--- title: 'The Penguin' Is Stylish But Stupid: Review description: Colin Farrell is fine. Cristin Milioti is great. But the mediocrity of HBO's latest gangster drama speaks to the decline of prestige TV. canonical: https://time.com/7022360/the-penguin-review-hbo/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-09-19T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:52:00.079Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'The Penguin' Is a Stylish, Dumbed-Down Trump Allegory og:description: Colin Farrell is fine. But the mediocrity of HBO's latest gangster drama speaks to the decline of prestige TV. og:url: https://time.com/7022360/the-penguin-review-hbo/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ca4ad96e7537452/698a5afedb2987790126c179/colin-farrell_5.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: colin-farrell_5 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'The Penguin' Is a Stylish, Dumbed-Down Trump Allegory twitter:description: Colin Farrell is fine. But the mediocrity of HBO's latest gangster drama speaks to the decline of prestige TV. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ca4ad96e7537452/698a5afedb2987790126c179/colin-farrell_5.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # HBO's _The Penguin_ Is a Stylish, Dumbed-Down Trump Allegory That Speaks to TV’s Decline > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Sep 19, 2024 11:00 AM UTC  Colin Farrell in The Penguin Colin Farrell in The PenguinMacall Polay—HBO  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Sep 19, 2024 11:00 AM UTC If you want to understand how prestige TV (an imperfect term, but bear with me) has changed over the last 25 years, it makes sense to start with the series that invented the category as we know it: [_The Sopranos_](https://time.com/6551999/the-sopranos-david-chase-interview-25th-anniversary/). An HBO gangster drama whose antihero, Tony Soprano, is a brutal but troubled mid-level Mafioso with limitless ambition and debilitating maternal issues, it delivered all of the violent thrills typical of its genre. What elevated the show, which premiered in 1999, were cinematic production values, brilliant performances, a perfectly calibrated tone that offset darkness with humor, and creator David Chase’s stark examination of Tony’s psychology, the Sopranos as a family unit, and the state of the American dream on the eve of the 21st century. Twenty-five years later, another highly anticipated gangster drama is set to debut. Premiering Sept. 19, _The Penguin_ can also fairly be described as an HBO gangster drama whose antihero is a brutal but troubled mid-level Mafioso with limitless ambition and debilitating maternal issues. Like _The Sopranos_, it features immersive production design and noteworthy acting. Criminal psychology, family dynamics, and the American dream are among its chief preoccupations; the shows share a pessimism about these topics that felt revelatory at the turn of the century. But the similarities end there. Even when you account for the fact that _The Sopranos_ was an irreplicable masterpiece, _The Penguin_ is a dumbed-down disappointment that speaks to an industry-wide decline in what we, conflating quality with branding, call prestige TV. One big difference between the two series is, of course, that _The Penguin_ extends an extraordinarily bankable franchise—[Batman](https://time.com/6151792/all-the-batman-movies-ranked/)—within HBO parent Warner Bros. Discovery’s superhero empire, the [DC Universe](https://time.com/6251536/dcu-movies-tv-shows-slate/). In showrunner Lauren LeFranc’s (_Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D._) even-bleaker-than-usual Gotham, the unhinged Riddler has just blown up the city’s seawall on the night of a mayoral election. The residents of an impoverished neighborhood, Crown Point, have been hit hardest, with casualties mounting and entire apartment buildings destroyed. And amid the chaos, someone has assassinated the powerful crime boss Carmine Falcone.  Rhenzy Feliz, left, and Colin Farrell in The Penguin Macall Polay—HBO Played by executive producer and certified movie star [Colin Farrell](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2023/6268980/colin-farrell/)—who first rendered himself unrecognizable for the role with a fat suit, facial prosthetics, and a cartoonish working-class “New Yoik” accent in [_The Batman_](https://time.com/6152371/the-batman-review/)—Oz “The Penguin” Cobb is determined to take advantage of this flux. In a tense encounter, Carmine’s drug-addled son and successor, Alberto (Michael Zegen), condescends to Oz, calling him a “good soldier” and declaring: “You are who you are, and you couldn’t change if you tried.” He doesn’t know how right he is. When the chat takes a turn and Alberto calls him a “little bitch,” Oz calmly fires four shots into the new king of Gotham’s underworld. Then he chuckles madly to himself, like any good comic-book villain would. The murder is our slimy protagonist’s thin-skinned response to Alberto mocking a moment of apparent vulnerability on the Penguin’s part. Oz lays out his vision of gangster ethics, praising the “real old-school type” who ran the poor neighborhood where he grew up: “He helped people. When someone in your family was sick, he’d find you a doctor. Short on rent? He’d front you the cash. Knew everyone’s names, too. I don’t know how he kept ‘em all in his head, but if he saw you on the street, he’d call out to you. Ask how you were. It felt like he meant it, too.” When the man died, his neighbors threw a memorial parade. The monologue is pure Tony Soprano, wistful for an idealized past when a violent criminal could still be a pillar of the community. Yes, like Tony, Oz hypocritically professes that, for all the blood he spills trying to claw his way to the top of Gotham’s drug trade, he has principles. _The Penguin_ is not subtle on this (or any other) point.