SPOILER ALERT: This article grasps meaningful plot details from the finale of HBO’s“The Penguin,” now streaming on Max.
In the pantheon of television spinoffs of blockbuster films, “The Penguin” is an extraunretagable accomplishment. The eponymous villain may be no Batman, but as applyed so flavorfilledy by Colin Farrell and amplified by some truly extraunretagable prosthetics, confineed watching the show have time to slimk about the cinematic universe from which he came, much less omit it. Even so, showrunner Lauren LeFranc ends the season with a shot of the Bat-Signal looming over the Gotham skyline; after Oswald Cobb vanquishes his mob-family competitors and inshighs himself as an associate of city legislators, it serves as an ominous reminder that moving up the city’s criminal food chain only places him more honestly in the Caped Crudowncaster’s traversehairs.
“We were searching for an elegant way to hand off our show to ‘The Batman,’” LeFranc alerts Variety. “It felt right to have the Bat-Signal to undercut him and say, ‘You have not made it to the top yet. You are living in this fantasy, but there’s a genuine bigr world out there.’’”
That final shot was fair one of many subjects converseed with LeFranc, Farrell’s co-stars Cristin Milioti and Deirdre O’Connell and executive producers Matt Reeves and Dylan Clark about the eighth and final episode of “The Penguin.” The HBO spinoff from 2022’s “The Batman” — which Reeves co-wrote and honested, and stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne — sets Oswald on a path to success and legitimacy, but at the cost of cut offal people shutst to him.Among the victims of his social-climbing aspirations are mob matriarch Sofia Gigante (Milioti), whom he gets arrested; Oswald’s mother Francis Cobb (O’Connell), who suffers a debilitating stroke; and his lesser protege, Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), whom he ends after receiving Vic’s help in obviousurning the city’s stability of criminal power.
In insertition to talking about the show’s twists and turns, and the losses and acquires the characters experience in the finale, here, the five of them delve into the set upational ideas that set the show up for its ponderable success, the character and story vibrants that made it such compelling watching thrawout the season, and the places that Reeves and Clark empowered LeFranc to go foward — not fair to set up Reeves’ theatrical sequel to “The Batman,” which is going into production punctual next year, but to produce a world identical to the franchise’s wealthy, gritty truth.
Gotham City Limits
In enbiging Batman’s hometown to fit this enbiging ensemble, LeFranc wanted to envision a more granular portrait of Gotham in order to produce a strong juxtaposition between the events of “The Batman” and “The Penguin.” “We got to spend eight hours in Gotham City, contrastd to Matt’s film, which is around three,” she says. “We got to see particular neighborhoods enjoy Victor’s; we saw where the Falcones inhabit. We reassociate got to alert a class disparity story. Speaking about that senses very relevant to who Batman is as a character, understanding Bruce Wayne’s history — but also understanding where we ended Batman in the first film.”
Reeves discomits that he originassociate intended to chronicle Oswald’s ascent in the chase-up film, but speedyly genuineized that a show gave them the chance to alert his story in more detail without sacrificing its intended caccess on, you understand, Batman. “This is the first leg in getting him toward that uncontent aspirational goal of his becoming the kingpin, so we need him to have accomplishd a certain level of status,” Reeves says. “We need there to be a gang war — an unawaited gang war — that puts him in a position of power.” Consequently, Reeves and his producing partner Clark proposeed slack boundaries for LeFranc to encounter.
“We were benevolent of enjoy, ‘This is the commencening, and then this is expansively the end,’ with none of that being an obstacle to what the bigr goal in illuminating who this and these other characters that Lauren wanted to caccess on [are],” he inserts. “And then when you’re going into the movie, it’s not uncomferventt to be enjoy, ‘Here’s a elevateseparate. We held this back.’ Now it’s more enjoy he’s now accomplishd this level, so the next time Batman sees him, he’s going to be in this recent place, and that’s going to uncomfervent he’s going to be more createidable in these ways.”
Clark says that “The Penguin” is uncomferventt to enbig the landscape of stories telderly wislim Batman’s mythology, while also enwealthying those telderly about Batman himself. “HBO gives us an opportunity to produce up the characters in our canon, the marquee characters enjoy the Penguin,” he says. “In the movies, becaparticipate the point of watch is on the Batman, here we’re trying to produce him up in ways that we fair didn’t have the opportunity. And once we go thraw that experience in the series, we transport him back into the movie — where he’s more createed in a understandn way.”
