The Penguin: Ending Explained - How The Series Sets Up The Batman 2

The Penguin just wrapped up its eight-episode run on HBO, completing the story of Oswald Cobb’s (Colin Farrell) attempt to put himself on top of Gotham’s criminal underworld. But does he succeed? Does Oz ultimately triumph over his rival, Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone? How many allies and loved ones does Oz sacrifice along the way? And where exactly is Batman during all of this?

As we look ahead to Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman sequel, let’s break down the ending of The Penguin and how exactly the series lays the groundwork for the next movie. We’ll also explore the biggest burning questions that remain after the series finale, including the all-important Batman question. Read on to learn more, but beware of full spoilers for all eight episodes of The Penguin ahead!

The Penguin Ending Explained

The Penguin has basically been one long game of cat and mouse between Oz and Sofia Falcone Gigante, with both jockeying for control and trying to take advantage of the power vacuum left by Sofia’s father, Carmine (played by John Turturro in The Batman and Mark Strong in The Penguin). The balance of power between the two has repeatedly shifted over these eight episodes. In Episode 7, it seemed Oz might have finally come out on top by stealing Sofia’s Bliss drug and successfully fending off an attack by Sal Maroni’s (Clancy Brown) gang. But Sofia responds by literally going scorched earth, blowing up Oz’s underground lab and capturing both Oz himself and his ailing mother, Francis (Dierdre O’Connell).

That’s where Oz finds himself in the finale. He’s at the mercy of a vindictive Sofia and forced to listen as his mother reveals she’s always known his darkest secret - that he was responsible for the deaths of his two brothers as a child. She knows better than anyone that Oswald Cobb has always been a sociopathic monster.

Monster or not, Oz also has a knack for worming his way out of desperate situations. He and his mother escape Sofia’s clutches, though not before Francis suffers a stroke. Oz regroups and manages to turn the tables on Sofia for the final time, with more than a little help from his right-hand man, Victor (Rhenzy Feliz). Together, they convince the Chinese Triads to betray their leader, François Chau’s Feng Zhao, and throw their lot in with Oz, enabling him to capture Sofia and finally bring an end to their bloody feud.

Oz doesn’t simply kill Sofia, though. He finds a more poetic form of revenge. Oz colludes with Councilman Sebastian Hady (Rhys Coiro) to pin the blame for his destroyed drug lab on a war between the Maronis and the Falcones. Oz leads Sofia to what seems to be her death, only for her to instead be arrested by the GCPD and brought back to the very last place she wants to go - Arkham Asylum.

As the series wraps, Oz is finally the undisputed master of the criminal underworld. Unfortunately, he has precious few friends with which to celebrate. Victor’s reward for helping Oz rise to the top is death by strangulation at Oz’s own hand. Oz can no longer allow himself the weakness of close friends. All he has left is his mother, now trapped in a catatonic state following her stroke, and his lover Eve (Carmen Ejogo), who seems like she’d rather be anywhere else in the world but at Oz’s side. It’s lonely at the top.

Does Robert Pattinson’s Batman Appear In The Penguin?

From the beginning, one of the biggest questions surrounding this spinoff of The Batman is how big a role Robert Pattinson’s hero would play. When last we saw him, Batman had just saved the city from Riddler’s devastating terrorist attack. Bruce was beginning to learn a very important lesson - that Batman can be as much a source of hope for Gotham as he is a sign of terror to criminals. The Penguin takes place shortly after that movie, so it would make sense to include Batman in some capacity.

We learned coming into The Penguin that Pattinson wouldn’t be appearing in the series, though that didn’t necessarily stop speculation regarding a possible cameo. After all, in this post-Spider-Man: No Way Home world, fans aren’t always willing to trust studios when cameo rumors are shot down. But in this case, showrunner Lauren LeFranc wasn’t fibbing when she said Batman wouldn’t appear in the series. We only get a slight nod to the Caped Crusader in the final shot of the finale, where we see the Bat-Signal blazing against an eerie Gotham skyline.

But why not include Batman? Ignoring whatever logistical difficulties are involved in getting Robert Pattinson back in the Batsuit, wouldn’t it have made sense to include the Dark Knight in some form? Doesn’t Batman have a vested interest in dealing with the new gang war consuming Gotham’s underworld?

But as we’ve previously explored, there are valid reasons not to include Batman in the series. For one thing, The Penguin focuses on areas of Gotham City it seems Batman doesn’t patrol. He doesn’t stalk the suburbs or venture too deeply into slums like Crown Point. The movie also suggests that Oz Cobb was never particularly on Batman’s radar during his first two years on the job. They clearly encounter one another for the first time when Batman forces his way into the Iceberg Lounge. For better or worse, Batman seems to focus on specific areas of the city, and that’s made him blind to the threat growing under his nose.

More to the point, though, Batman isn’t around to deal with the rise of Oswald Cobb. HBO produced a faux-newspaper as a promotional item for The Penguin. That newspaper includes a political cartoon that shows a dejected Commissioner Gordon standing by the Bat-Signal while an officer tells him, “It’s been weeks, sir...”

