The Penguin 2024 - Colin Ferrell in a fat suit.

I saw the trailer and it looked okay, although it also made it seem like the Falconi chick was going to be Catwoman, but we already had raceswapped Catwoman in The Batman.

Either way, I don't watch white people shows so I'm gonna give it a miss, but if it's good that's good.
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Suikafag and Wild at Heart
I fully expect it to implode but thus far it's the first time I've been pleasantly surprised by comic book media since the Logan movie. The second I saw Sophia Falcone I thought, he we go, she's going to be a badass lesbian girlboss fresh from the CW, but thus far she's...not. I kind of feel bad for not being able to appreciate her character; I fully expect her to complain about the patriarchy in every scene, but instead whenever she's on screen she is either moving the plot forward or revealing unsuspecting aspects of her motivation, you know, like a character ought to do instead of giving childish speeches to adults. The whole thing feels like entertainment for grownups.

Penguin has been relegated to junk status in comics, and it's been like that for over thirty years, but I've always enjoyed seeing actors portray him, they look like they're having fun. In this case, they're running with Bob Kane's original vision for Penguin as someone whose superpower is making stupid people think he's harmless, which should be central to his character. He's also unflappable (unless you hit a specific psychological trigger), which, again, is a core personality trait from his original appearance in Detective Comics.
 
  • Like
  • Agree
Reactions: m1ddl3m4rch, Suikafag, The Valeyard and 12 others
I've seen the first two episodes and was generally impressed by the show.

Not that you won't notice the literally obligatory mystery meat actors and lame "feminist" bullshit Hollywood forces you to include these days. This show has been compared by dummies to The Sopranos (because it's about organized crime and interpersonal drama), but this ain't The Sopranos. The golden age of television writing is well and truly over, and you will put STRONK wammen and random niggers into your show or it won't get made. (Unless you have so much clout you can afford to outright ignore the DEI grifter layer of bureaucracy.)

But, that said, it's pretty damn good for Current Year. It made me remember how pleasantly surprised I was by the movie. And that Colin Farrell is one of our best living actors.
 
  • Agree
  • Like
  • Thunk-Provoking
Reactions: The Nothingness, Xenomorphs Are Cute, The Hardest R and 5 others
I really enjoy the Penguin as a character, and seeing him excel at the intrigue and deception involved with organized crime. His little apprentice is fun enough, his acting is okay, but he allows Penguin to show his softer side. Seeing this version of Gotham in detail is fun, I really enjoyed the city as shown in the movie. I mainly want to see Penguin sloppily make his way to the top of Gotham by the end of the show. I do find the "mafia" in media to be a laughable parody at this point, no matter how serious they are written, but Penguin is a walking cartoon character, so it gets a pass.

I was getting what I wanted for 3 episodes when the 4th decides to take a harsh detour and focus on the female lead of the show. I liked her well enough, but this episode decides to completely derail the Penguin's story and showcase her past. It was okay at first, but I was suffocated after 30 minutes of pure Miss Falcone drama. Is it wrong to just want to watch Penguin in a show called The Penguin? This woman is then tortured in Arkham for 45 minutes with never ending scenes of shock therapy and prison fights while the whole episode can be explained as a #BelieveAllWomen allegory.

I was pretty tired when I watched it, so I turned the episode off halfway through. I found it to be randomly "artistic" and overly dramatic out of nowhere. The creator and director is a woman so she no doubt wanted to include this episode to preach about modern day issues and treatment of women. That's cool, but what wine moms or art students are watching 3 episodes of crime drama to get to the gold nugget of politics in the middle of the season?

Anyways, the episode has the highest IMDB rating of any TV episode ever, which is a constant headline every year, but I feel put off by it.

Screenshot 2024-10-14 150006.png
 
  • Informative
  • Dislike
  • Like
Reactions: The Nothingness, Xenomorphs Are Cute, The Hardest R and 4 others
I didn’t think the new episode was too feminist at all. I think it’s the best depiction of Arkham they’ve done and really stressed just how corrupt and fucked Gotham as a whole is. It also was suitably shitty to show why sophia is so done with her family and prevents her animosity from looking like a whiny kid who didn’t go through shit. If anything it helps dismiss the fear that the show will devolve into shallow patriarchy critique. It still could later on but I feel safe assuming this season at a minimum will stay good. It also rapidly progressed the backstabbing so we won’t have to waste as much time with penguin dealing with falcones one by one
 
  • Agree
  • Thunk-Provoking
  • Like
Reactions: IwillNEVERERposthere, Bunny Wigglesworth, Old Woman Johnson and 11 others
I've been pleasantly surprised at how good the show is, but a lot of it is enjoying Colin Farrell absolutely killing it in some really impressive makeup, so his absence this past episode didn't help.

Beyond that, I don't know if we needed a whole episode of Sophia's backstory/Arkham torture porn, given that we already had a good idea of what had happened in her past, but it definitely makes me curious as to where the next episode or two will go.
 
  • Like
Reactions: The Nothingness, Wild at Heart and frozen_runner
I didn't mind an episode dedicated to Sofia, especially since Cristin Milioti has been great in the role, but I thought going the whole she dindu nuffin, she was framed and driven crazy by da evul patriarchy was a stupid choice, they could've at least left it ambiguous.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: The Nothingness
I've been really enjoying the show so far. They haven't mentioned Batman even once, but I'm expecting him to appear in the final episode. Maybe Penguin gets a little too big for his britches and needs to get Batslapped back down. I expect the black kid to die, probably at Sofia's hands, and Alberto to be revealed as the true Hangman, with Carmine strangling only his wife
 
  • Optimistic
Reactions: The Valeyard, The Nothingness and Drag-on Knight 91873
Episode 4 was the first episode I found to be a let down, just had real issue with the Arkham extras. The chick playing Magpie, her acting can only be described as a Sheri Moon Zombie impression by a theater kid. Also found Mark Strong to be weaker than John Turturro.

Jar-Jar Fanboy said:
I've been really enjoying the show so far. They haven't mentioned Batman even once, but I'm expecting him to appear in the final episode. Maybe Penguin gets a little too big for his britches and needs to get Batslapped back down. I expect the black kid to die, probably at Sofia's hands, and Alberto to be revealed as the true Hangman, with Carmine strangling only his wife
Click to expand...
I doubt they will do that twist. In The Batman, Carmine Falcon told Catwoman he strangled her mother and even tried to to do the same to her.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Xenomorphs Are Cute, Jar-Jar Fanboy and Picnic_Boy
Yeah, that was the first episode that felt tedious. I was looking forward to it ending. It was predictable, which would be okay if it were like a five minute flashback and not an hour-long slog through what felt dangerously close to being an episode of Gotham. I assumed that she'd basically be a political prisoner (she was) and that she'd be abused and manipulated by the hospital staff (she was). It all went down exactly like you'd imagine it, and it just wasn't nearly as fun as watching Penguin narrowly avoid disaster from scene to scene like an evil Bugs Bunny.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: The Nothingness and Wild at Heart
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back