“The Penguin” – Summary, Episode 1: “After Hours”

Gotham City is underwater. Those who breathe the thin air high above the streets – people like Bruce Wayne and the Falcones – feel the effects only in the power vacuum left by a fallen father. For the many who live on the street level of Gotham, chaos reigns. Anyone who has lived in any version of this city will be all too familiar with the sequence of news voices and chaotic cinematics that lead us through the vortex of urban decay.

That's because we're in Matt Reeves' Batman universe (recently renamed the “Batman Epic Crime Saga”), the latest in a long line of WB/DC projects securing a proper series renewal on HBO/Max. Under the careful narrative direction of showrunner Lauren LeFranc The Penguin casts Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobb in a monstrous (but recognizably human) “rise to power” arc that feels equally at home alongside the HBO crime drama canon as it does alongside DC villains like Peacemaker or HarleyQuinn.

We find Oswald Cobb exactly where we found him in Matt Reeves' The Batmanoverlooking the city that lies in the no man's land between worlds, the city between two cities. “Things are going to get worse before they get better,” says Batman's voiceover at the end of the film, over the same shot of Oz that opens the film The Penguin. “And some will take the chance to grab whatever they can get.” Oz sees his chance in the Riddler's attack on Gotham. A chance to take control of the city once and for all. His plan? Unclear. But those steely eyes speak volumes. If the early reviews of this show are to be believed, we're in for one of the most memorable comic book villain performances in recent memory. And that will be thanks to Farrell's eyes, which convey a world of pain, anger and fiery ambition behind a distorted face of neo-gothic proportions.

A week later, Oz breaks into the Iceberg Lounge in the middle of the night to dig up whatever he can from his late boss's safe. He manages to hide a thick file of blackmail material before Alberto Falcone (Michael Zegen) shows up and puts a gun to the back of Oz's head. But Oz keeps his cool and goes into blowing smoke up the new boss's ass mode. Al doesn't quite believe him, but he keeps the facade up so he can play with his newly acquired lackey. At Oz's suggestion, the two share a drink to celebrate Al's newfound status as “Boss of Gotham.” Oz winces when Al tosses him a big old necklace from the family jewelry box; the gesture is completely demeaning. But in his hubris, Al reveals a new plan to take the Gotham drug trade far beyond drops with a new shipment, and wonders aloud if he can live up to his father Carmine's reputation.

Oz does a great little monologue about the old gangster who ruled his neighborhood when he was a kid. Rex Calabrese was a benevolent underworld leader who gained respect by taking care of those under his wing. “If someone in your family was sick, he'd get you a doctor. If he didn't have enough money for rent, he'd advance you the money,” Oz says. “He knew everyone's names, too. Had them all in his head.” When Calabrese died, they held a parade in his honor. “It wasn't anything special, but it was a gesture,” Oz recalls. “A sign of love. What he meant. Can you imagine that? To be remembered like that? To be revered?”

Al can't understand this lesson and his reaction costs him his life. “You want me to act like a little ass?” he asks before realizing it's Oz's dream. “Do you really think people would pose with your stupid face and march down the street chanting your damn name?”

Alberto Falcone falls back in his chair, dead and full of lead, and for a moment you can almost see a flash of Travis Bickle's grin. Taxi driver … until Oz realizes what a mess he's gotten himself into. Killing the heir to the Falcone throne at the exact moment of his ascension isn't exactly the cleanest way to take over an empire. First things first: put the body in the trunk. Yet another opportunity for Oz to get out of trouble.

In the case of the teenagers he catches stealing his rims on their way out of the Iceberg Lounge, Oz sees Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), the scared, stuttering boy who can't get away, as a miraculous new opportunity for a sidekick. Here is a boy from the same neighborhood as Oz, who wishes death and is hungry for a chance. If this boy wants to survive, he must show ambition, on his new boss's terms: He must make the powerful feel “big” by “making himself small.”

Things are looking a little shaky at Falcone headquarters. Underboss Johnny Vitti and family enforcer Milos have called Oz to the family mansion to discuss his drop operation. They are shutting down his factory and moving all operations to Robbinsville. The police are circling him and other gangs are moving in. Oz argues that giving up the factory means handing the Maronis the keys to the kingdom. He justifies his demand for a bigger role in the operations by saying that he has heard of a shipment that will revolutionize the drug business.

