The Penguin recap: Season 1, Episode 3

We begin to find ourselves trapped in the land of dramatic irony – aka the past, aka the last really good day of Victor Aguilar’s life. As he kisses his girlfriend, spends warm moments with his family, waxes loving about his neighborhood, We knows exactly how doomed this all is. Those menacing images of the Gotham seawall would make it clear even if Bella Re is mentionedAMy major party that won the elections did not. Tonight, The Riddler is going to make some pointed comments about class inequality in the most twisted way possible, and in the process, he’s going to blow up Victor Aguilar’s life.

Taking into account the bombardment, The penguin– three episodes in – makes his first major contribution to The Batman canon. In the film, the destruction caused by the explosions felt almost abstract, overshadowed by the battle against Riddler’s henchmen trying to kill Re.Al. Here it feels visceral and truly gruesome: the camera captures exactly how bad it is to be on the ground floor for what appears to be Gotham’s first act of true supervillainy, and sweeps Victor right next to it in an impressive piece of effects work. fire and water quickly disassemble almost everything he loves. I’ve talked in my previous two reviews of the show about how this character has been the weak leg of our three main characters’ tripod – more thanks to the writing than the performance of Rhenzy Feliz, who does the best with what he has – and yes , he still is. (Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti do a fantastic job this week.) But at least this time the distribution is fairer, as the show powerfully illustrates how much this kid lost on one bad day and how it continues to influence his decisions.

Meanwhile, Oz and Sofia are caught in a strange, fascinating dance, as two people with a million reasons not to trust each other are forced together for mutual gain. At least, that’s Oz’s motivation: As soon as we get a look at her surgery for the legendary new drug (which Cobb, in a moment of fast-talking hucksterism, calls Bliss), we get a glimpse of Sofia as not just anyone. makes mafia power moves, but really believes in the power of the drug. While Sofia explains to the mafia boss to whom they ultimately sell the drug: in a world of nihilistic misery, where everything can be taken from you, why not build a better opiate for the masses? Deep down we don’t know yet what Sofia wants. (She has some very ominous facial expressions every time someone describes Bliss as just a “party drug.”) But Milioti has an almost religious reverence for her treatment of the drug that portends something bigger than just another, bigger high.

The episode’s best scenes, however, focus on her relationship with Oz, as the two of them try to arrange the distribution of their drug through his “friends” in Chinese organized crime. If Sofia is a question mark in this partnership, Oz is a giant exclamation point at the end of the words “Don’t Trust”: Sofia watches him spin lie after lie in his attempts to get a little bit of himself (and by extension, her). leverage, and we see Milioti play out the push-and-pull of his aura of disgust and charm in real time. She holds Oz, on some level, you can tell she gets a real kick out of his fast talk, his hustle, his guileless brand of deception. But she has also been stung by this particular scorpion before.

It culminates in the closest thing this show can get to a heart-to-heart, where Cobb finally finds the leverage he’s been looking for all along: an honest statement that he doesn’t regret bringing her to Arkham sent because it moved him a little higher on the pile. He lets her take a look behind one of his masks. But it’s strange about Colin Farrell’s performance here: He’s So good at selling Cobb’s various lies to the almost detriment of the character. If everything he says is convincing nonsense, it becomes increasingly difficult to parse which parts you as a viewer can actually place. This way The penguin leaves us grounded in Sofia’s perspective more often than not. (Now notice that in this episode the camera focuses often her face while he’s the one talking.) She may have her problems and may ultimately be the most dangerous of the pair, but at least we can trust her when she looks remorseful, angry, or sincere.

In the meantime, it’s best to just enjoy the fun of their double act, with the pair falling into a rhythm of banter that speaks to their long partnership (and whatever intimacy was burned to ashes when Oz made her feel a certain way betrayed her father). which the show still hasn’t let us know about). Among his pleasures, The penguin knows the joys of being conned by a con man, whether it’s Cobb fatherly heckling Victor at a fancy lunch, or successfully intimidating Johnny Vitti into helping him set up a meeting with the Chinese leader Francois Chau. It also illustrates the limits of his taste for sweaty, desperate manipulation: when it comes time to close the deal, it’s Sofia, the True Believer, who makes the sale. It’s the scariest thing about The Penguin yet in this extended look at his character: whether it’s respect, money, survival, or whatever, he’s not interested in a specific goal like his boss/partner. He just wants to more.