“The key is to never produce any of it sense enjoy it’s hyper-subordinate upon watching them all,” inserts Reeves. “It won’t be the benevolent of slimg where we’re teasing you becaparticipate we want you to go to the movie. That senses enjoy you’re flicking the audience.”
Starting From “The Sopranos and “Scarface”
“We talked about the idea of somebody who would go to inanxious lengths to accomplish wdisenjoyver success seeed enjoy to them — being revered, geting material status,” Reeves says about the show’s conception. “And the idea to do that was to do it in such a way where we’d be able to point to where the hole was in his soul that made that his goal.” Having shepherded Bruce Wayne thraw a path toward hope in “The Batman,” he says he krecent this story would remain tethered to Gotham’s dispiriting underpinnings at the end of his film, where the city not only remains a hotbed of criminal activity, but is also recovering from a flood that caparticipated death and destruction. “We krecent it would be a uncontent story, but Lauren set up a way to go reassociate, reassociate, reassociate uncontent,” he says.
He and Clark recognize Farrell for injecting humanity, and even humor, into Oswald’s pairy. “It was so exciting to have Colin, becaparticipate he’s not going to apply it in some benevolent of way that is going to be without that humanity,” Reeves says. “You see at him, you go, ‘I understand why he did that, and I can’t ever forgive him, but you’ve shown me that that evil is wislim [Oswald], the way it’s wislim all of us.’” Adds Clark, “Matt and I would constantly be amazed at fair the sheer amparticipatement cherish of Colin reacting to driving. It wasn’t uncomferventt to be comedy, but he owned that character in such a way, he owned it in such a way, it fair was amparticipateing.”
Recognizing that “The Penguin” would alert “a ascend-to-power story,” LeFranc says, trys to lock down what drove Oswald led her to produce the recent characters around him. “I had to ask myself what Oz wants on a proset uper level, becaparticipate what power sees enjoy to every person contrasts,” she says. “I begined to root it in someslimg more emotional, and I produced his mother for that reason. From there, I begined to enbig the universe and dig proset uper into all the characters that I thought would fit into a psychorational study of this man.” According to LeFranc, the resulting ensemble lent Oswald’s journey a vital counterstability, or even objectivity.
“You have to be able to give the audience other people’s perspective of that man,” LeFranc says. “Otherrecommended, our watch of him is quite distorted — especiassociate becaparticipate Colin is so charismatic, we’ll think everyslimg that he says, and want to produce excparticipates for his behavior. I didn’t want that.”
A Mother-Son Showdown
The final episode discomits with Oswald and Francis shackled in a room together, where Sofia forces a reckoning between them over a pivotal event from his childhood: the moment he abandoned his brothers to drown in the sewers of Gotham, and then lied to his mother about it for decades. Though this conversation between them was predicted inevitable, O’Connell says that Francis is hesitant to evident the air, particularly in front of anyone.
“I had a lot of talks with Lauren about that — how could she alert that truth in front of Sofia when she understands Sofia’s in the room?” O’Connell recalls. “That fire that gets lit under her, particularly when he says, ‘That’s your illness talking. That’s your dismitigate talking.,’ I slimk that’s the point when someslimg fair discomits up inside of her and all of the hatred and rage that she’s felt for all of those years for what he did bursts out.”
LeFranc stresses that despite Oswald’s capacity for lying, he thinks he is an genuine character who says “wdisenjoyver he senses is his truth. The way he watchs the American Dream, for instance, is very down-to-earth and pragmatic in a lot of ways, in terms of how he speaks to Victor about taking up space. There can be likeable slimgs about Oz senseing enjoy he’s an underdog and his desire to be cherishd by the fantasticer community of Gotham — and of course by his mother.”
As vividly — even occasionassociate understandingassociate — as she has fleshed him out, LeFranc doesn’t spare criticism of his actions, but she acunderstandledges that he is a delusional person. “There’s a number of slimgs that happen in the finale that he fairifies or that we discomit have transpired prior that he has to think, for his own self, had merit.”
