrent. He’s always trying to manipulate to get what he wants. And so that, just that whole mafia culture and how that kind of plays out and how he’s playing that culture on itself is It’s just, it’s amazing to watch. 

Maybe this is not the right way to say it, but I can’t think of another way to say it, but it’s almost like we’re seeing a now grown up version of Oswald Cobb, right? Which is why he doesn’t like to be called the Penguin, right? You call somebody the Penguin and it’s some kind of comic relief, right?

Y. M. Nelson: You called somebody Oswald Cobb, and that is a whole different kind of feeling there. Right? And, and also, we realize The Penguin is an insult. So, because I’ve talked a lot about who The Penguin is, why don’t we actually get into more of who this character is. So, who is Oswald Cobb? A. k. a. The Penguin. 

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[00:08:13] Who is Oswald Cobb?

Y. M. Nelson: So if you are a superhero fan, or if you are a DC fan, Someone like me who understands The Penguin as being a villain of Batman, you go into this wondering why this is being called The Penguin, right? Why am I supposed to side with the villain, right? The show’s name is The Penguin. So we know that he survives. Should we root for him to survive?

I went into this feeling conflicted already from the fact that he’s the titular character, and he’s a villain. So, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. But immediately, I understand that I don’t like this guy, but that I will root for this guy because not only do we see that he’s not a good guy because basically in the first 15 minutes, he just pops off and shoots shoots the Falcone’s son and just lose his mind there a little bit.

We see him try to manipulate his way into the relationship, and when he can’t, he kills somebody. So we already know that. That’s not a good thing, right? We don’t like that. That’s not great. 

But then we have this second scene of him going back to his house. One of the only scenes where we see his leg and why he has this limp that makes him walk like a penguin, right? And we see his place decorated. But his bedroom door is a big door like a safe, like a safe house, like he has to, at some point, may have to wall himself in .

And I felt kind of like, Oh, I think I might’ve judged him incorrectly, right? I feel kind of ambivalent. It’s not just, I don’t like him. I also now want to root for him. Okay. But. He still is a bad guy because he just shot somebody. So, all of these feelings kind of coming together here, and this is just within the first half of the first episode.

 And in the second half of the first episode We see that his car is getting vandalized and he’s gonna go after these teenagers who are taking off parts of his car and trying to boost it. And, he brings Vic, one of them, under his wing. So, now he’s being a little bit of a mentor. I mean, really. How? How am I supposed to feel about this person? 

And throughout this season, that feeling does not go away. Every episode, we see a little more of who Oswald is, and why he ends up the way he does. And you feel something for him. At the same time, he is actually doing some manipulative stuff and doing some really evil things that make you feel like this guy is bad. 

So for those of you who are fans of Dexter, you probably felt like this. You probably had this same feeling that I was having. This whole season that I watched The Penguin, I had that feeling. There’s just an up and down and up and down feeling like, am I supposed to like this guy? Am I not supposed to like this guy? 

 Then there are two moments, one in the middle of the season, where he does something totally evil. And you remember, this guy is a villain. And there is no way I want to actually root for him. And so my rooting for him is not going to outweigh ever the fact that I don’t like this guy. 

So at the end of that one episode in the middle of the season, he does something really sinister and and actually just really disgustingly evil, and again, I’m trying not to spoil it, but does something really disgustingly evil. And then at the very end of the series, the last episode, he does two other things kind of in succession that kind of seal his fate as a villain to, to me, and probably to other viewers.

But it really gave me a lot of insight on who Oswald is. Not just who Oswald is, but also what Gotham is all about. We get to see Gotham, and Gotham had its own show. The show was not called Batman, the show was not called Joker, The show was called was not called Penguin, even though that Penguin character as well was a little bit on the comic side in Gotham but a little more serious.

But this Penguin the way Colin Farrell and the writers and the director have envisioned , this version of the Penguin is, is not comic at all. There is no comedy here. This character is layered. This character is serious. This character is going to make you think. And this character is evil.

And that is something you will not forget. So, let’s talk about Gotham as a character. 

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[00:15:07] Gotham City as a character

Y. M. Nelson: So, Gotham here, the first moment that we see it, it is run down as we expect it is. There is somebody in office that has totally been corrupted in office. Corruption is everywhere and there is somebody running for office at this point that is saying they’re going to clean this up. We find that that person is probably gonna end up being corrupted themselves.