Enter Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), aka the Executioner – the family serial killer who has just been released from Arkham Asylum. The second Milioti's eyes meet Farrell's, a great DC duo is born. And their impromptu lunch in the next scene makes for a stellar clash between damaged but cunning minds.

Vitti may have ignored Oz's offer to run a new drug operation, but Sofia lures him in with an appeal to their shared sense of outsider status. Then she flips the switch, letting Oz know that Alberto told her the night before he was going to the Iceberg Lounge. And lo and behold, the next day Oz is selling her brother's secret new drug operation as his own. “So I ask you again,” Sofia says, “do you know where my brother is?”

Oz manages to save himself for now in his response, with the right mix of “he's left us both in the dark, darling” and “I'm sure he's just out on a drinking spree again, he'll show up any minute.” Oz goes into contingency plan mode and takes the train out of the old neighborhood to pick up his mother (Deirdre O'Connell). From Victor's perspective, we get a good look at Oz's family life as he looks at the pictures on the wall of Francis' living room. A single mother with three boys. Looks like Oz is the youngest. Francis is the classic mafia mother – a confidant and active shaper of her son and his underworld career. Oz didn't shoot Alberto Falcone on impulse, she says, but on instinct. Now is his time to shine and take control of the city. Running away is the last thing he should do.

The course has been corrected and Oz has another dark conversation with Victor on the station. “The world is not made for guys like us,” he says. “That's why we have to take what is rightfully ours. Because no one is going to give it to us. Not without a fight.”

With Victor's loyalty assured, Oz heads to Blackgate Prison to speak with the incarcerated Salvatore Maroni (Clancy Brown) and put his takeover plan into serious action. He suggests that Maroni's team rob the Drops operation using his information – he plays the victim, they split the payday. Sal says “fuck off” for now, but Oz has Sal's old ring with him – the one Carmine wore as a constant “fuck you” to Sal from outside the prison and as a sign of his power as overlord in the city. Maybe Oz is more than Salvatore thinks.

Oz goes back to his digs and finds Sofia and some henchmen waiting for him. They immediately spot his purple (sorry, I guess it's “plum”) car and manage to knock him unconscious and hold him captive (after a small fight in the driver's seat and a macabrely comic confrontation with a school bus). He wakes up naked in the Falcones' greenhouse with Sofia standing over him. Just when it looks like Oz is out of cards to play and Sofia is about to have her henchman rip Oz's arm off with a creepy wire, a car with Alberto's body in the trunk crashes through the front yard and into a garden statue. Alberto's pinky is missing, as is Salvatore Maroni's ring, and “PAYBACK” is carved under the hood. Oz laughs in relief – now that Sal has the ring, it looks like Sal ordered an assassination attempt on Alberto. Victor was only supposed to leave Alberto's head in the trunk, but he still did a good job.

And so the plan to take over the city is set in motion: all you have to do is stroke a few egos, endure a little more cruelty, then give it all back tenfold and reap a drug lord's reward.

• Well, what can I say, your humble crime recapitulator is also something like a “real head yourself” in the Batman Department. The old Dark Knight saga has been my most important superhero bag since I started watching Saturday morning cartoons (firmly in the Batman: The Animated Series Generation), watching superhero movies and reading comics (from the New 52 era to Tim Sales Long Halloween And Dark Victory runs from the The Penguin needs direct inspiration). All this is to say, I am a Batman Fan, but far from sensitive to any particular incarnation or approach to the character. My main topic will be whether The Penguin makes a neo-gothic crime series just as gripping as Matt Reeves' The Batman was a moody, emotionalDirtyHarry Breaking the constantly reinterpreted “Batman origin story”.

• As it stands, there won't be many more Bruce Wayne/Batman names or appearances in this show. That's OK. We'll be seeing old Battinson soon enough and I don't know what his inclusion would bring to the story. The villain is, so to speak, the protagonist of every good Batman History, anyway (from such diverse corners of the Batman universe as the Adam West television series to Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy).

• The Sopranos Comparisons will inevitably abound, but from my point of view most of them will prove superficial and probably unnecessarily unfavourable to The Penguin. It's hard to compete with one of the most iconic series of all time, even if it's just for an HBO-related brand association. Sure, showrunner Lauren LeFranc's “making of a monster” construction of the character, who stems from the psychological trauma of the underprivileged street kid who becomes a hardened criminal, is thematically in similar territory. But it's also all as firmly in the tradition of the Batman crime gallery as a Tony Soprano or Vito Corleone story is.