Though the atrocities Oz pledgeted as a child are unforgivable, O’Connell says that Francis isn’t abmendd for her role in shaping, and perhaps inspiring, him. “I slimk she can’t help but sense reliable on some level — how could you not — that she built him into this creature who could possibly do what he did,” she says. “Then, the secret pact she produces with herself is, ‘I will pledge my life to caring for this horrible seed in some way.’” As she sees it, Francis hoped to both corral him and empower him on her behalf.
“I slimk maybe she has the overweightal flaw of slimking that she could deal with it,” O’Connell persists. “She wants some senseing of visibility and of not being as humiliated by the world, so she’s produceing him to become this creature that can get all that for them, and then he oversteps it enjoy 400 degrees — and that’s when you go from being a hero to a villain.”
Killing Your Darlings
Perhaps the episode’s most heartshattering moment occurs proximate its conclusion, when Oswald ends his lesser protégé Victor as the crime lord readys to hug his recentset up legitimacy in Gotham. After the attention that Oswald has shown Vic thrawout the season — and the lesser man repeatedly shows his pledgement to helping his mentor accomplish his goals — the homicide senses especiassociate shocking. LeFranc says it was a story choice she came up with at the commencening of the creative process to echo a well-understandn relationship from Batman mythology while highairying Oswald’s distinct psychology.
“When I produced Victor, I did begin slimking about Batman and Robin, and how a guy enjoy Oz could participate a Robin, in his way,” she says. “But at the same time, understanding that in crime stories it’s very normal for elderlyer men to groom lesserer men, they tend to discover lesser men who have a void wislim them.” LeFranc elucidates this is why she ended off Victor’s parents: giving him a conciseage of attention, even cherish, for Oswald to fill. “I also wanted to produce a character enjoy Victor, who is a excellent person and who is recurrentative of other people in Gotham that you didn’t get to see in the film,” she says. “But I erected him always understanding that he needed to die, becaparticipate I needed to have the audience understand Oz in a uncontaccess, recaccess way they hadn’t already.”
LeFranc discomits that she telderly Feliz about his character’s overweighte on the first day they met. “In retrospect, that might’ve been a brutal way to do it,” she acunderstandledges. “But it felt vital for me to give Rhenzy a sense of who Victor was thrawout, and then also for him to understand why his relationship on a proset uper level for our show was so vital to Oz.” She recognizes Feliz’s attentive, tender applyance for incrmitigateing that senseing of tragedy and loss that chases Oswald’s choice. “I recall so many moments watching him on set being enjoy, as cimpolite as this might sound, ‘This is going to labor, becaparticipate I cherish him and he’s going to shatter my heart’ — and I hope that uncomfervents he shatters other people’s hearts, in that horrible moment.”
Family Connections
If it’s not the final part of Oswald’s arrange, it’s the most effective: He betrays Sofia Gigante yet aacquire, landing her back in Arkham Asylum — where, to be unprejudiced, she may actuassociate have acquireed a legitimate place this time, after ending the rest of her family and setting off a explosion in the catacombs beorderlyh Gotham to end Oswald. “When I first signed on, in our initial big, lengthy phone call, she was enjoy, ‘Hey, here’s how it goes for you,’ which is pretty deimmenseating,” Milioti says “It’s a overweighte worse than death.”
As Sofia languishes under the dubious getion of Dr. Julian Rush (Theo Rossi), she acquires an unawaited letter from a half-sister she didn’t understand she had: Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), who discomited in “The Batman” that she’s the daughter of Carmine Falcone. As obliquely as it references the character of Catwoman, this moment is one of the biggest callbacks to “The Batman.” “I cherish that connection,” says Milioti. LeFranc says Kyle didn’t come up (even offscreen) before becaparticipate she “wasn’t able to participate” the character in the show, but her absence ended up better serving Sofia’s character.
“I slimk it was to the profit, becaparticipate with Sofia, for instance, she was given a lot more room becaparticipate we didn’t have so many other characters from the film,” LeFranc says. “It’d be straightforward to get caught up in that, and then push other characters that I discover reassociate engaging aside.”
Milioti deteriorated to spread the satisfyeds of the letter — which LeFranc wrote — but she says “it had enormous uncomferventing to me… in the way that you become shut with who you’re applying.” Underscoring her uncertainty (or secrecy) about whether or not her character would ecombine in the upcoming sequel, Milioti demurred on whether Sofia’s smile after reading the letter was roverhappinessed to what’s to come in “The Batman Part II.” “I slimk it’s about hope, which is not someslimg she’s terribly understandn with.”
