‘The Penguin’ Episode 3 Put Some Oz in My Cobb
By The Penguin’s second episode, it felt like everyone I talked to about the Batman spin-off series was surprised that they were having so much fun. This Penguin guy...He’s kind of cool, no? (He is.) And the show, it’s better than you thought it would be, right? (Right.) After five or so years of the most bizarre superhero spin-offs we’ve ever seen from Marvel and DC alike, it seems audiences don’t quite know how to process the fact that we’re enjoying this genre again. Our brains are moving like Oz Cobb’s waddle, struggling to catch up with The Penguin’s secret sauce.
Part—if not all—of the show’s success rests on Colin Farrell’s performance. I’ll praise it every week. By episode 3, he’s decidedly not the Penguin from the Batman comics. But he is Oz Cobb, and this Tony Soprano/Fat Tony hybrid is one of the most hilarious gangsters I’ve ever seen onscreen. There’s a scene in this week’s episode where someone explains a complicated new drug to the Penguin using Latin names for the mushrooms they’re cultivating (more on that later), and Oz responds, “What the fuck you say to me?” with the power of an army of the most stereotypical Italian mobsters imaginable. The visage of Tony Soprano asking some drug dealers if they “blow their father with that mouth?” flashed before my eyes like I was hit by a lightning bolt of déjà vu.
If HBO and Matt Reeves sought to re-create just the Mob scenes from The Sopranos in a gritty, more realistic Batman universe, then mission accomplished. And I have more than just a hunch that they did. A new report on the Green Lantern spin-off in development suggests that the series is essentially True Detective with magical rings. Hell, maybe next we’ll see Martian Manhunter redo The Wire or Lex Luthor become the Veep. So far, I’m not complaining.
Nice Digs, Oz
As we kick off episode 3, Oz Cobb is feeling himself a bit. He just talked his way out of three potential attempts on his life last episode, and that’s actually four attempts if you count Sofia Falcone’s (Cristin Milioti) interrogation at the end of the premiere. He takes Victor (Rhenzy Feliz) to his bizarre apartment, furnished with a bank-vault door to his bedroom and one of those remote-controlled digital fireplaces that also plays sexy music. With the confidence of a divorced dad, he tells Vic that one day this life could be his, too.
“Tacky,” says Sofia when she walks in. She reveals to Victor that Oz used to be her driver. Interesting. Oz tells his young accomplice that if he does anything stupid, he’ll “sense it.” So Vic immediately does something stupid. He calls his girlfriend and invites her to Oz’s apartment. “Nothing good can come from working for a guy like that,” she tells him. No duh.
You Kiss Your Mother with That Mouth?
Let’s cut back to the mushroom scene. Sofia is cultivating her own drug business, and she wants to cut Oz in on the deal. If he can find a distributor, he’s golden. He takes her to a member of the Triads in Chinatown who hates him because Oz owes the guy a ton of money. But the Penguin is an intelligent talker. If we’ve learned anything about him, it’s that he can ramble his way out of any situation because the other person wants him to shut up already. His contact is no different, even after asking them why they’re stupid enough to try to take over the Falcone family during a gang war with the Maronis. “A coup?” Penguin coyly responds. “What are you, reading books or somethin’?”
Oz and Sofia catch Falcone underboss Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly) sleeping with Carmine Falcone’s wife. They blackmail him into calling the Triads to set up a real meeting. But after Johnny calls the Penguin a “joke,” Oz strangles him and threatens him to “make the fucking call.” Still, the Triads are skeptical.
Later, at a fancy lunch, Oz tells the waiter to “do that again” when he points at his empty wineglass. He learns a little about Victor’s past, defends his driver’s stutter when the waiter finishes his sentence for him, and preaches to him that “the world ain’t set up for the honest man to succeed.” He’s building a real connection with this kid.
Oz Gets Real
Vic and Oz distribute the drug, nicknamed “Bliss.” But after a bad trip, Vic questions this line of life. His girlfriend tells him to meet him at the train station so they can run away together. In the bathroom, Oz finds out. “What, are you too good for this life?” the Penguin asks him. “You think I’m holding you hostage? You my prisoner? What did you have before I found you? Fucking nothin’, that’s what. A loser. I gave you clothes, money, a place to crash. You chose to stay….Because you wanted something better.” Vic explains that his dad would be ashamed of him. “You want to know what’s shameful, Vic? Working your whole goddamn life and having nothing to show for it!” Penguin yells. “You still think there’s good or bad, right or wrong. There ain’t. Just this. Survival.”
After a successful night of distributing party drugs throughout the club, Sofia questions the Penguin’s motives once again. A year ago, he sold her out for something she did and it got her sent to Arkham. Was it worth it? “I got the club, a drop operation to run my own thing. A guy like me? Getting all that? That don’t mean nothin’ to you maybe, but it does for me,” he tells her. “A better life…but I’m fucking sorry. You meant something to me, and I fucked it up.” Before she can forgive him, the Maronis arrive and threaten them both at gunpoint. Miraculously, Vic returns to Oz and hits the rival gang with the Penguin’s purple Maserati. Oz escapes, leaving Sofia behind. Gil Scott-Heron’s “Me and the Devil” plays. “Fuck it, leave her,” the Penguin tells Vic. He’s ruthless.
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