It’s a dark day in Gotham City. Or is it? This is the rise of the Penguin, and man, the first episode of The Penguin doesn’t disappoint.

I’m extraordinarily impressed by this show. I had an opportunity to really dive deep into it, and I watched The Batman in preparation, just to get in the mood. You don’t need to, but it definitely helps.

Everybody Wants a Penguin

I’m curious about the fascination everyone seems to have with the Penguin right now, and I’m not kidding. It’s not hyperbole. The new Caped Crusader series on Prime has the Penguin as the first villain Batman faces. A gender-bent Penguin, but the Penguin nonetheless. My big complaint there has nothing to do with the gender-bend. There just didn’t seem to be any Penguin affectations. No webbed feet, nothing. Just a person in an outfit with an umbrella.

And if you remember back in the day, the Gotham series had the Penguin as a benchmark character, a big character, all the way through. Don’t get me wrong, the Penguin always has been something special. This show does a really good job with him.

Colin Farrell Has Range

Colin Farrell is next level. Let’s be real. His version of Oswald Cobblepot, the Penguin if you will, is Oz. They don’t go Cobblepot. They call him Oswald Cobb. And Colin Farrell is doing amazing work.

This is right on the heels of Sugar, which if you haven’t seen it, you need to watch on Apple TV. It’s an amazing series. For him to go from that to this, the man’s got range. Undeniable range, and star power.

The show picks up on the heels of the events of The Batman, almost to the next day or so. There’s no sign of the Batman, other than a brief montage at the very beginning that shows a little of what happened, playing on the TV screens.

The entire show is filmed in the exact same tone as The Batman, which helped a lot. I can really see The Batman in this. I don’t know if they used the exact same cities or shot in some of the same areas, but it feels very much like the same place. The Iceberg Lounge looks exactly the same. Everything does.

The Parade

That’s when Oz gets a visit from Alberto Falcone. If you remember, the Falcones were the people in charge during The Batman, and Oz works for them. He’s in charge of the drug trade, he has the Iceberg Lounge, all that. So Alberto comes to talk to him about something having to do with the drug business he runs.

While they’re talking, there’s a moment where Oz shares the history of the organized crime people in the area. And if you know anything about organized crime, it’s a very familiar story from back in the day. Everybody knows who that guy is. He’s a made man. He does his business, but he treats the town great, and for the most part he takes care of the little people. And when he dies, the town throws him a parade.

“He has a heart attack and dies, still holding a cigar. In my neighborhood, they throw a parade in his honor.”

It’s not a new story, but I don’t mind. It worked for what they wanted to do. I think it’s wonderful when you can take an established mythology in these scenarios and just pass it into the storytelling. It’s a shorthand, if you will.

Then you get the moment where Alberto is basically insulting Oz to his face. So immediately, what does Oz do? He kills him.

I thought that moment was in Oz’s head, because we’ve seen that kind of thing before. I thought he was going to be a little bit smarter than that. But he turned out to be smarter than you even think.

The Kid Who Stutters

Once he does that, it becomes a whirlwind of events. How’s he going to keep everything under wraps?

He goes outside and there are some kids trying to boost his car. He threatens them, and he catches one of them, a kid who stutters. The kid is a very interesting character, played by Rhenzy Feliz. The character’s name is Victor.

It starts out with Oz telling him, all right, you’re coming with me, you’re going to help me tonight. Victor ends up becoming his partner in crime. At first Oz insults him. Then, when the moment comes where Oz is clearly going to have to do away with him, the kid tells him he’s got ambition. And Oz sees it. You have potential.

The stutter part really hit home for me. You see, Mr. Know-It-All grew up that way. And it’s funny, because both of these characters are sympathetic to me for their various affectations.

When I was a kid I also wore a special correcting shoe. It has long since been corrected, but I wore a shoe. Oz wears a shoe. It gives him that gait he walks with, and that’s the Penguin affectation I’m talking about, put together very realistically in this thing.

And the kid stutters. I stuttered too when I was younger, just like him. When something was difficult, or emotions were high, it would be very hard to get my words out, and it took me a long time and a lot of hard work.

So both characters have things that make me go, I feel you guys. So much.

His Mother, Sophia, and the Ring

We get to meet Oswald’s mom, played by Deirdre O’Connell.