“I do got a f-ckin’ code!” he insists, later in the series, in an attempt to convince an assemblage of small-time bosses to unite under his leadership. Other evidence of his magnanimity comes when he takes under his wing a recently orphaned Crown Point teen, Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), whom he catches trying to jack the hubcaps off his garish purple-and-gold car. And in a _Sopranos_ parallel so obvious, it must be a callback, Oz has a demanding, dementia-afflicted battle-axe of an elderly mother, Francis (Deirdre O'Connell), waiting impatiently in a drab suburban house for her boy to make something of himself and give her the penthouse-dwelling Gotham high life she has always craved. Chase didn’t need to give Tony and his mom’s relationship incestuous overtones to convey its toxicity, but for LeFranc, this element serves as a handy shortcut to creating the same impression.  Deirdre O'Connell in The Penguin Courtesy of HBO As the Penguin engineers his rise, playing what's left of the Falcones against their rivals the Maroneys in a dangerous double-agent gambit designed to give himself sole control of a new drug dubbed _bliss_, Alberto’s sister Sofia (Cristin Milioti) becomes his main foil. Fresh out of Arkham Asylum, Sofia is nursing a grudge against the male associates who put her there in an attempt to keep this smart, competent woman from ascending to her rightful place at the head of the family. Despite her mistrust of Oz, who was once her driver, her isolation among the Falcones makes her vulnerable to his manipulations. With Farrell operating at such a physical handicap he might as well be playing Grimace, Milioti’s back-against-the-wall performance becomes the clear standout. But for too long her character arc, which wrings female empowerment out of female trauma, is a simplistic one that we’ve seen too many times before. As for Oz himself, if you guessed that he’s an alternate-reality avatar for [Donald Trump](https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/), well, _ding ding ding ding ding_. While _The Sopranos_ perceptively presaged a bad end to the American Century, capturing an inchoate mood of decline more than two years before 9/11, _The Penguin_ presents yet another unflattering portrait of a man whose archetype has haunted TV and film since his first presidential run. Fueled by his own well-founded insecurities, Oz’s demagoguery is on full display in his theatrical appeals to the downtrodden and aggrieved, from Vic and Sofia to the working-class gangsters who loathe wealthy elites like the Falcones and the Maroneys even more than they hate each other. “The real power,” he promises would-be supporters put off by his treacherous reputation, “comes if we got each other’s backs.” The Penguin is always giving speeches like this, laying out his worldview for easy consumption by viewers who might spend most episodes scrolling on their phones as the audio washes over them. “You still think there’s good and bad, right and wrong?” he sneers at Vic. “There ain’t. There’s just this: survival. Security. Pleasure. They don’t give out awards for dying in the projects.” The repetition, within the show as well as of TV’s fascination with Trumpian villains (see: _Scandal_'s Hollis Doyle, _A Man in Full_'s Charlie Croker, Kate Winslet in _The Regime_), can be maddening. (In this case, the Trump comparison is undercut by Oz’s rise from poverty. Robbed of the former President's nihilism, his arc just makes too much sense.) In a letter to critics, LeFranc acknowledged that she struggled over why viewers might want to see more of this archetype, before fretting about the future of her two young sons and asking herself: “Are bad men born? Or are they made…?” The thing is, _The Penguin_ never persuasively answers that question. And a decade’s worth of armchair analysis of the former President started yielding diminishing returns long before he left office.  Cristin Milioti in The Penguin Macall Polay—HBO At its best, _The Penguin_ is an effective reminder to believe people when they tell us who they are. Milioti’s performance and agile, noir-tinged directing from talented collaborators like filmmaker Craig Zobel ([_Z for Zachariah_](https://time.com/4011974/chiwetel-ejiofor-z-for-zachariah/), _Compliance_) and TV veteran Helen Shaver (_Station Eleven_, [_Maid_](https://time.com/6101999/maid-review-netflix/)) aside, its greatest asset is the utter ferocity of LeFranc’s finale. But without the moral nuance that made _The Sopranos_ so ripe for rumination and debate, getting there is a slog, weighed down by broad characters spewing comic-book dialogue. The miniseries’ final moments could’ve had a much greater impact at the end of a feature film that wasn’t forced to fill 10 hours of screen time by staging dozens of gratuitous set pieces, playing out too many unnecessary plot twists, and, in ways both figurative and literal, repeating itself. That’s TV amid the revenue-starved, post-streaming-wars landscape of 2024, though. Too often what makes it to our screens, even in the high-gloss guise of prestige programming, isn’t a triumph of intelligent, boundary-exploding storytelling. It’s there because executives can bank on it keeping subscribers on their platform for full weekends at a time by virtue of big-name actors or familiar IP or the all-ages accessibility of scripts written with precisely zero subtext. (When I spoke with Chase in late 2023, he [lamented](https://time.com/6551999/the-sopranos-david-chase-interview-25th-anniversary/) the sense within the TV industry today that “there’s a lack of interest… in psychology, ambiguity, spirituality.”) _The Penguin_ isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, the worst new show of the fall season. At least it has some style, some point of view, something to say, no matter how trite. (Have you watched Fox’s umpteenth budget-friendly adult animation series, _Universal Basic Guys_? Good—don’t.) But in its mediocrity, it is as great an indictment of a medium in decline as the stupidest schlock the networks have to offer. 'The Penguin' Is Stylish But Stupid: Review ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7022360/the-penguin-review-hbo/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7022360/the-penguin-review-hbo/"},"headline":"HBO's The Penguin Is a Stylish, Dumbed-Down Trump Allegory That Speaks to TV’s Decline","datePublished":"2024-09-19T11:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:52:00.079Z","description":"Colin Farrell is fine. Cristin Milioti is great. 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