This article contains spoilers for The Penguin
Summary
The Penguindid a lot for its characters over the course of its (currently) one season, but one of the more exciting bits of development from the show’s epic final episode was one that franchise kingpin Matt Reeves didn’t sign off on.
The Penguinmanaged to survive a culling at Warner Bros. that saw the rest of Reeves’ planned spin-offs of his 2022 blockbusterThe Batmanscrapped at the planning stage. The studio’s rationale for this was a focus on the marquee characters, sticking the show with a significant amount to prove even after surviving the trim. The stakes would go up even higher when the show was upgraded from a Max exclusive to also debuting episodes on linear TV at HBO, and there was some worry that the show wouldn’t be able to live up to the big-budget look and feel of its parent film. All those fears would quickly vanish following a successful premiere, and over the run of the season, it became clear thatThe Penguinpresents the best reinvention of a Batman villainor possibly any character that fans have ever seen, especially when it comes to live-action media.
Whilethe finale ofThe Penguin’sfirst season was packed with twists and brutal resolution, many fans got their biggest hit of the episode during the section where Sofia returns back to Arkham, a place with massive amounts of negative emotional significance to the character. In the finale, at the very end of her tragic character arc, Sofia receives a letter from Selina Kyle claiming that the two are half-sisters in a moment that showrunner Lauren LeFranc toldInversewas deserved. “Sofia deserved some form of hope in the end, not just a tragedy,” LeFranc admits, with the discovery of new family serving as that hope. Whether or not this sliver of positive revelation can really pierce through all that Sofia has been through is a heavy question, but the character has shown immense resolve in the past. LeFranc also revealed that the decision was her call, and not something that Reeves ordered. “It’s something that felt right for her character,” she revealed, “but he was obviously supportive of it. If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t have done it,”
The clarification that this was her idea and not Reeves’ means that fans shouldn’t read too much into any possible hints of a storyline forThe Batman: Part IIor any other spinoff. LeFranc clarified by further reiterating who the characters would be serving going forward. “This is my little play into the universe, and now it’s up to him to decide what he does with where we’ve gotten Oz and Sofia and everybody else in our show,” she explained. “Now, I’ve finished my part in this.”The Penguin’s Sofia was very thoughtfully constructed, and there’s no doubt that LeFranc has given Reeves an exceptional tool with which to work on future projects. Actress Cristin Milioti, the talent behind the performance, also deserves accolades for her stellar work on the series and seems more than ready to take the character to the film scene.
Sofia and her story are just one of many things that the show got right, and now those assets are being passed on to Reeves.The Penguindoes some things much better than any Marvel show, which isn’t a boast that DC has been able to make on the live-action front for years now. While it might be at the end of its run now, the characters and arcs the show gifted the fans serve as reassurance that the rest of Reeves’ planned Elseworld trilogy won’t go the way ofJoker: Folie à Deuxand free-fall at the Box office.
The Penguinis available to stream on Max.
The Penguin
Created by Lauren LeFranc and starring Colin Farrell, The Penguin builds on 2022’s The Batman. The Max series chronicles the eponymous villain’s attempt to reach Gotham’s criminal peak, rising through the underworld in the middle of a power struggle.
