The following story contains spoilers for The Penguin through the finale.
WHEN IT WAS released back in 2022, The Batman immediately became one of the best superhero movies ever made. Starring Robert Pattinson as the titular character and coming from a fantastic filmmaker in Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, two of the newer Planet of the Apes films), the movie took a huge, ambitious swing in establishing a brand new version of Gotham City.
Where Tim Burton’s leaned toward the gothic, and Christopher Nolan’s was essentially modern-day Chicago, Matt Reeves’s Gotham is exactly the kind of dark, dirty, scummy Gotham that many envision when reading a Batman comic. It’s only fitting, then, that Batman’s villains match; The Riddler, in The Batman, evolved into a Zodiac Killer-esque figure. The Joker, in just one scene, is a scarred, scary prisoner. Catwoman is a morally ambiguous crusader with her own agenda. And then there’s Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), who is known by the pejorative name of “The Penguin.”
Oz only has a small role as a club owner, gangster, and #2 to Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) in The Batman, but we learn a whole lot more about him in HBO’s The Penguin, an 8-part limited series that has now wrapped up its run. And, in short, it’s a masterful way to build a villain; we can understand and relate to where Oz is coming from, we see his human side, but we still absolutely hate him for his villainy and ambition. It’s fantastic writing from showrunner Lauren LeFranc, a fantastic performance from Farrell, and fantastic work from Reeves (a producer on the show) in continuing to see his superhero universe built out well.
The Penguin concludes with a lot of pieces in different positions on the board. After ruthlessly killing his loyal lieutenant Vic (Rhenzy Feliz), Oz is on top of the world—but has also lost his mother, the most important person in the world, to a stroke; she’s currently in a vegetative state. Sofia Falcone/Gigante (the fantastic Cristin Milioti) is now back in Arkham Asylum, and seems headed for a meeting with her half-sister, Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz)
Both Oz and Sofia seem primed to appear in future installments of the story—and the Bat signal going off in the final moments of the season seems to confirm that this story’s about to bring in the big gun.
Here’s what we know about how The Penguin‘s story will continue.
There probably won’t be a season 2 of The Penguin
While there’s certainly a possibility, it seems likely that The Penguin will be a one-and-done series. While Colin Farrell’s other 2024 show—Apple TV+’s Sugar—was actually renewed for a second season (and if you like detective shows and/or mysteries with twists, you should check that one out), he’s an incredibly busy and in-demand actor; it would be difficult to get him for even more episodic television. (Farrell also had a tough time with the prosthetic suit and make-up, saying “I never want to put that f-ing suit and that f-ing head on again.” by the end of filming).
Additionally, the story presented in The Penguin seems to have wrapped up. There are certainly more angles to be explored with some of these characters, but we think we have an idea of where those are eventually headed—and we’ll get there just a little later.
There will, however, be shows centered on other characters in The Batman universe
Matt Reeves has always been interested in creating an expansive world around his The Batman franchise, and The Penguin is just the beginning of that. In a conversation with Andy Serkis that published in Interview, Reeves said that he and HBO “have been talking” about potential future installments in the TV portion of his world.
“My fantasy is coming into being, which is very exciting, and HBO has been incredibly supportive from the beginning,” he said.
He continued:
We have been talking about doing other shows. I wanted to make sure that we didn’t do the origin tale, which so many of the other series have done. I think the idea of being able to put a lens on these characters is a really exciting idea. It’s about cities and their dysfunction and the world and its dysfunction, which is what Batman stories are all about. They’re all about Gotham being a place that should be better. And you can have the experience of this almost novelistic epic crime saga, but you also just get these separate experiences. They have their own dramatic value. So Oz’s story is Oz’s story, and the idea is to do these other stories in the same way.
“These other stories” that he refers to could be all kinds of characters; Paul Dano’s Riddler is still alive at the end of The Batman, and that’s just one option. Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon could be another possibility, as could Gotham City Mayor Bella Real, who made a brief cameo in The Penguin‘s finale as well.
And, of course, The Batman: Part II
We’ve been waiting a long time for The Batman: Part II—the first one came out back in March 2022, after all—but rest assured, it’s definitely coming, and that seems like the most likely place where we’ll see Oz, Sofia, and the rest of Gotham City again next.
As of right now, The Batman: Part II is scheduled to hit theaters on October 2, 2026.