That same theme runs through the weaker leg of the tripod this week, as Victor ultimately decides that he would rather stay in Gotham and try to build a life of excess for himself than face his demons and leave town with his girlfriend Graciela (Anire Kim Amoda). There are individual moments that work here, especially his final confrontation with Oz in the bathroom of the Chinese club, with Feliz kicking around some of the anger and fear in the character’s head to shout down his boss/captor. But his trauma is also handled quite harshly, as his panic attack in the middle of the club takes the form of bleeping images and racing sounds in a way that feels just a little too standard. (Compare it to – and no, we didn’t expect to see these two projects in conversation, but here we are – this summer’s panic attack. Inside out 2which feels like a much more elegant way to illustrate how these kinds of thoughts and feelings can spiral out of control in a self-destructive way without At the same time, it feels like Victor’s motivations never fully come into focus: Ultimately, it feels less like he’s rejecting Graciela’s offer to escape for organic reasons than because he’s the third cast member of this TV show – and there are still five episodes to go.

We then end on another moment of Cobb-standard triumph that gives way to frantic panic: the Maronis attack Oz and Sofia, and Victor narrowly saves his boss, killing one of the goons in the process. (Cobb immediately orders Victor to leave Sofia to die, just to remind you Why all these people are constantly telling you not to trust this bastard when push comes to shove.) Vic looks terrified because he just seriously got into this mob war; Cobb, meanwhile, is ecstatic. “We’re working on it now, Vic!” he crows, happy to have stolen another day from the world. “We’re in it now!”

Stray observations

• • In the opening flashback, we briefly see Calvin, with whom Victor will later try to steal hubcaps – and who will then be shot in the head by Sofia.
• • This week, the penguin nose in the logo is in direct contrast to Vic’s face.
• • “Sixty years ago two Sicilians sprayed the toe of that boot, now I have three dozen Falcones breathing down my neck.”
• • Turns out Bliss is from Arkham and grows on mushrooms. (Also features Sofia’s personal chemist, played by Tyler Bunch, aka Elmo’s father Sesame Streethas nice hippie energy.)
• • It feels that way sometimes The penguin ticks off lists of more beloved crime shows it tries to emulate: between the con man’s double act and the impromptu vehicular homicide rescue, the Break bad/You better call Saul The atmosphere was strong tonight.
• • “Did you print this out yourself?” Milioti can lay a fantastic amount of withering contempt on very basic lines.
• • Victor, figuring out how to break up with Oz in the most suicidal way possible: “You know I’m not a rat, right?”
• • He also gets one of those moments where you can imagine Oz himself recounting his younger years, successfully bribing a corrupt Gotham cop to leave him (and the drug supply) alone.
• • The typical Oz double standard: Protecting Vic when the waiter at a fancy restaurant finishes stuttering – and later doing the exact same thing when he’s mad.
• • The episode skips over the influence Oz has on Luca’s wife to get her to set up Vitti. It feels like narrative ease.
• • Milioti and Farrell are too much fun as Sofia and Oz fall into partner-in-crime mode. “Sounds pretty good!”
• • Comics Corner: I’ve tried in vain to find Victor’s cell phone screen art in the real world, but it doesn’t appear to be from any existing comics. In the meantime I have read it again The Long Halloweenone of the ur-texts for both Nolan’s Batman films and The Batmanthis week. It’s interesting to see how different the portrayals of characters like Alberto, Sofia, and Johnny are.
• • “I don’t really care who our salespeople are.”
• • Oz putting a gun to Victor’s head when he realizes he’s making him feel like a hostage raises a lot of questions that have already been answered by the gun pressed to his head.