The Penguin second season finale is one of the most impactful finales in recent years to be honest, very little series gives this kind of impression like Mandalorian or Game of Thrones, as it wraps up story lines and sets up exciting possibilities for The Batman Part 2 and handles Oz character development and final transformation into the monster we knew he had become masterfully, per Matt Reeves himself, this version of Penguin is far from the character we met in the first movies or TV Series.
We've seen Oz Cobb rise up the criminal ladder in Gotham, manipulating and destroying anyone who dared stand in his way, but this finale sees this go to a whole new level, particularly in that gut wrenching scene with Victor and while Penguin won't be a huge presence in The Batman Part 2 from what I have found online, Colin Farrell has already signed on for Part 3 and we know that Penguin will appear in about five to six scenes in The Batman Part 2, which is just how key this character has become.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26749860/
- Platform: Amazon
From the moody lighting in the penthouse scenes to how they shot that final dance sequence with Eve Karlo as Oz mother dressed as his mother, everything in this episode feels cinematic and nails the noir atmosphere Matt Reeves created in The Batman, one of the biggest scenes is at the courthouse when Oz visits Sebastian Hady and sets up what could be a big plot point in The Batman Part 2.
Eagle eyed viewers noticed owl shaped curtains in the background during the courthouse scene, this could mean Bella Real; black women with her arm hurt that Oz look at while he was at the mayor, she is secretly working for the Court of Owls, setting up a larger conspiracy that could be at the center of The Batman Part 2 plot but this is just me trying to nerd out on the topic and assuming things based on what I have read online so DO NOT QUOTE ME ON THIS!!.
There this heart breaking scene of Oz killing Victor, a character Oz had become something of a surrogate son to throughout the season, is the crowning moment of the episode, taking everything the show has been building to and blowing your mind the moment you see this happening without return point and all you can ask is BUT WHY?!, Oz sees Victor concern for him as weakness and in his twisted mentality, weakness must be destroyed, it's a brutal moment that makes Oz into the monster he is from the comics. I remember the first Batman movies painting the Penguin as this brutal men who lives under the city but this series has made him a more modern and powerful men but still savage as always.
Towards the ending there is this mighty powerful scenes where Oz dances in his penthouse alone with Eve Karlo playing the role of his mother, telling him everything he wants to hear, while his real mother Frances lies in bed, crying, looking out over Gotham, trapped in what has become her prison, her final words to him, telling him "the devil" are perfectly what Oz has become and that tear rolling down her face says all about the monster she helped create, at some point during the episode I thought there was the possibility Oz might kill her turning into this twisted though of "If I can't have you nobody will" because that's exactly what happen when he killed his brothers and didn't care, he still had options so it was killing them and have his mother all for himself so if she hate him so much then might be better to kill her and get rid of that weakness, that sentiment. This is what I like the most out of this series, how it makes you try to understand how Penguin thinks, similar feelings came up during the first episodes with Sofia too.
The fact that this ending sets up future developments, particularly in Oz political ambitions, has been set up for him to possibly run for mayor?, something we've seen in the comics and Batman Returns and Sofia mention of him being "a man of the people" could come true, considering how he helped Crown Point with their power issues.
Sofia half sister sends her a note from Arkham, so the Selina Kyle connection adds another layer of complication to the story and we know Zoe Kravitz will be back as Selina, so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out between the Falcone sisters and how that will affect Batman's relationship with Catwoman.
It's also likely to have serious consequences for Eve, she sold Oz out to Sofia, which lead to his mother being captured and we've seen Oz is not someone who will let someone betray him and given what we know about Oz character there's no way he'll let Eve Karlo get away with this, not when he already shown he is capable of killing those closest to him, like Victor and he may not have too many days left until he either remembers or realize it was because of her that his mother is laying in a bed like she is, it will also depends on how much his sick twisted mind is in love wit his mother because Eve Karlo does makes him think she is his mother, its similar to when Black Window sing to Hulk and gets him into this mental trance stage where Penguin just lets go, that does make him look weak though.
Lauren Frank nail the ending as over all its the most The Batman like scene with the dark mood, orange and red accents around the hotel and all of the sudden bat signal, I feel like it really push aside Oz or at least gives you that impression that the sheriff is in town!. After all the cool things about this new generation of TV series is how they expand the world around this stories, how they go back and forward from Movies to TV Series and at the end makes you think, where the hell was Batman when all this war was going on??
And the finale does a great job at introducing Oz in that larger Batman world; from The Batman movie, without losing its own sense of who Oz is as a character from this specific TV Series, someone who has everything he wanted but had his soul taken away in the process, which Colin Farrell's performance remains remarkable in the moments when we see both Ozv ulnerability and monotonousness come out at once.
This finale provides us with plenty to think about in regards to how Oz’s expanded criminal empire and political aspirations will fit into the bigger story and the promise of seeing Colin Farrell Penguin square off with Robert Pattinson Batman again, this time as a fully formed crime boss is so cool and goes full circle, this finale has absolutely exceeded expectations and left me wanting to see what comes next, it’s a solid 9/10 and one of the best season finales I’ve seen in last decade and I'm not exaggerating, it got 9.6/10 on IMDB.
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