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Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics.
Speaker 5: The Penguin was a show that caught a lot of
Speaker 5: people by storm, was really popular when it came out
Speaker 5: and raised all sorts of great questions. Due to the
Speaker 5: thankless task of flying halfway around the world, Reeky has
Speaker 5: watched all of it in one plane flight. I watched
Speaker 5: most of it when it came out, and today we're
Speaker 5: going to be talking about that show starring Colin Ferrell
Speaker 5: and Christian Malodi. So right off the bat, for those
Speaker 5: who haven't seen it, there will be some spoilers in this,
Speaker 5: including a big spoiler at the end, So if you
Speaker 5: haven't watched it, definitely recommend hitting pause watch it. It
Speaker 5: is phenomenal, or just being comfortable being spoiled because there's
Speaker 5: a big twist at the end, reaky overall, What do
Speaker 5: you think?
Speaker 6: Well, I also want to say it's Kristin Miliotti. Oh
Speaker 6: thank you, much more Italian sounding name fitting me. What
Speaker 6: did I think of this show? I going into it.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna start going into it. I wasn't that excited,
Speaker 6: but when you're flying to Japan from California, you have
Speaker 6: like a ten hour flight and you need stuff to watch.
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, it's like barely gonna fit into
Speaker 6: the flight, so you know it is superhero adjacent. So
Speaker 6: I decided to watch it, and not only I would
Speaker 6: say I was pleasantly surprised. I was blown away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I.
Speaker 6: Knew going in like it was very critically acclaimed and
Speaker 6: people loved it, but I didn't dig too deep into why.
Speaker 6: And absolutely Colin Ferrell the performance of his lifetime up
Speaker 6: to now. I'd say, I think he's been winning awards
Speaker 6: for it rightfully. So the makeup is obviously like you
Speaker 6: can just look at it and tell or not tell
Speaker 6: that it's him and be like what, But his acting, too,
Speaker 6: like sells the role. It is not just the makeup
Speaker 6: that makes him disappear, like he himself disappears into this
Speaker 6: performance is the penguin. And then the opposite him, Kristin Miliatti,
Speaker 6: who most people probably know as the mother from How
Speaker 6: I Met Your Mother. Kind of a thankless role the
Speaker 6: way that show was set up, and you know, it
Speaker 6: has nothing to do with her or how she portrayed
Speaker 6: the role, but I would say maybe she is as
Speaker 6: good or even better here, And just like the two
Speaker 6: of them together, it was so electric. And then, as
Speaker 6: you said, the ethical questions and considerations of this, given
Speaker 6: that it's basically a mob story, it's like, well, there's
Speaker 6: a lot of crime going on, but within the timing.
Speaker 6: There's some some interesting things to discuss, right for sure.
Speaker 5: And and just to further set the scene for those
Speaker 5: I haven't seen the show, U, the character is the
Speaker 5: same one that was set up in the Matt Reeves
Speaker 5: The Batman Robert Patterson movie The Batman. The Penguin is
Speaker 5: a small character in that but one that really kind
Speaker 5: of caught a lot of people's eye because Colin Farrell
Speaker 5: was so good in it and the makeup was so good,
Speaker 5: and so they gave him the spin off show. And
Speaker 5: it is all taking place in the world immediately following
Speaker 5: that movie, where there's been massive disruption because of all
Speaker 5: the events that happened in that movie and things like that.
Speaker 5: And one of the things that happens in that movie
Speaker 5: is the fall of the leader of one of the
Speaker 5: major crime families in town, the Falcones. And now this
Speaker 5: is the show is mostly about kind of the various
Speaker 5: groups at tempting to fill.
Speaker 4: The vacuum for that.
Speaker 6: And yeah, I just want to comment on the movie
Speaker 6: The Batman so also surprisingly good given you know, like
Speaker 6: Robert Pattinson people were skeptical of I thought you gave
Speaker 6: a great performance. The the movie kind of is sets
Speaker 6: up a no man's land situation from the comics where
Speaker 6: Gotham City falls to I think in the in the
Speaker 6: comics is an earthquake and is cut off from the
Speaker 6: rest of the country and it devolves into like fiefdoms
Speaker 6: of gangs controlling the city, and Batman is like slowly
Speaker 6: helping the Gotham Police Department take the city back from
Speaker 6: these gangs, and there's like no outside support. It doesn't
Speaker 6: go that far in the movie and the Penguin, but
Speaker 6: I think it's definitely like the inspiration for what is
Speaker 6: happening here.
