8 Questions From The Penguin We Need Answered In The Batman: Part II

In The Batman, Cobb is more of an annoyance than a major player in the action, but he had flashes of being a formidable foe to the billionaire vigilante. As Carmine Falcone’s (John Turturro) lieutenant and drug peddling nightclub owner, Cobb was able to talk his way out of multiple Batman beatdowns and lead him on the one of the coolest movie car chases of 2022. But his contributions to the nearly three-hour film can all be condensed to less than a 13-minute supercut.

That was then, and this is Gotham now. In eight award-worthy episodes of The Penguin, Cobb has dismantled the Maroni crime family, inspired mutinies in all of the rival gangs, and is figuratively and literally on top of Gotham. Although Gotham produces a new villain every day, for now, Oz is the king. And he’s already shown how he can influence the media and politics, making him even more formidable.

The biggest confirmation of Oz being Batman’s next nemesis is in the last scene of The Penguin when Eve Karlo (Carmen Ejogo), creepily cosplaying as Cobb’s mother, tells him there’s nothing in his way of Gotham being his, just before someone gets the bright idea to send the bat signal into the sky. Even though the “five or six scenes” Farrell revealed in a Hollywood Reporter interview he was told he’d be in for The Batman Part II is hardly enough for main villain role, nothing is off the table.

Is there a world where the new king of crime doesn’t become Batman’s biggest obstacle?

If the monster with the limp isn’t Batman’s nemesis, surely the woman he put in prison again will be Batman’s friend. While Batman was solving riddles and doing the most brooding version of flirting with Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz), Sofia Gigante was being drugged, electrocuted, and assaulted in Arkham Asylum thanks to Cobb. Now that she’s back in Arkham Asylum because of the same person, Batman may have gained an ally he doesn’t know he has yet.

In the comics, Gigante is secretly the serial killer The Hangman, an identity she denies is hers in the show, and runs into issues with Batman. Even if she isn’t The Hangman in The Penguin, she’s shown she’s a ruthless tactician willing to bomb an already decimated community like Crown Point if it means blowing up Cobb’s operation in the process. It would be safe to assume the only joy Gigante feels is the recurring thought of how she will enact revenge on Penguin. Why not let your half-sister’s love interest help do the job for you?

Corruption in Gotham is like sand in the desert. In episode six of The Penguin, Cobb spoke about politicians diverting resources like electricity and infrastructure repair to richer communities instead of to the poorer communities like Crown Point that are living in rubble and FEMA tents. In Batman lore, this type of nefarious prejudice is usually the work of one shadowy cabal, The Court of Owls.

This is a secret society comprised of the wealthiest and most influential people who control every part of Gotham, yet only exist to most of the citizens as an urban legend. The classist divide in the city was a main motivator for The Riddler, who grew up as a poor orphan, targeting corrupt wealthy individuals who he felt abandoned those with similar upbringings. That insidious elitism, along with Gotham’s criminal hierarchy being in flux thanks to Cobb and Gigante’s turf war, might be enough for the true rulers of Gotham to come out of the shadows in The Batman Part II.

In two episodes, the Maroni crime family succession tree was dismantled after Cobb set fire to matriarch Nadia Maroni (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and heir to the throne Taj Maroni (Aria Shahghasemi), before fighting head of the family Salvatore Maroni (Clancy Brown) to the point of a heart attack.

The Maroni family is no joke and played a pivotal role in The Batman, as Salvatore tried blackmailing Batman’s father Thomas Wayne while he was running for mayor by threatening to release information about his wife Martha Wayne’s struggles with mental illness. This led to a domino effect where Thomas inadvertently got the journalist killed by Carmine Falcone after asking the crime boss to only threaten them into silence, and then got himself killed when he tried to turn Falcone in. In a not-so-roundabout way, the Maroni family is responsible for Batman losing his parents.

Now, that the heads of the family are gone, is there a long lost familial successor looking to take on the mantle and, as a result, the ire of Batman?

One of the biggest missteps the movie made that was fixed in the show was the relatively little time fans got to spend in the playground of nightmares that is Arkham Asylum. Quite literally, it houses a trove of the best villains, including The Joker, whose scene inside the insane asylum was unceremoniously cut from The Batman, even though Saltburn weirdo Barry Keoghan was at his sadistic best.

After a planned Arkham Asylum TV series was scrapped, all hope seemed lost until episode four of The Penguin, in which we get a gruesome glimpse into how compellingly torturous Sofia Gigante’s stay at Arkham State Hospital was for an entire decade. Given the fact she’s back in her old, deranged stomping grounds, and the best Batman villains are in Arkham, The Batman Part II would be foolish to treat it like a side quest after The Penguin made us want to live in that world for longer.

Gotham is fun, but it’s just one city. Both the movie and the show keep all of the action inside the murderous metropolis. But, in The Penguin, Cobb mentioned a few times how partnering with the Chinese crime syndicate The Triads could take his operation international. Now that they not only agreed to join his alliance with the other rival gangs of Gotham, but also had internal mutinies that helped Cobb ascend to the top of Gotham’s crime world, it looks like it’s only a matter of time before we see the true scope of Gotham’s influence beyond the city limits.

Carmine Falcone spread his seed far and wide, and somehow produced two of the most badass women to ever hit Gotham. Kyle may have despondently left the city after deeming it beyond saving at the end of The Batman, but we all know the woman who eventually becomes Catwoman always crawls back to the city that made her. And her letter to her imprisoned half-sister at the end of The Penguin’s season finale is her first step back home.

Kyle’s letter not only woke Gigante out of her catatonic gaze, but brought a smile to her face. This is arguably the most compelling wrinkle that The Penguin adds to The Batman Part II’s storyline. What could she have possibly written that would make a woman, who could be facing death in prison, feel joy? Did she congratulate her on wiping out multiple crime families, including the one they were both born to and victimized by? Did she let her know that she thinks she’s innocent (she isn’t) and she was framed (she wasn’t)? Or, maybe she told her a plan she has to get her sister out so they can enact her revenge alongside her lover boy Batman?

Whatever she wrote, The Batman Part II needs to find a way to make that a catalyst for the sisterly meet-up we all want. Plus, I’m sure if you have undeniable talent like Kravitz and Milioti in your cinematic universe, you’re legally obligated to make them share the screen. Or, you should be.

The Batman director Matt Reeves told us from the start that Batman wouldn’t been swooping in to save the day in The Penguin because the show was meant to focus solely on telling the story of Gotham’s underworld, not how Batman fights their crimes. That’s all well and good, but we’re going to need to know what this man was doing while another bomb was set off in Crown Point and the entire Falcone family’s murder was plastered all over the news only weeks after he couldn’t stop The Riddler from blowing up the sea wall and flooding the city. How much prep time does this man need?!

It’s going to ultimately be amazing when Batman returns into this expanded underworld in The Batman Part II, but it would really insult our intelligence if there aren’t parts of the movie where Batman at least acknowledges he was aware of the events that transpired in The Penguin and let’s us in on what the world’s greatest detective was doing with his time. It wouldn’t just satiate fans, it would further solidify The Batman universe being built in front of our eyes.

Now that the bat signal has been shined in the sky, it’s time to go to work. We, and our questions, will be waiting.