“I’m trying to take care of you.” “Stop.” “I can’t risk it. I can’t risk you. I’m all you got. If something happened to me.” “Stop. Stop talking.”

She’s an interesting character too, and here’s how we get to her. Oz has the misfortune of talking to Sophia Falcone, played by Cristin Milioti, and Sophia is off her rocker.

“You know, Oz, people underestimate you. But not me. I’ve always known you were capable of more.”

Apparently she was in Arkham. They haven’t fully revealed the background details of why that happened, but at the end of the day, she was. So Oz believes she’s onto him. He goes to his mom’s, finds a stash of money, and he’s going to take his mom and run away with her.

She stops him. She tells him this isn’t the kind of man you are. You’re a brave man. You’re my big strong boy. You didn’t kill that kid because you were impulsive. You did it because this is your moment.

So he hatches a plan. Alberto had this ring, and Oz goes to see Salvatore Maroni. Maroni is being played by Batman alum Clancy Brown, who’s an amazing, amazing actor, so him playing Sal Maroni I thought was really cool. And Oz gives him back his ring.

“The Falcones, they’ve been flaunting what they’ve done to you for years.” “But how is it that you have it?” “Maybe I’m more than what you think.”

Come to find out, Sophia catches him. She takes him to the house and she’s torturing him, the whole nine yards, and she is out of her mind. Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me that I’m too emotional and that I shouldn’t take things so personally. It’s insane, and she’s amazing doing it.

And then a car runs into the building. They rush outside. There’s a brick on the gas pedal. They open the trunk, and there’s Alberto’s body, missing his pinky, with the word payback scratched into the roof of it.

Oz has just put the Maronis against the Falcones again.

A Slushie and Dolly Parton

It ends so great, with Victor and Oz enjoying a slushie from Buddy’s. They both mix a suicide, which is when you mix all the flavors together in a drink.

“It’s better, right? Come on. When you mix the flavors?” “Yeah, it’s good.” “No, it’s not just good. It’s better.”

And it ends with Dolly Parton, “9 to 5.”

The show wants to be Goodfellas meets The Sopranos meets any other mob thing you want. But it’s got personality. Is it the greatest thing ever? Probably not. But it’s good. I’m down, and I think you will be too.

Where I Think This Is Going

There are things they do throughout the whole episode that I really enjoyed. There’s this one moment where Victor and Oz are sitting at Oz’s mom’s house and he puts on an old movie. It’s a classic singer, the kind you might see in the 40s or 50s. The single microphone, the dress, the long gloves. Very Oswald Cobblepot. Very Penguin.

From where we are, I can see him eventually getting a place like he has in the comic books and other media. A bigger, fancier place, a real nightclub instead of the seedy club where he sells drugs. I believe firmly we’re eventually going to get Oz in the top hat and the suit, the whole nine yards. They’re going to have to give us an umbrella. They’re going to have to give us the trappings eventually, because he has to have something to aspire to.

From what it looks like, this series is setting up Oz’s rise to becoming the Penguin we all know from Batman’s rogues gallery. He has a very I-come-from-the-streets, very grounded mentality and personality that I like, and he’s looking for whatever he can get. Loyalty, whatever.

I firmly believe that before it’s all said and done, he’s going to get the club. A real club, a fancy one. I believe we’re watching a turf war, and he’s going to play both sides as much as he can. There’s a special new kind of drug that’s allegedly coming out, and apparently he’s going to try to take control of it. He’s a firm believer that if he takes over the drug trade in Gotham, he’s going to become a big player. Maybe. We’ll see how it goes.

The Verdict

The Penguin Episode 1 lands at an 8.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.

A solid eight and a half. I’m impressed, I really am. They do some very interesting things here, and I’m interested in seeing where it’s going to go. If you haven’t watched it, please take the time. It’s excellent.

One note on the schedule: starting next weekend the show switches to Sunday night at 9 Eastern, so don’t miss it. This one was a premiere time. I can’t wait for next week. It’s going to be good.

Tell me what you think of the premiere in the comments on the video above, and whether you see the top hat and the umbrella coming too. And if you haven’t caught the review Mrs. Know-It-All and I did of Agatha All Along, that one’s on the channel, and it’s a really good one.