The Penguin Is At Its Best When It’s Being Funny

Spoilers for The Penguin episode 1 follow! Within minutes The Penguin makes two things clear: the TV series is starting just days after the events of The Batman, and it’s also fully entrenched in the grimy, noir, crime-driven tone that was integral to the Matt Reeves movie. We see this in the opening scene as Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb digs up blackmail material from a hidden safe in Carmine Falcone’s office, and immediately afterward when he shoots the heir apparent to the empire, Alberto Falcone, five times in the chest. Not long after that, though, The Penguin makes another thing clear: it’s really funny.  

It’s easy to forget that Matt Reeves’s The Batman, with its David Fincher and John Carpenter influences, was also quite humorous, but given the incredibly dour tone of the film, some levity was required (especially since it clocked in at 3 hours). The Penguin knows that it can’t immediately eschew all of the humor from this world and embraces the fact that it has to at least be a little playful and, in fact, tell some jokes. Immediately after Oz kills Alberto he laughs, feeling the power of his actions and thinking that his moves are really going to take him places, but that’s when it hits him. What he just did was incredibly short-sighted and brings us to the first real joke of the series. Oz has a sudden realization and laments, “Aww, fu–” as the opening titles begin.

The instances of The Penguin ranging from comical to outright hilarious ramp up as the title appears on screen. Oz dresses himself in a garbage bag to get rid of the body, but decides after a few steps that instead of carrying it, who cares? So he tosses the deceased down the stairs and the body tumbles into a heap. Even after firing his gun at would-be thieves trying to steal his car’s rims, the humor continues when Oz recruits Victor to help him get rid of the body. He makes small talk about the air freshener he keeps in his car, or about mixing Slush Puppies together in a “suicide” so you get all the flavors. Oz even smashes Alberto Falcone’s cell phone in comical fashion, like a toddler destroying a toy.

A major strength of The Penguin series is that the humor in the series isn’t just a means of providing some relief for the larger dramatic tension; it’s also character building. After Oz threatens Victor into working for him in the first episode, it becomes clear that he doesn’t even have any idea what he’s even doing. Though he has ambitions of being a major crime boss and having the seat at the head of the table, Oz is clueless. He knows that he needs to sell a violent promise to keep Victor on his side, dropping the half-hearted threat of “You’re gonna do whatever I say or else I’m, uh… gonna murder you and anyone you care about…” (“Murder” said with that thick Atlantic accent so that it comes out “moi-duh”.) The threat works, but his unenthusiastic delivery is like a slam dunk as both a joke and a building block of this version of the Penguin becoming a crime kingpin.

Even after they manage to secure an alibi for the evening and get things in place for the body to be disposed of, The Penguin hits us with the funniest line of dialogue of the series. While eating, Oz laments: “I asked for extra pickles, and they give me two? So what, a normal amount of pickles is one? It makes no go**amn sense.” When Victor offers him some of the pickles from his sandwich to make up for it, Oz roasts him. “Do I want one of your pickles? That your dirty little mouth touched?” If a life of crime doesn’t work out, this version of the Penguin could take to the comedy clubs.

The Penguin‘s humor isn’t limited to just his scenes with Victor (though we do get the hilarious moment of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” blasting from the radio). For example, in the midst of one scene, Oz tries to escape Sofia’s men during a rain-soaked chase. Though it may seem like there is no comedy present in the moment, the series finds a way. As it appears Oz has abandoned his car and gotten away, The Penguin reveals that he hid in the trunk of his own car to trick his pursuers, and it works briefly. Then while struggling against one of the goons, Oz pushes him away. As the man stumbles, he’s run over by a bus full of schoolchildren, and Oz waves at the kids as the body crumples in the undercarriage. 

Even though The Penguin radiates its crime-drama roots at every turn, the series is making the case for its existence by channeling the fact that these characters live on a spectrum. It’s not just that they can thrive in a world where guns and grit are the status quo of powerful people, but also that sometimes there are laughs to be found. If the remaining seven episodes are just as funny at the first, The Penguin will set a surprising standard for what a comic book show is capable of doing, as it not only expands on the film it spun out of but displays an array of tones that work together seamlessly.