Is The Penguin Setting Up An Oz-Batman Teammup

Key Takeaways

The Penguin is looking to become Gotham’s mob boss, but faces Sofia Falcone as a formidable foe.
Oz Cobb needs allies to fight Sofia and the Maronis, possibly forming an alliance with Bruce Wayne.
The show’s direction hints at a potential mob war, maybe setting up a partnership with Batman in the next movie.

There are only a few more episodes of The Penguin left, and things will ramp up before it’s all said and done. One of the most interesting things about this series is that going in, it’s likely that most people in the audience thought the HBO Max series would focus on the rise of Oz Cobb and show how he became the undisputed mob boss of Gotham City. As of now, at the very least, that’s not coming to be.

While Oz is holding his own and has even set up a business that is helping him become one of the city’s powers, The Penguin is showing that he’s got some formidable foes, even if he thought he was clearing the board with a couple of well-placed moves. What’s more, it doesn’t look like it will be easy to knock Sofia Falcone off her throne at the moment. With just three episodes left in the season, it feels like some pretty drastic things are going to need to happen, either in the season finale or in The Batman 2.

The Penguin’s Toughest Task Will Be Making Oz Unlikeable

The Penguin has cast Oz Cobb as a kind of pitiable antihero that fans are coming to like. DC will need to find a way to reverse that.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is The Penguin

With Sofia Falcon nee Gigante teaming up with the Maronis in order to take down The Penguin, Oz Cobb is going to need some of his own allies. It’s been made very clear that any sort of avenue to do that with the families that are left in the city as no one trusts him any farther than they can throw him.

Creator/Showrunner	Lauren LeFranc
Stars	Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, and Rhenzy Feliz
Number of Episodes	8
Air Dates	September 19, 2024–November 10, 2024
Streaming On	HBO Max

Certainly he’s got a partner in crime and someone he can teach the reigns with Vic, but the teenager who lost his family in The Batman and has turned to a life of crime doesn’t have the connections needed to fight a mob war. Oz is also putting together a small army of people who feel like they were being mistreated or ignored with whatever family they served beforehand. They also don’t have the kind of firepower that can take down an alliance of the Falcones and the Maronis.

There is one person left in Gotham (at least that we’ve met) who could have the juice to team up with Oz. What’s more, it seems like the two struck up the kind of relationship in The Batman where they could end up being allies. Obviously they aren’t going to be friends, they don’t trust each other. But there was some chemistry in the way the two talked to each other. The Penguin wasn’t really aggressive or demeaning towards The Batman and in turn, once he was cleared of the murders that were being committed, he was someone Bruce Wayne didn’t seem to really see as a threat anymore.

There is also the possibility that Bruce Wayne, assuming his alter ego is
actually still in Gotham
City
, will not like what Sofia is doing.

There is also the possibility that Bruce Wayne, assuming his alter ego is actually still in Gotham City, will not like what Sofia is doing. Publicly killing her entire family isn’t something he can stand by and just watch. If he isn’t in town, it’s possible that Oz could get word to him about what Sofia did. He almost certainly knows it’s something the Dark Knight would have something to say about it. And while Oz has done his own share of killing, it hasn’t been nearly as public or grandiose.

In a city like Gotham, and at the beginning of Bruce Wayne’s career as a crime fighter, it makes sense that he might even be a bit more pliable, and the idea of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is more digestible. Moreover, it feels like the show’s direction is pushing the two characters to understand that Sofia has become too dangerous.

Batman 2 Could See A Mob War Realized

The degree of difficulty with this theory is that Matt Reeves and Lauren LeFranc have both said that Robert Pattinson’s character will not appear in The Penguin. They could, of course be lying. That would certainly make his return have a little more punch if he shows up in the finale. But it certainly seems as though the showrunners were telling the truth so far.

The other degree of difficulty is there hasn’t been any mention of The Batman. At all. Oz hasn’t made any comment about “I need to go see someone,” or “I wonder what he would think about this.” If an alliance is in the cards, it would make more sense to at least mention him. Not that it can’t be fixed in the very next episode.

A teammup without The Batman appearing would be difficult but not impossible.

So if Batman isn’t going to be around in The Penguin at all, what if this season sets up something that will carry over into The Batman 2. Perhaps Vic and Oz are discussing what their next move is after Sofia has seemingly won the war and is now the big boss of Gotham. It’s not hard to see the series end with something like “I know who we can talk to,” followed by a pan out to Wayne Manor. A partnership seems the most likely outcome of everything that is going on during this season.

Created by Lauren LeFranc and starring Colin Farrell, The Penguin builds on 2022’s The Batman. The Max series chronicles the eponymous villain’s attempt to reach Gotham’s criminal peak, rising through the underworld in the middle of a power struggle.