Gentle up the Bat-signal, as a result of this text incorporates main spoilers for the season finale of “The Penguin.”
Each milk carton and avenue nook in Gotham might be plastered with the identical message: Have you ever seen this (Bat)man? He is dressed all in black, has a historical past of beating up petty criminals, and tends to seek advice from himself as “Vengeance.” But regardless of casting such a protracted shadow that lawbreakers assumed he was lurking in actually each darkish alleyway, upstanding residents of the town have not seen Robert Pattinson’s Batman since his feats of heroism that fateful day when the ocean partitions got here crashing down and set off widespread flooding within the last act of director Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.” So the place has our favourite masked vigilante been hiding since then, anyway?
“The Penguin” has given us one other prolonged take a look at the shadiest components of city via the eyes of Oswald Cobb (Colin Farrell), inflicting all types of mischief and mayhem whereas working his method to the highest of Gotham’s underbelly, but the precise Batman has been nowhere to be discovered whereas all this goes down proper beneath his nostril … till now. The season finale introduced a becoming finish to Oz’s scramble for energy, concluding with the Penguin now beneath management of the town’s surviving crime households. However as he stands on the prime of the meals chain and appears out on the skyline that belongs to him in every thing however title, director Jennifer Getzinger and author/showrunner Lauren LeFranc ensure that to finish the hour on a teasing word. The digital camera pans away from Oz, settles exterior his new penthouse, and silently observes because the Bat-signal lights up the sky within the far-off distance.
Lastly, “The Penguin” supplies the acknowledgement that followers have been ready for — Batman is, in truth, nonetheless round and has some unfinished enterprise.
The Penguin finale does not need us to neglect concerning the Batman
“Concern is a instrument. When that gentle hits the sky, it is not only a name. It is a warning.” Bruce Wayne narrates these ominous traces early on in 2022’s “The Batman,” completely setting the tone for a way Gotham Metropolis’s troublemakers should really feel with Batman able to spring out from behind each nook. He lived as much as that popularity all all through the film, apprehending supervillains like Paul Dano’s Riddler and even tussling with Barry Keoghan’s Joker previous to the occasions of the movie. However he additionally devoted loads of time to coping with lower-level mobsters — Oz Cobb chief amongst them. The HBO spin-off sequence would’ve appeared like an opportune second to trace on the continued presence of the Caped Crusader, even when solely as a silhouette within the background. (The fee and logistics of getting a star like Pattinson himself to seem within the present, in spite of everything, probably would’ve been too prohibitive and too distracting.) As an alternative, “The Penguin” patiently saved all its bullets for its last shot, sneaking in a Batman “cameo” with out ever really having to point out him.
Thus ends one of many funniest operating jokes in recent times, through which viewers repeatedly took to social media to surprise how explosive issues must get earlier than Batman lastly intervened within the present’s plot. Earlier than ending up behind bars (once more), Sophia Falcone orchestrated a automobile bomb assault that blew up a whole neighborhood and left untold a whole lot of casualties. Previous to that, the Maronis, Falcones, and the Penguin himself all fought a grisly gang struggle that continuously spilled over into the streets. But regardless of quite a few automobile chases and gun battles and literal explosions, apparently none of those rose to the extent of Batman’s radar. What that final scene appears to be implying, nevertheless, is that Batman could have his fingers full coping with the Penguin in “The Batman: Half II.”
Matt Reeves’ highly-anticipated sequel will not arrive till October of 2026, however you possibly can watch all 8 episodes of “The Penguin” now streaming on Max.