The Penguin Episode Discussion thread.
- Thread starter Wingcommanderdarkwolf01
- Start date
Yes, I too got a Sally Bowles vibe!
Also see: Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc..
To be honest i'm getting a little tired of it. "The audience is sympathizing with our main character too much, we gotta remind them he's a bad person!"
It's not like Oz wasn't doing bad stuff in every episode to some degree or another. He might have played the Robin Hood card but he wasn't Robin Hood. He burned two people to death just a couple of episodes ago!
Anyhoo, that was amazing! Props to all concerned, Farrell, Milioti, O'Connell and also Feliz who I'd tagged as a weak link at the start but who turned Victor into a great character.
For a second I wondered if focusing on Victor's driving licence was some kind of easter egg but guessing not.
Fantastic to get mention of Selina Kyle, and damn I'd have been so bummed if we hadn't got the Bat signal at the end.
And @Nerys Myk you're right, she did look scarily like Francis at the end.
Easy to envisage the next film being Bats vs Penguin and A.N. Other (Joker perhaps) with Catwoman and Hangman inhabiting some grey area between good guys and bad?
I hope the show isn't ignored come Emmy time.
Anyhoo, that was amazing! Props to all concerned, Farrell, Milioti, O'Connell and also Feliz who I'd tagged as a weak link at the start but who turned Victor into a great character.
For a second I wondered if focusing on Victor's driving licence was some kind of easter egg but guessing not.
Fantastic to get mention of Selina Kyle, and damn I'd have been so bummed if we hadn't got the Bat signal at the end.
And @Nerys Myk you're right, she did look scarily like Francis at the end.
Easy to envisage the next film being Bats vs Penguin and A.N. Other (Joker perhaps) with Catwoman and Hangman inhabiting some grey area between good guys and bad?
I hope the show isn't ignored come Emmy time.
What happened with Sophia over the series was perhaps the most terrible injustice I've ever seen.
Her own Father got her sent to Arkham to disguise the fact that he was the real Hangman. She survived ten years of the most horrific brutality in Arkham. Now, she's back in Arkham, probably to stay.
As for Arkham...
Forget the Joker, the Riddler, and the Penguin. Arkham is perhaps the biggest villain in Gotham. It routinely dopes its...victims...with Bliss, and subjects the residents to routinely brutal violence, which only serves to exacerbate the psychoses of the residents, making them more prone to evil than they were before.
Maybe Arkham, itself, is a Supervillain too...
Her own Father got her sent to Arkham to disguise the fact that he was the real Hangman. She survived ten years of the most horrific brutality in Arkham. Now, she's back in Arkham, probably to stay.
As for Arkham...
Forget the Joker, the Riddler, and the Penguin. Arkham is perhaps the biggest villain in Gotham. It routinely dopes its...victims...with Bliss, and subjects the residents to routinely brutal violence, which only serves to exacerbate the psychoses of the residents, making them more prone to evil than they were before.
Maybe Arkham, itself, is a Supervillain too...
I thought that was the intent.
This was an amazing series from beginning to end. I'm so glad they really got the ending right. A great Batman villain portrayal, possibly better than Ledger's Joker.
It was. I just never noticed any resemblance between the actors until that scene.
It was great acting on Farrel's part, and writing/directing, to hide just how cold and brutal Oz is up until the closing scenes. The final scene is so dark and disturbing after what came right before--but I bet that Farrel is playing the character the same way he had been all season. Brrrr. The Penguin gave me chills.
I still haven't seen The Batman from two years ago. Was this a good reboot? How about this Penguin series? I loved the Penguin in Batman Returns and in Gotham. He's good here too? Is the show essentially the world of Batman, but from Penguin's POV? Hard for me to connect to a story when the main character is the villain. I'm trying to go into both the film and series spoiler free. If anyone takes the time to answer spoiler free, thank you!