Reeves’ Batman universe is drawing loosely from the Batman: No Man’s Land comics with its depiction of a Gotham City struggling to move forward after a devastating disaster. As in the comic, we can probably infer that Bruce Wayne has left the city to lobby the government for more aid, meaning there’s no Batman around to keep the peace. Or perhaps there’s a bigger mystery at play regarding his absence. But either way, the writers have purposely arranged it so that Batman is MIA while Oz Cobb makes his rise through the underworld.

How The Penguin Sets Up Matt Reeves’ The Batman Sequel

The Penguin doesn’t necessarily end in a shocking or unexpected place for Farrell’s character. We knew based on the ending of The Batman that Oz had ambitions to rise above his station and take Carmine Falcone’s place atop the underworld. The Penguin shows us how he accomplishes that goal, and the terrible toll it takes on those around him.

We’ll definitely see Oz again in The Batman 2, where he’ll now be calling the shots rather than serving other masters. In that sense, The Penguin isn’t necessarily required viewing for those following the movies. All you really need is that final shot of Oz in The Batman to understand how he gets to where he’ll be in the sequel. But this series exists for anyone who wants to know exactly how Oz’s rise to power came about.

That’s not to say The Penguin doesn’t lay the foundation for Reeves’ next movie. The impact of this Gotham underworld shakeup will surely reverberate out to affect the wider “The Batman Epic Crime Saga.” Batman will have to confront the fact that he wasn’t there to deal with a new threat emerging in Gotham. He dismissed Oswald Cobb as a mere lackey of Carmine Falcone, never suspecting that Oz had what it took to become the new Falcone. In his two years on the job, it doesn’t seem that Batman has made much, if any, headway in dismantling the mob. At some point, he’ll have to reevaluate his methods and realize that pummeling low-level street criminals every night is only going to get him so far.

There’s also the fact that Penguin represents the evolving face of crime in Gotham City. The balance of power is shifting from the old guard - men like Carmine Falcone and Sal Maroni - to a newer generation of psychopathic super-criminals. There’s going to come a point where the Gotham underworld is taken over by costumed villains like Barry Keoghan’s Joker, Two-Face, and whatever other Bat-rogues Reeves chooses to introduce. The Penguin becoming Gotham’s new crime lord is the tipping point that ushers in a darker era for Gotham City. There’s a reason Reeves chose to set his Batman story at this point in the Dark Knight’s career.

We can also see the new drug Bliss making a return in The Batman 2. Oz’s underground drug lab may have been destroyed, but assuming he can connect with Sofia’s supplier, it may be only a matter of time before the city streets are flooded with this psychedelic, euphoric substance again. We could easily see the next movie including a subplot where Batman attempts to get Bliss off the streets and comes into conflict with Penguin again.

And finally, there’s still the lingering question of where Batman has been during all this chaos and bloodshed. Why has he been MIA in the weeks following Riddler’s attack? Why didn’t he do anything to stop this bloody gang war? The Penguin never answers that question, but it does seem to tee up the next movie to address it. We suspect The Batman 2 will deal with Bruce returning to his city after his mysterious absence, forced to confront the fact that things have only gotten worse since he left.

Will Sofia Falcone Appear in The Batman 2?

There’s another loose end from The Penguin that could very well be picked up in The Batman 2. For all the bodies left in Oz’s wake in this series, he opted not to kill Sofia. Instead, he doomed her once again to live out her life trapped within Arkham State Hospital. That leaves room for Milioti to reprise her role in the next movie.

We don’t know much about the plot of The Batman 2 other than that Pattinson’s Bruce and Farrell’s Oz have both been confirmed to return. But it’s easy to see the sequel dealing with Batman unraveling another major conspiracy at the heart of Gotham City. Once again, he may be forced to turn to an Arkham inmate for guidance in his investigation. But what if this time, instead of Keoghan’s Joker, he meets with Sofia? Given her family ties, maybe she’s the best person to act as Batman’s Hannibal Lecter next time around.

The series also seems to be setting up a future plot thread involving Sofia and her half-sister, Zoe Kravitz’s Selina Kyle. When last we see Sofia, she’s locked away in her cell and reading a letter sent by Selina. Maybe it won’t be Batman paying another visit to Arkham next time, but rather Selina.

There are other options for continuing Sofia’s story. The Arkham Asylum TV series seems to be dead currently, but we certainly wouldn’t say no to a series that follows Sofia as she struggles to survive her hellish second stint in Arkham. At this point, Sofia has become a legitimate Batman villain. While she may or may not have committed the murders her father had her put away for (the series leaves some room for interpretation there), she’s clearly a cold-blooded killer with a penchant for theatricality. She could easily carve a place for herself in the evolving Gotham underworld and become a lasting thorn in the sides of both Batman and Penguin.

Whatever is next for this character, there’s no denying that Milioti’s Sofia Falcone was the highlight of The Penguin. There’s no reason her story should end here.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.