Speaker 5: Definitely, and it's a really interesting story in This is
Speaker 5: kind of a leap, but I think there's some connections here.
Speaker 5: The story that they're kind of telling is kind of
Speaker 5: the a microcosm of what we saw happen in Iraq,
Speaker 5: where Saddam Musin was clearly horrible and terrible.
Speaker 4: And but of course all the reasons we went into
Speaker 4: that war, you know, based on.
Speaker 5: Livest The point though, being that when he fell, there
Speaker 5: was anarchy and chaos because there was no sort of
Speaker 5: situation set up to what happens next, and we're kind
Speaker 5: of seeing a similar thing here in the underworld of Gotham,
Speaker 5: and this has often been one of the questions is
Speaker 5: is it better to leave someone in control who is
Speaker 5: horrible and terrible and doing all these bad things, or
Speaker 5: to you know, cut off the head of the snake
Speaker 5: and but then deal with all of that the consequences
Speaker 5: of that, and that I think part of you know,
Speaker 5: the movie is about that decision.
Speaker 4: And and I don't think there's any a moment in.
Speaker 5: The show where we're thinking it was the wrong decision,
Speaker 5: but it definitely is reminding us, like, yeah, arresting the
Speaker 5: head of one crime family does not by any means
Speaker 5: deal with that issue. Like the whole crime family is
Speaker 5: still there, all their operations are still there. It just
Speaker 5: means now there's a lot more fightings. You who takes
Speaker 5: it over?
Speaker 6: Yeah? And spoilers. I mean this, this spoiler is obvious.
Speaker 6: But the penguin takes over because it's his show. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And it brings it brings to light like how many
Speaker 6: shows are there where the protagonist is a bad guy
Speaker 6: or like a villain and a super villain like from
Speaker 6: the comics, But he's been toned down a lot in
Speaker 6: the past thirty years to be like this more mob based,
Speaker 6: like not as super villainy, right, let's say, compared to
Speaker 6: like a joker, And I think.
Speaker 5: That kind of fits the first with the Christian Bale movies,
Speaker 5: but then even more so with Matt Reeves. We're making
Speaker 5: it much more of a this is a detective with
Speaker 5: a lot of fancy toys, rather than being anything kind
Speaker 5: of supernatural or mystical happening in this even with his villains,
Speaker 5: and you're right here with a penguin among other things,
Speaker 5: Like there's often a lot of kind of anti Semitism
Speaker 5: in some of the portrayals of him before, especially with
Speaker 5: the long nose and stuff like that, that's all been
Speaker 5: caught away, but even looking at like the Danny DeVito
Speaker 5: kind of portrayal of him being like born with like
Speaker 5: webbed hands and web feet and having this kind of
Speaker 5: ability to communicate with penguins and and and being, yeah,
Speaker 5: this kind of like different kind of human mutant type thing.
Speaker 4: All that's cut away.
Speaker 5: This is a guy with he has a limp that
Speaker 5: makes him kind of wattle, and he had because of
Speaker 5: a bad leg, and he just but he's a normal
Speaker 5: human being who's a mobster. And I really do like
Speaker 5: that because you're right, I think This show is kind
Speaker 5: of unique in that not completely.
Speaker 4: I think like Breaking Bad is maybe one of the.
Speaker 5: Best connections to it, one of the best similar things
Speaker 5: to it, or The Sopranos in that because a lot
Speaker 5: of times a mob show is well, this person wants
Speaker 5: to make it better, you know, like Michael Corleoni who
Speaker 5: always wanted to fix the family and take them legitimate,
Speaker 5: or other people who are like where the hero is
Speaker 5: someone who's infiltrating the mob but maybe gets like pulled
Speaker 5: into it.
Speaker 4: Luke Cage and Sex Season two becomes a lot of that.