Leading up to it, I thought I would hate the movie--but it won me over. Some of the lighting is too dark for my taste and there are a couple of scenes that Bruce/Batman should not have walked away from--but overall it was a great film. It was very much Batman as detective. If you want lots of action, this is not that kind of Batman movie. There are few action sequences, but the majority of the film is low key. Very much a gumshoe noir style movie.
The Penguin picks up a couple of weeks after The Batman ends. The Penguin is very much a "Tony Soprano" style gangster. In fact, my only complaint about the series is that it pulls one too many beats from The Sopranos. That said, it is very much its own thing--superbly acted by everyone involved, even the actor who plays Vic (weak link in the acting department) shone through in the end. It is very good in that it creates a cunning and chilling nemesis for Batman whenever the next film comes out.
The Penguin picks up a couple of weeks after The Batman ends. The Penguin is very much a "Tony Soprano" style gangster. In fact, my only complaint about the series is that it pulls one too many beats from The Sopranos. That said, it is very much its own thing--superbly acted by everyone involved, even the actor who plays Vic (weak link in the acting department) shone through in the end. It is very good in that it creates a cunning and chilling nemesis for Batman whenever the next film comes out.
If you've been reading this thread I regret to inform you that you've seen spoilers.
I've seen all of the Batman films (except The Flash) plus Gotham (once through). Looking forward to The Batman and The Penguin, just stuff I haven't gotten around to. I want to see The Batman this weekend. Maybe The Penguin next week since it's likely to be one of those mini-season shows.
Finished watching the series last night. It's a bit too Sopranos for me. I just couldn't find my groove with the show. Maybe because I couldn't find an in point with the character, his philosophy is basically him being out for himself, there's nothing I can like about him or admire from any standpoint. Colin Farrell is fantastic of course but I think this is a case of less is more.
One big issue I had with the series is Vic. Just a few weeks after losing his family but personality wise he seems well adjusted to it. I didn't buy that he had basically lost everything because he still seemed just like a normal kid.
As for the Penguin, you can read my thoughts above. I think you'll probably find it hard like me to connect to the character.
One big issue I had with the series is Vic. Just a few weeks after losing his family but personality wise he seems well adjusted to it. I didn't buy that he had basically lost everything because he still seemed just like a normal kid.
'The Batman' is alright. It's a more direct adaptation of the comics in that it's less of a movie and more about spending time with the character as he deals with his investigation. The popcorn friendly Batman movies work better in my opinion. It's also unnecessarily long.
As for the Penguin, you can read my thoughts above. I think you'll probably find it hard like me to connect to the character.
I think that's what makes the series good. Like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, the character has enough traits (in my opinion) to make you see that he is not entirely evil. In Oz's case, he's the gangster underdog who just wants to get out from under the feet of the big boys and he loves his mama, and he's incompetent at being a thug. And then at the end you learn that none of that is true. He cons the viewer as much as he cons the characters in the show.
As for Vic, I agree that it's only been two weeks since his parents died; but you can attribute his attitude to shock--and his trauma comes out in his stutter. It also explains why he sides with Oz rather than going off with his girlfriend. Although it is never stated, I thought it likely that he blamed law enforcement or the Batman for losing his family.
I disagree. I think he is evil and shows absolutely no remorse for his actions. His love for his mother is beyond normal, it's twisted and selfish. Whatever he claims to do for her is just to fulfill his own selfish desire to keep her. He may be an underdog but he is no Walter White. He didn't turn from an average good man to a crimelord, he doesn't have an origin story, he is just evil. Thats what I find uninteresting about him. At the end of the day he is just a gangster out for himself and he always has been.
I worded that wrong. See should have been think-- it is actually similar to Breaking Bad in that it makes you think the character had good qualities, and then you find out that he's totally evil.
Breaking Bad does this a lot better. Walter White was never an average good man; he was a piece of shit and always had been, but you don't find that out until near the end of the series in a flashback episode.
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