Watch The Penguin Season 1 Episode8
Back To Blogs List
The Penguin's great achievement is that he somehow transformed a perennial B-team player into one of the best Batman villains of all time. And that's quite an accomplishment. Oz Cobblepot, or simply Oz Cobb, as this version repeatedly emphasizes, has always been instantly recognizable, in part because he's ridiculous. Not in "Big Things, Small Things." Here in the season finale, he's terrifying, psychopathic, and downright evil. In the end, the HBO series presents a legitimate and serious threat to Matt Reeves' Batman, timed to remind us of the Caped Crusader's existence.
Overall, this is a pretty remarkable episode of television to close an unnecessarily excellent series - one of the best Batman stories of all time, in my opinion, which is surprising considering Batman isn't even in it. Of course, there's a lot to discuss, so let's go into the details and idly speculate on what it could mean for season two of the series and the next Batman movie starring Reeves.
As with the penultimate episode, "A Great or Little Thing" briefly returns us to Oz's childhood. A nice touch is that Dr. Rush guides Francis through these memories, hence the recasting of Emily Meade, who plays the younger version of the character, as Deirdre O'Connell. This is a deep, dark memory that she's hidden for a long time.
Here it is: Frances always knew Oz killed her brothers. She found a flashlight in his coat. She knew he was there when they died. And she knows he locked them in because the police said they had to break down the spillway door. Rex Calabrese basically gave her two choices. She can either turn a blind eye and allow Rex to unleash Oz's true criminal potential, or she can manipulate Rex into murdering Oz, which is what she was trying to do when she took Oz to the dance at Monroe's house.
That's why this place is so important and why Oz now wakes up there as a hostage of Sofia Falcone, just like his mother. Sofia, for her own reasons that are far from pleasant, wants Oz to confess to Francis' murder of his brother, threatening to cut off his fingers with a cigar cutter if he doesn't comply. And as expected, he doesn't. He still isn't telling the truth. This season is available to stream on the Flixtor info site.
Comments