'The Penguin' marches to success as best superhero show on streaming

Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) began pumping out shows on Disney+ back in 2021, there's been no shortage of tie-in comic book content made for television.

While many of these shows have felt like anticlimactic supplementary for their film counterparts, Max's "The Penguin" breaks the mold, along with any preconceived notions of what this new "Batman" franchise has to offer.

The mini-series follows Oswald "Oz" Cobb (Colin Farrell) on his rise to power in the criminal underworld of Gotham City. Oz, who is mockingly called "The Penguin" due to his limp, manipulates and gaslights everyone he comes across, whether it be within the Falcone crime family that he works for, the rival Maroni crime family or crooked politicians.

Oz is aided by Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), a good-hearted kid who gets roped into crime after the aftermath of The Riddler's (Paul Dano) attack in "The Batman." He also has a rocky business relationship with Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), who is set on a whirlwind of revenge after returning from Arkham Asylum.

Despite Farrell reprising his role as the Penguin from "The Batman," it's honestly hard to believe that the new mini-series takes place in the same Gotham City as the film. What was originally a world filled with PG-13 action scenes and big-budget spectacle is now an explicit, edgy and at times, horrifically violent hellhole. Many times throughout, the plot takes some extremely dark turns, feeling like a lost episode of "Game of Thrones" on occasion.

While Farrell is far past the point in his career of needing to prove himself as an actor, his performance is outstanding. With unclear alliances, values and emotions ranging from smugly charismatic to heartfelt to frighteningly violent, Farrell is able to make the Penguin both completely unhinged and tragically relatable. Even though he is completely unrecognizable under pounds upon pounds of cosmetics, the powerful balance that Farrell plays the character with quickly makes the role his own and his presence felt.

Milioti also delivers a stellar performance as a crazed and hardened survivor of Arkham. Her wide-eyed death stare feels unpredictable and dangerous. Feliz's performance is also solid, but most of the time, the excitement of seeing Victor on screen comes less from his character than from the uncertainty of how his interactions with Oz will go.

Other great supporting roles come from Oz's dementia-ridden mother (Deirdre O'Connell), with whom he shares a heartbreaking Oedipal relationship, Carmen Ejogo's nuanced Eve Karlo and Mark Strong's impressive recast of Carmine Falcone. 

While the show does contain several references to "The Batman" and a few teases of what's to come, "The Penguin" shows an impressive degree of promotional restraint. For a while, a common complaint of the MCU has been its overreliance on easter eggs and teasers of future storylines, so it's refreshing to see a mini-series that both puts in effort and properly concludes.

"The Penguin" seems to have a genuine passion behind its creation that makes it stand out amongst the ever-growing mountain of franchise content. The character-focused story is engaging as viewers must sit with the discomfort of empathizing with such cruel villains. The show's depiction of Lewy body dementia is also tasteful and at times, deeply impactful.

At only eight episodes long, the new series promises passionate comic book storytelling, elevated with complex performances and a dose of horror for the new "The Batman" franchise.