It just seems like there’s no hope. Drugs rule here. Gangs rule here. And there are neighborhoods that are forgotten. And because of all this crime and corruption that’s happened a neighborhood actually gets flooded, and that’s Crown Heights.

Crown Heights is Vic’s neighborhood. Crown Heights is probably one of the more multicultural neighborhoods on the east side of Gotham, and in one of the Joker’s antics that he’s done, he’s not in here, but in backstory, one of the big disasters that the Joker has created, Crown Heights ended up being flooded.

 This is not something like a hurricane or something like that happened. This is, you know, bad guys doing bad things and blowing up stuff and creating a tsunami that actually floods, you know, Crown Heights. And so Crown Heights was never rebuilt, and the neighborhood was forgotten.

And we find out Crown Heights is also where Oswald Cobb grew up, before the tsunami before it went totally down. Oswald Cobb was there, and it was a ghetto then. So, it’s even worse now. But it’s also Home for Oswald, and it’s also a place where he rallies and actually becomes the guy that he wanted to become. When he couldn’t do that with the Falcone family, and he couldn’t do that by manipulating the Maroni family, he somehow does that on his own through getting other gangs together and working together. And he does this within the Crown Heights neighborhood. Not only within the Crown Heights neighborhood, but underground. 

Which made me think a lot about Batman Begins and how, in Batman Begins, there’s a lot of underground stuff going on. There’s the world up top, where we’re having trials and Carmine Falcone is going to jail and and Bruce Wayne is doing whatever he needs to do. And Rachel is trying to save the day.

And then there’s this underground world. There’s this sewer world where drugs are being created, where drugs are being put into the water system and where chaos is about to ensue. And the city is going to blow up from underneath, right? So, it’s a little bit of Batman Begins feeling for me. Don’t know if anybody else felt that same kind of way when Penguin was underground, but that’s kind of the feeling for me. So, let’s talk about Sophia Falcone Gigante.

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[00:19:07] Sophia Falcone Gigante

Y. M. Nelson: There’s no way I can review The Penguin without talking about Sophia. So, Sophia Falcone, obviously the daughter of Carmine Falcone, the big mafia kind of dude in Gotham. Also kind of this figure that other villains seem to emerge from. The character of Sophia Falcone, in the comics she marries into the Gigante family here she is taking back her mother’s maiden name, which is Gigante. So, that’s a little bit different from the comics.

I saw all of the after shows as well. HBO has these little after bites after one of their big shows, and they have little after shows here.

Sophia has this origin episode where, Carmine is all but said, you are the successor. He’s like knighted her. She’s going to be the one who runs the family after he’s gone , but Something happens with him, and instead of taking the blame for that, he puts the blame on Sophia. 

She is not aware of what’s been going on with her father, not even aware that her mother is included in the victimization that he’s done to other people. But she gets clued in, and when she gets clued in and she finds out about this, Oswald is driving her around, so Oswald tells on her. 

Sophia ends up being the scapegoat for her father’s victimizations, and she ends up in Arkham. And while Sophia is not insane when she goes in, when she comes out, she is definitely insane. And her going in there made her insane.

And so, the person that comes out of Arkham, Sophia Gigante is certifiable, rightly so. And is now gonna take over the Falcone family because she is not playing with y’all. Okay? She is not playing! 

Her character is just tragic to me. It’s just Ridiculously tragic to me and as somebody who is very much for women owning their own destinies, the fact that she actually owns zero of her destiny really bothered me. She owned nothing of her destiny. And even when she got out of Arkham, and took over things, she really still didn’t own her own destiny. She wasn’t self actualized. She was never self actualized. 

And so her whole character was so fascinating, but so sad. It made me sad because there’s women out there that don’t have that point of self actualization and never get to that point of self actualization.

And that bothers me. And they don’t get to that point, not because they can’t get to that point but they can’t get to that point because of society and because of other people and because of men holding them back. And that bothers me so much. And it should bother you as well.

She was fascinating and she was disturbing at the same time.

We’ve talked a lot about Gotham, we’ve talked a lot about Mafia, we’ve talked a lot about people being self actualized, but where’s the superhero stuff in this? So let’s talk superhero easter eggs, and let’s give this season of the penguin a rating.

