Admittedly I wasn't all gung-ho on the prospect of a Penguin show, certainly viable potential but nothing to wet my knickers about and from the slight brief buzz I heard it sounded good enough. I heard the "Gotham Sopranos" comparison and frankly if The Sopranos is anything like this I'm watching it! Crime drama ain't my genre but there is an exception to every rule, and this is it crafting a story you can sink your teeth into with plenty of character building and arcs remarkably done in the obsolete 8 episode structure. When I saw the epilogue to The Batman where you see Oz with Bruce's monologue talking about a power vacuum was all I really needed, but having this series and the bridge showing the wild ass trip Oswald has to undertake to be the king of Gotham is pretty solid! It's an interesting comparison if nothing else to the same character and the same journey presented in Gotham, wildly different tones and story telling but I'm a lover of both. So Oz is starting to make moves climbing the ladder before hitting a speed bump by the name of Sofia Falcone, but he has an up and coming protege named Vic who becomes his right hand man in thebstruggle for something better. Bare bones gist but highly worth watching. Colin Farrell undoubtedly makes his stamp on the character, he was good already in the film but there is no denying he is the Penguin showcasing nothing but pure A-game acting across the board and honestly hits emotional marks that I never would have thought we would see in this character. Award winning? Hey, wouldn't it be nice. Shock of all shocks, flippin' mystery to end all mysteries, I...like Sofia Falcone?? Welllll, let me put it to you this way even though she was losing me near the end of the season I still enjoyed her about 10 billion percent more than the Gotham iteration, Cristin Milioti has such an interesting character journey and she milks it for all it's worth once again putting forth quite potentially award winning acting. You can understand why she does what she does, feel the way she feels, and honestly I was rooting for her a bit. Last of our main leads young Vic played by Rhenzy Feliz, taking on a slightly Jason Todd origin of getting caught trying to steal Oz's rims before slowly coming under his wing as he becomes a novice gangster, he plays it with a lot of heart and is very believable in the role with plenty to do than just be a sidekick to Oz. What's great also is we get almost entire bleeding episodes dedicated to each of their backstories making us connect and therefore care more, aceing the balancing act in my opinion between past and current events. Also I have to shoutout Deidre O'Connell as Oz's mom which was a prospect I was leaping for joy upon discovering, injecting an intense dose of realism to such a lavishly ludicrous world and the dynamic and relationship between Oswald and Francis plays the full emotional gambit. Pretty phenomenal. Didn't take long I'll admit for it to hit this is a grown up show for adults, about as many F bombs in an episode I drop in a day, not skimping out on the blood, you flat out see a tiddy in episode one, like they picked a lane and stuck to it! While the plot didn't exactly twist and twirl it has ways to keep your attention and never gets dull for a second, hell I was blowing through the episodes as fast as I could and not just for the purposes of this review either! The production value truthfully wowed me at times, the scope of the street sets, the architecture, the combined drip of Oswald and Sofia makes the seawall collapse look like a spilled glass of water, the interiors, the vehicles, combined with the non-stop stunning skyline of Gotham all gets an A+ from me. I want to say so much but that would ruin the show, you just gotta go see it. Am I expecting a lot of callbacks to it in the second Batman film? Here and there, perhaps very much like the returning actors and callbacks were present in this series, and no I wasn't expecting to see vengeance himself appear, not even as a brief silhouette. I look at this show like the supplemental material from Star Wars, you don't have to watch Andor, you don't have to watch Clone Wars to understand the films but it adds a lot to the experience when you do even as the series stand on their own merits. Do you really need to watch the movie to get this series? I don't think so actually, it's self contained enough and fills whatever gaps need filling without being exposition. It's written well enough and has style and artistic qualities enough to where you can watch it and have a great time. I'm sure it was a trip to watch it weekly and whatever the future may hold for Matt Reeve's Batman world I'm gonna keep my eyes open. I give it 4 stars, 9/10!, and next week more witches and fantasy are in the works.
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