The Penguin 1×02 Review – Slippery Bird

Penguins have feathers, but just like stereotypical gangsters in movies slick their hair back, penguins have oily feathers that give their bodies a smooth appearance and make them streamlined for swimming. Oz Cobb doesn’t have feathers, but he’s just as slippery as his namesake, as the second episode of shows The penguin. spoiler Follow for The penguin Season 1, Episode 2, “Inside Man.”

“Inside Man”

As I watch this show, I wonder if Sofia Falcone is actually crazy. She’s certainly dangerous, but everyone else in her family has killed just as many people as her, if not more. Of course, that doesn’t absolve her of her crimes, but I wonder if Sofia’s stay in Arkham is because she’s getting on the nerves of more powerful members of her family.

As the episode begins, Sofia remembers or hallucinates the time she spent in Arkham. The line blurs and the scene transitions to reality, where Sofia is having problems in her psychiatrist Julian Rush’s office. Rush holds her to help her return to reality, but when she does, he’s closer to her than he should be – there’s romantic body language – and it seems like it’s just coming from his side. She sees it immediately and defends herself.

And every time she comes into contact with Oz, he tries to sneak to her side. She doesn’t reject him quite as forcefully, but it’s clear that she can’t come to terms with it, however plausible that may be. Her intelligence makes her instantly compelling and more dangerous than any of the other gangsters Penguin worries about. And that’s an advantage for him – he sees the person in the room who would be the worst person to piss off. Even if he goes about it in the slimiest way possible.

Only How The slimy Oz is, that seems to be the main theme of this episode. The last episode ended with him wriggling out of his arrest for the murder of Alberto Falcone. Then there’s a drug raid in the first few minutes where one of the bosses forces him to ride in the car he knows he’s going to get hit. Here too he manages to no longer look demonstrably guilty. And this won’t be the last time just this episode. Bullets keep whizzing past him, metaphorically and literally, close enough that he can feel them, but they never actually hit him.

It’s fun to watch these two characters at work. Sofia is smart, dangerous and underrated. Oz is smart, but often not as smart as he thinks, and he is too ambitious to ever be safe.

Meanwhile, we learn how bad Oz’s mother’s illness really is. She develops dementia, and Oz’s ambition, coupled with his fear of losing her, makes it difficult for him to verbally acknowledge this. Deirdre O’Connell’s performance makes this all-new character seem like a potentially essential part of Penguin’s future backstory, someone the writers will come back to again and again, just as he does Batman: The Animated Series gave us Nora Fries and helped transform Mr. Freeze from a Silver Age cartoon idiot into a tragic figure.

There are also some great supporting performances. I particularly liked the casting of Clancy Brown and Shohreh Agdashaloo as Salvatore and Nadia Maroni. Agdashaloo was great as Chrisjen Arasavala The vastness. This character operates on a much smaller scale but has equal quiet power and is not one to be treated lightly. It’s always a pleasure to watch these two character actors on screen The penguin is no exception.

After two episodes, my review remains unchanged: I wish this series was more of a comic series. The Batman may have become my favorite Batman movie, although I wished Reeves would make the character weird again instead of forcing him to live in the real world. I wish there were more crazy people The penguinmore concern about the increasingly threatening vigilantes patrolling the city, more heightened reality.

But again, watching these performances on their own is so much fun that I’m kind of willing to give it up.

Disclaimer: HBO provided Batman News with early access to The Penguin episodes for review purposes.

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