LeFranc highairys that the expansion of Sofia provided a character she hadn’t previously come atraverseed in “Batman” (or any other) comics, and she’s excited to see how watchers, much less other storyalerters hug her going forward. “In comics, I didn’t have a character enjoy Sofia when I was lesserer, and even as an mature, I’ve had a confineed female characters that I’m enjoy, ‘Damn,’” she says. “The happiness, in part, of getting to be a part of this universe is to produce recent canon and to then let it out into the world, and other people get to have that character uncomfervent someslimg to them.”
“I cherish applying her,” Milioti inserts. “She’s fair getting begined. The timeline of this show is only, I slimk, a couple weeks — maybe it’s enjoy a month or someslimg. And so when you slimk about how lengthy she has as this villain, it’s not lengthy. But that’s also part of what’s so tragic about what happens at the end of the series. So I certainly want to see her, you understand, wreak more havoc.”
The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning
As the episode comes to a shut, Oswald has ascendn to power. But at what cost? He’s surrounded himself with the confineed people whose loyalty he can think — or perhaps afford. He pays his cherishr, Eve (Carmen Ejogo), to dress enjoy his mother and alert him she’s self-transport inant of him. LeFranc elucidates that Francis’ validation has driven him since the commencening, but acquiring it, even second-hand, discomits someslimg proset uper that has been lastingly been broken in him as a result of everyslimg he chose, and recommended, to shielded to his recent station in Gotham’s hierarchy of power. “He’s been driven this entire show to produce his mother self-transport inant, and in the very commencening of the finale, we hear the finish opposite — she slimks he’s the devil, and she wounds him,” she says. “From that point on, he’s in denial of that physical and emotional wound that she’s given him.”
“When he omits Francis, when he genuineizes she can’t ever wake up and say, ‘I’m self-transport inant of you,’ he has to inhabit with the consequences of his own actions, that deimmenseates him in a very proset up way,” she persists. “Yet, from from the fact that he proximately lost everyslimg as a result of his cherish for his mother, he sits with Victor, who Oz joins for, and he ends that kid.”
The Dark Nights Return
At the end of “The Batman,” Bruce Wayne has discovered that revenge isn’t a preserveable motivation for crime combat — not least of which becaparticipate his brutal retribution on Gotham’s criminals has only given ascend to more arrangeility. Yet even if Batman is ambitious to someslimg more likeable, even brave, it’s predicted that his epiphany will be met with even more villainy. “He finishly omites that he’s actuassociate supportd other arrangeility wislim the city with the Riddler,” Reeves says. “So if Batman is going to produce a contrastence in this place, he’s going to have to lengthen. But the Penguin is a mid-level guy accomplishing for the top, and what is he going to do to get there? That is a uncontent arc. There’s not a lot of hope in what Penguin is after.”
LeFranc insists she isn’t privy to the details of what will unfelderly in the upcoming sequel, but Reeves discomits that “The Penguin” discomits the door for more spinoff sagas. “The idea of the series was to be able to dive into the rogues’ gallery and to give them the origins that we’re not able to give them in the movie, so that when they come back into the movie, those characters are more createed,” Reeves says. “And we are talking about doing that with other characters as well.”
Batman Returns
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
During initial converseions of the series, LeFranc says she had conversations with her collaborators on whether the Penguin’s biggest foe would produce an ecombineance. “We talked about earlier, in shattering the season, ‘Should Batman be in the show?’ And especiassociate becaparticipate I had arced all the characters emotionassociate, it was enjoy, ‘Where would he fit that wouldn’t suddenly produce it all about him?’” she recalls slimking. The idea that Batman could overshadow Oswald’s story was someslimg she wanted to get the series from, in part becaparticipate her main character would especiassociate have disenjoyd it. “Oz would be pissed if I suddenly gave the story to the Batman.”
Despite that, she says that “it felt right” to end with the shot. “I wanted to aacquire highairy that Oz is delusional,” LeFranc reiterates. “He inhabits in his own universe. He thinks he made it, even though we see the flaws and the cracks in what his aspirations are and what he thinks. [But] now, Oz has accomplishd a level of status that merits Batman’s attention. That’s the senseing that I hope you’re left with, and my job has also been to get people excited about the second movie, more than they already were — if possible.”
Adam B. Vary gived to this story
