This review contains spoilers for The Penguin episode 6.
At the climax of The Penguin‘s sixth episode “Gold Summit,” Oz dons his fur coat and waddles back and forth while bellowing a speech to the assembled heads of Gotham’s lesser crime families. He shouts about how they have been disrespected and disregarded by those who profit from their work, how they live in fear of the Maronis and the Falcones and the latter’s new incarnation, the Gigantes.
The speech crystalizes the themes of The Penguin thus far, the idea of disregarded people rising up to take what they consider theirs. We’ve see it play out in the dreams that Oz shares with his mom, with the moral quandaries with which young Vic wrestles, and with Sofia’s revenge plot against her relatives. For some, the ethical complexity of these ideas and the combination of timelessness and relevance in the themes drive some to describe The Penguin as anything other than a superhero show.
But as Oz delivers his speech, the score builds and builds to an almost overpowering crescendo, almost forcing Colin Farrell to shout it back down. By the time Oz finishes the scene by declaring, “We’re taking back Gotham,” we realize that we’ve been watching an honest-to-goodness, old-school supervillain monologue. It’s the same sort of thing that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee wrote for Doctor Doom in the 1960s, the same sort of Republic Serial villain behavior that Ozymandias scoffs at in Watchmen.
Some might be disappointed in this turn toward the comic booky. For some, the appeal of The Penguin has been its ability to elevate, if not “transcend,” its superhero roots. These people have argued that The Penguin isn’t about Oswald Cobblepott, the grotesque gangster who befuddles the Batman with his avian-themed exploits. It’s about Oz Cobb, a disrespected man willing to go to the darkest depths to restore his dignity.
For these viewers, “the Penguin” isn’t a nom du supervillain that Oswald takes upon himself to taunt Batman and Robin. It’s an insult used to put Oz in his place, in the same way that society puts so many misunderstood and insecure young men in their place by disrespecting the things they love. But with “Gold Summit,” writer Nick Towne and director Kevin Bray show that The Penguin engage with rich themes while also being a show about a supervillain in Gotham City.
Take the best scene in the episode, in which Sofia Gigante confronts Eve Karlo. In a conversation that must have been missing from the pages that John Turturro read when he decided against reprising his role as Carmine Falcone, the duo discuss the dangers of being a woman in Gotham. Believing that she is the Hangman, Eve resents Sofia for murdering several sex workers. Hurt that not even a fellow woman believers her, Sofia counters that Eve’s friends were killed by Carmine and that Sofia took the fall.
The conversation touches on rich thematic aspects that still don’t get enough attention in culture, the way women must twist themselves to protect themselves from insecure men, the way that women take the blame for evil things done by men.
And it’s also incredibly arch, a conversation between supervillains in Gotham City. No, The Penguin doesn’t (yet) go as far as it could with Eve Karlo, making her into Basil Karlo aka Clayface from the comics. However, it does reveal that Eve works by taking on different personas and even costumes to please her clients, which isn’t that far from the original stage actor version of Clayface from the comics, before he became a shapeshifting pile mud. Likewise, Sofia delievers is in full Gigante mode, complete with ostentatious earrings and coat that function like a costume.
The scene meets both the supervillain and thematic needs thanks to Bray’s assured direction, blocking and holding shots to catch the little human moments between grand declarations, and thanks to the excellent acting.
We’ve praised Cristin Milioti’s take a lot here and still she somehow finds new and interesting spins on the character. But I want to take a moment and praise Carmen Ejogo as Karlo. As seen in True Detective, Selma, and It Comes at Night, Ejogo has the range and presence to play subtle, well-observed tics in big, totemic characters.
Her conversation with Sofia may not pass the Bechdel Test, but it does show why you hire an actor like Ejogo for a (heretofore) small part. Eve knows that her same seductive techniques aren’t working on Sofia and thus goes for real vulnerability and even a play at solidarity, even though such a move could get her killed. With just a shift of her eyebrow or a change in her posture, Ejogo takes Eve from confidence to fear to relief and back again, sometimes in the same shot.
Two supervillains have a conversation about the desperation that drives them. Another supervillain gathers a gang to take over the city. In another subplot, teen sidekick Vic commits to a life of crime and wrestles with the guilt that follows.
When it admits that it’s a show about Batman characters, The Penguin shows that supervillains are people too, and interesting, compelling ones at that.
The Penguin airs on HBO and Max Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET.
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