Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb continues to play both sides in this week’s The Penguin. Here’s our episode 2 review.
A slippery weasel that Oz Cobb. Colin Farrell’s crime lord has an astonishing ability to quite literally get away with murder as is evident in this week’s episode The Penguin.
Last week’s series premiere introduced us not just to Cobb and his shenanigans, but Cristin Milioti’s Sophia Falcone. Sophia has just been released from Arkham Asylum and is on the hunt for whoever killed her brother Alberto.
Of course, we know it was Oz, who is now trying to gain power for himself by sucking up to both the Falcone and the Maroni crime families and igniting a gang war between them. Which is what brings us to the weaselly part.
For the most of the episode, Oz manages to weasel his way out of several situations where a lesser mobster would have been caught. Oz has his fingers in many pies, but it’s tremendously entertaining watching him figure his way out of dangerous situations. If episode 1 got the gears moving, episode 2 establishes The Penguin as a two-hander of sorts, rather surprisingly. Although Farrell’s Oz is the narrative force here, Milioti’s Sophia is afforded just as much attention.
In fact, Sophia is who we begin the whole episode with. She’s in Arkham Asylum, absolutely terrified and led into a room, where she witnesses her brother being shot again. It turns out to be a hallucination as Sophia wakes screaming in the office of Theo Rossi’s doctor. Clearly, he’s not doing a particularly good job as he has to hold down the screaming and crying Sophia. Rossi’s character assures Sophia that she’s safe now. “I’m not safe, I’m home,” Sophia replies coldly.
Oz isn’t doing too good either. He needs to find a scapegoat for the murder of Alberto as soon as possible and what better opportunity to do that than Alberto’s memorial. As her uncle notes, Sophia has a great “nose for bullshit” and she’s very suspicious of Oz, so the clock is ticking for him to blame the murder on someone else.
Episode 1 also introduced us to Vic, the young kid Oz recruits as his driver and helper. Episode 2 is a little light on Vic, which is a shame because the dynamic between Oz and Vic is intriguing. We do, however, get a nice scene with Oz and his mother, whose dementia is getting worse, dancing together. The Penguin is the kind of series where everything is violent, cold and unpleasant so moments like these provide a nice change.
We already know The Penguin will lead into the events of The Batman II. Despite the fact that Farrell absolutely loathes putting on the suit required to play Oz, he is due to appear in the sequel and we’re intrigued to see in what capacity.
“At the end of The Batman, you see him looking out over the city – and so, I said that’s where it should start and we then should see that kind of ascent and then we need it get him to this place, where he in these events is ready to join the [Part II] film,” Reeves told Forbes recently. We can’t wait to see what Reeves and The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc have got in store for us.
Join us again next week for another review of The Penguin, which is on Sky Atlantic every Monday at 2am and 9pm.
