The first season of The Penguin was, by most metrics, a roaring success. The show managed to expand the universe of The Batman without making us wonder where Batman himself was, and helped us understand one of that movie’s most important secondary characters.
Now that the first season is over, though, it’s unclear whether we’ll be getting more of the show. The Penguin‘s ending most explicitly sets up The Batman 2, so it seems unlikely that we’ll be getting more of the show before that movie. If we do eventually get a second season, though, these are a few things we’d definitely like to see.
A balance of ground-level drama and more integration with Batman characters
To its immense credit, the first season of The Penguin was a pretty ground-level story. It’s set in the immediate aftermath of The Batman, and focuses on Oz’s efforts to rise up the ranks of the Gotham crime world. Because Oz is a low-level criminal that no one takes seriously, it makes perfect sense that Batman never shows up. Why would he?
Now, though, Oz has been firmly established as a threat, and that’s why the show ends with hints that he’ll be facing off against Pattinson’s Batman. So, while the ground-level drama helps to make the stakes feel manageable, and keeps us from asking where Batman is, future seasons of the show could not take the same approach. In a second season, The Penguin would have to balance its more grounded drama with the reality that Oz is no longer just another average criminal.
More of Cristin Milioti
Everyone agrees that, while Colin Farrell is excellent in The Penguin, Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone was the show’s true revelation. Sofia is a serial killer who, it turns out, is not really a serial killer, and she ends the first season back in Arkham Asylum where she started after Oz outmaneuvers her.
Crucially, though, Oz doesn’t kill her, and that may be in part because any future seasons of The Penguin would have to include her. Milioti’s electric performance is a key part of the series, and the show would not be worth watching without her. Here’s hoping we get much, much more of her.
More flashes to Oz’s past
While flashbacks to a character’s early life can sometimes drag stories like this down, they turned out to be a pretty essential element of the first season of The Penguin. They helped us understand Oz’s striving, and his constant belief that no one truly loves or cares about him.
If the show comes back for another season, the flashbacks should continue to be part of the show’s storytelling. They’ll help us understand Oz’s current situation, and what he might be thinking about as he navigates the perils of being a crime boss in a massive city.
An evolution of Oz’s moral universe
As we see in the final moments of the first season, Oz has gone from a somewhat lovable low level thug to a crime boss who is willing to do anything to maintain his power. The season’s final twist is Oz’s decision to kill Victor because he’s concerned that his love for the boy could make him vulnerable.
This was the moment we knew exactly how depraved he was willing to be, and how much he was willing to toss aside. If we get a second season, it should explore exactly what kind of code this version of the character abides by, and why he does what he does.
More genuine twists and turns
One of the most surprising aspects of The Penguin is that, unlike something like The Sopranos, the show had a number of reveals up its sleeve. We learned that Sofia was not in fact guilty of the many murders that she had been incarcerated for, and that Oz was even more amoral than we thought.
Those twists helped to keep the viewer hooked, but they were also fundamentally believable. If the show comes back for a second season, it should incorporate periodic twists if possible, if only to make sure that viewers stay on their toes.
The Penguin season 1 is now streaming on Max.