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[00:23:46] Easter eggs and a Goodreads rating

Y. M. Nelson: So first off superhero easter eggs Y’all know I love me a good Easter egg. When you first come into The Penguin, which is part of the reason why I think that superhero fans, maybe even comic book fans, may not have liked this show. You’re going into this, yes, it’s called The Penguin, but no, you get absolutely no superhero vibes.

The only easter eggs in the beginning, if you can call them easter eggs, are the fact that he’s called The Penguin at some point, but as we realize , that name is an insult to him. It is an insult to the way he walks, and the way he walks is because he has a physical difference. He has an ailment with his leg that to me looks like polio. And it’s been a little while since I’ve watched this, so I can’t remember if that was even something that was was noted, why his leg was like that. But you have that name. 

When people say Carmine Falcone, we know who that is. We know what the, the town of Gotham means. But that’s pretty much the extent of superhero anything that we get. 

Again, for you comic book folks out there, I know that there are more easter eggs that I am not seeing, but for us, just general superhero nerds that have an appreciation for and know a little bit about Batman’s story, most of the Easter eggs come in the last episode.

The last episode there we see Penguin dressed up in a coat and suit, and the way he is dressed up, we immediately identify him as the Penguin, the superhero character that we understand. 

When Sophia in the end it doesn’t work out well for her. But we find out that she has a half sister named Selina Kyle. And at the very, very, very end we see the Batman signal. So, in the last episode, there are several Easter eggs there that give us a reminder that this really is a DC Comics production.

 So what am I gonna rate this? Well, you know to be honest, I’m gonna give this two ratings. How about I do that? So I’m gonna give this a rating for those who Like who may not really get the whole superhero thing But like a good drama, a good gory, mafia, crime kind of drama thing. Okay? And then I’m gonna give a rating for the superheroes out there.

So out of our Goodreads rating 1 star to 5 stars, 1 star, we didn’t like it. Two stars, it was okay. Three stars, we liked it. Four stars, we really liked it. And five stars, it was awesome. I am going to give this a four and a half stars for those who really like a good mafia style drama. This This really does it.

It really kind of, yeah. It gives you everything that you are going to want in a Mafia style drama. It has it all there. 

 I feel like I can recommend this show to someone that is not into superheroes but that is definitely into mafia dramas. Like, if you liked The Godfather, if you liked Scarface, if you liked mafia movies in general, you would really like this show. 

If you wanted more superhero stuff, I’m still going to give this four stars, because this is a great way to do an origin story. This is an origin story of a villain, and I felt some kind of way about this villain.

Also, this is a thing that I feel about DC. And I think James Gunn, his iteration of D. C. now that he, now that he is taking over the D. C. E. U., he might change my mind, but before James Gunn does whatever he’s going to do with the DCEU, I have always thought that DC comics and DC characters are so dark and when they are done showing that dark side.

Whether they are villains showing that sort of morally gray side, or whether they are heroes shown in a dark light, like The Dark Knight , and especially when we have the rated R versions of some of the DC things, Titans, that is to me a darker version of The Teen Titans. If it’s not animated and it’s live action, I’ve always found with DC characters to have that morally gray side or to have that dark tone to their productions. Watchmen, this, The Penguin. DC characters just lend themselves to be this. They are really good at this. 

Those kind of productions really resonate with me, which is why I’m still giving this four stars, even though it really doesn’t have a resonance of a DC Comics kind of thing. It doesn’t have those markers that we are looking for until the very end.

It’s, it’s still very good, and this is what, in my opinion, live action DC does well. I was not a fan of the campy Batman back in the day. I was a fan of live action Wonder Woman. But, You know, that one is just, to me, that’s just a standout. That’s just like Wonder Woman. Let’s be honest. But but with newer iterations of DC characters in live action and in movies when they go morally gray, they they do that well. 

Whereas for Marvel and the MCU, they’re good with their characters being snarky, funny, witty. And maybe showing a little bit of a flaw for their superheroes. But their villains, definitely villains, is very, you know, they’ve done that very well.

I think that James Gunn might change that kind of perception for me, but we will see with with his version of Superman’s story, which will be coming out in the summer. And of course, we will definitely be doing an episode about the James Gunn version of Superman’s origin story, and you have to be subscribed in order to get that so that you know when it comes out .

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