The Penguin saved its best surprise for last

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Penguin (2024).

There is an inherent danger in making a show like The Penguin. The series has to humanize a despicable villain, Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), and make him a character that viewers want to follow for eight hours. At the same time, it has to make sure not to humanize him so much that it ends up removing the character’s villainous edge. That’s a balance that certain superhero movies and TV shows have struggled to strike over the years.

At times, it looked like The Penguin was going to fail to do that as well. For nearly all of its eight hours, the HBO series does a remarkable job of taking a famously off-putting, unlikable character like The Penguin and turning him into a charismatic, underdog figure viewers can root for in their own way. In its final 20 minutes, though, The Penguin reminds viewers who its protagonist actually is. It slaps DC fans across the face and makes their stomachs drop — committing to a blackhearted conclusion that leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

That’s just what a series like The Penguin should do, too.

Cruel twists of fate

At the end of The Penguin, Oz Cobb finally gets everything he’s ever wanted. With the help of Vic (Rhenzy Feliz) and some similarly ambitious mid-tier gangsters, he outsmarts Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), sends her back to Arkham Asylum, and takes his place at the top of Gotham City’s criminal underworld. Thanks to a deal he makes with Councilman Sebastian Hady (Rhys Coiro), he even manages to insert himself into the world of Gotham’s elite — as is evidenced by the tuxedo he’s wearing when he gets back from an event at the end of The Penguin‘s finale. The series then ends with Oz enjoying his new, penthouse apartment and dancing with his lover and business associate, Eve Karlo (Carmen Ejogo).

This is a decidedly happy ending for Oz, but The Penguin makes sure viewers know that it’s an unhappy one for everyone else. Things all begin to take an unexpected, yet perfectly acidic turn when Oz’s mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell), suffers a stroke that leaves her in a vegetative state before she’s able to witness her son’s long-promised criminal ascension. In the aftermath of this, Oz then strangles an unsuspecting Vic, whose innocent comment about the two of them being “family” proves to be all Oz needs to view his protégé as a weakness he can’t afford. Afterward, Oz coldly tosses Vic’s ID into a nearby river — drowning his identity in a manner that feels tragically reminiscent of how The Riddler’s bombing of Gotham’s seawall swept away the young man’s entire family.

Somehow, things go on to end even worse for Francis than they do for Vic. While the former suffers a life-altering stroke that renders her completely mute and immobile, she does not actually get any peace or rest. Instead, Oz brings her with him to his new penthouse apartment — placing her in a hospital bed that looks out over Gotham from her son’s new high-rise windows. Oz, in other words, ignores his mother’s desperate final wish and breaks the promise he made to her in The Penguin‘s sixth episode when she demanded that he let her die if the day ever came when she’d end up in the exact position she does in the show’s finale.

As he brags to his silently crying mother about how he’s kept all his promises to her, we realize that none of this was ever really for Francis. It has always all been for Oz. He doesn’t bring his mother with him because he thinks it’s what she wants. He knows it’s not. It is for his validation, not her joy. He does it because he needs to feel like he’s a good son who kept his word. He wants to feel like a good boy, and just in case his last conversation with Francis didn’t make that explicit enough, his final dance with Eve does. In the latter scene, Eve is revealed wearing a dress and wig that makes her look exactly like his mother on the night they went dancing together years ago.

“Tell me you love me. Tell me you’re proud of me,” Oz demands as he and Eve begin to sway together. It is needy narcissism on full, unabashed display, and it startlingly recontextualizes all of Oz’s lies throughout The Penguin‘s eight episodes.

The villain of the story

Oz may have spent most of The Penguin claiming that he cared about Gotham and its underprivileged and painting himself as a better alternative to the Falcone and Maroni families, but the show’s finale reveals the falseness of those claims. Oz has and always will be a man out for himself. That’s made evident in his horrifying treatment of Vic and his mother, and it’s even clear in his final conversation with Sofia. While pointing his gun at her back, Oz tells her, “You’re going to hell, sweetheart.” This remark turns out to be a cruel joke on Oz’s part, as he ultimately refrains from killing Sofia just so that she can be sent back to Arkham.

But it is also evidence yet again of Oz’s narcissism. Hell is a place for sinners, liars, and murderers. Many of The Penguin‘s characters fall under those categories, but none more sothan Oz. And yet his comment to Sofia suggests that he doesn’t realize that. He sees himself as righteous and just. It’s a common refrain among creators and storytellers that every villain sees themself as the hero of their own story. That’s certainly the case for Oz, but what The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc beautifully communicates in The Penguin‘s finale is that he also sees everyone else as the villain. It is a perfect way for the series to end — one that forces viewers to stare into the black abyss of its protagonist’s villainy and mourn his victory even after pulling for it for eight straight episodes.

Oz, it turns out, is a man who views himself as existing above everyone else. He has to. Otherwise, his entire self-involved view of the world would fall apart. At the end of The Penguin, he manages to rise above all of his enemies, too. The Penguin‘s final shot makes it clear, however, that Oz has not risen high enough to be above or out of the reach of Gotham’s Dark Knight. Maybe, just maybe, Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) will be able to do what Sofia and the rest of Oz’s enemies in The Penguin couldn’t. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait for The Batman Part II to hit theaters in 2026 to find out.

The Penguin is now streaming in its entirety on Max.