A series like this would always be weighed down by its to adherence to its comic book roots; a lunatic in a bat costume running around on rooftops and driving a batmobile exists in this universe.
That's an odd way of watching a series like this. I mean, how do you find watching The Sopranos?
I've never seen it. Generally I watch very little in the way of TV shows. I tried Penguin on the strength of Reeve's Batman movie which I liked the tone and style of a lot; and stuck with it a bit mainly on the strength of Colin Farrell's performance and Sofia Falcone. But she became significantly less interesting as a character as time went on and whilst Penguin started off as a bad person you could like due to redeeming characteristics and background, the show ended up with him being someone I simply found unpleasant.
They toyed with making him somewhat tragedic. They just didn't commit to it, which was a missed opportunity. He is an ugly crippled from a poor neighborhood in the most corrupt city in the world. It would have really helped to make him more understandable. But if they did that, they would have to actually try in their goal to make him hateable, which they did not want to do. Sofia = good, Oz = evil.
The show would've really benefited from Batman easter eggs, and perhaps even an interrogation by him. There was probably a dogma in the writing room "this is a Sofia Fal- sorry, Penguin show. Do not mention Batman at all!" that really harmed the worldbuilding of Gotham. I understand Pattinson is expensive but you really can't get Oz to say "and make sure that Bat-Freak doesn't fuck this up!"?
You know it never even crossed my mind that his disability would be a reason for him being a tragic figure. People can read into that not occurring to me how they like. But it wasn't until you brought up his foot that the connection with his relationship with his mother occurred to me. A certain Tom Lehrer song begins to play in my mind...
100% this. I think we just chalk this up as another piece of comic book media being terrified of being associated with comic books.
I watched Agents of SHIELD and they constantly referenced the mainline heroes which was kinda useless since you'd never see them, but at least it kinda made it feel connected. The entire Vulture part of Spiderman in which he makes money cleaning up old war debris would be a cool ass series in comparison. Then they had Mr Niggerman Fury show up for a single seated scene in the end of season 1. Not sure what they did for the next 50 season finales though.
Its mainly because Vic knew too much of Penguin's personal life and he didn't want to risk someone like Batman to interrogate him. That and when I first saw the episode, thought he did it so he wouldn't risk someone else having ambitions to take over.
Yes. Probably a lot more so.
I guess that's a fair enough explanation but watching the final scenes it feels more forced as it tries to punch above it's weight.
I'd also argue it's because he was too attached to Vic at that point. He had just seen his mother used against him and needed to excise another potential soft spot.