Speaker 5: This is just a straight out mobster, and we kind
Speaker 5: of learned, like at first he appears as a sympathetic
Speaker 5: mobster where he's he's being bullied and he's got this
Speaker 5: really horrible relationship with his mother, and there's all these
Speaker 5: things set up to make you feel bad for him,
Speaker 5: and one by one those are kind of stripped away
Speaker 5: as you realize this guy's been kind of an ethically
Speaker 5: a monster since he was a kid, including allowing one
Speaker 5: of his brothers to die was it one or two
Speaker 5: his brothers, both of yeah, both of his brothers to
Speaker 5: die so that he could get more of his mother's love.
Speaker 5: And yes, the kids had been bullying him a little
Speaker 5: bit and that's not great. But it's clearly like no,
Speaker 5: like he's at first it seems like it was a
Speaker 5: terrible accident because he was trying to just get justice
Speaker 5: for bullying them. And no, it's eventually revealed like he
Speaker 5: is a monster. He killed his brothers at a young
Speaker 5: age and part of why his mother's always treated him
Speaker 5: so bad is because she knows this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And to be clear, like the killed he did
Speaker 6: not personally, they like murdered them, right. He tricked them
Speaker 6: into like this underground tunnel and then locked the door
Speaker 6: behind him, and it was raining at the time, so
Speaker 6: it's our It could be argued that he didn't know
Speaker 6: that they would die, but he definitely like trapped them
Speaker 6: in a really bad place, right, and just like lied
Speaker 6: to about where they were.
Speaker 5: Yeah, even if his original intent wasn't to kill them,
Speaker 5: certainly when one of the people were like, they could
Speaker 5: die if we don't find them, where are they?
Speaker 4: And yet as you said, he lied and he said
Speaker 4: he had no idea.
Speaker 6: And I are like he's lying to himself right, like
Speaker 6: psychologically like he has he is in such a state
Speaker 6: of denial that he doesn't believe that he did these things,
Speaker 6: at least like to the audience, and like he never
Speaker 6: admits it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's one of the things that kind
Speaker 5: of left open, and I, you know, again, I don't
Speaker 5: want to Even as I was hearing myself say that,
Speaker 5: I wanted to back off it a bit because I
Speaker 5: think the idea of like, you know, people are just
Speaker 5: like good people or monsters is not applicable. And an
Speaker 5: eight year old who's doing those terrible things like that
Speaker 5: comes from somewhere, and you know, those people can still
Speaker 5: be be real abated at it or saved when it's
Speaker 5: happening at such a young age, but sometimes not. And yeah,
Speaker 5: obviously there's just so much complexity to that relationship that
Speaker 5: I feel like, I don't know if he's lying to
Speaker 5: himself or if he just doesn't quite like accept the
Speaker 5: consequences of what's happening or or what And I think
Speaker 5: I to me, I think that's very intentionally left vague,
Speaker 5: and I kind of love that, and I think it's
Speaker 5: probably be explored further in later seasons, but because right now, yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't know if he was, as you said, kind
Speaker 5: of lying to himself or kind of thinking, well, they
Speaker 5: deserve this, but I'm sure eventually that someone will find
Speaker 5: them and they'll be okay, or if he really was
Speaker 5: setting out to be like I am going to kill
Speaker 5: these people so that I have more time with my mother.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I agree with what you said that the
Speaker 6: show is presenting him in a way that they they
Speaker 6: kind of do the Seesaw act of is he sympathetic
Speaker 6: is he not? I mean, in the first episode, he
Speaker 6: straight up murders Alberto Falcone, who is like the nominal
Speaker 6: air Falcone crime family, and does it in a very
Speaker 6: cold blooded way, like they are having like a friendly drink,
Speaker 6: and then I think Alberto insults him and he just
Speaker 6: like doesn't even say they just pulls out his gun
Speaker 6: and shoots it right like, and it's it's done in
Speaker 6: a way that's like, oh, yeah, this is this is
Speaker 6: the character. This is who the penguin is or Oz.
Speaker 6: I like that, by the way, But first off, they
Speaker 6: dropped the cobble pot. He's just his last name is Cobb,
Speaker 6: and then most of the time his first name is
Speaker 6: still full name is Oswald, but most people just call
Speaker 6: him Oz. And it was like a nice change of pace.
Speaker 6: I felt like to make him a little more grounded
Speaker 6: and real, because oftentimes comic book characters have names that
Speaker 6: are a little out.
Speaker 5: There, right, and the comb pot often is connect to him,
Speaker 5: the idea of him being born to very rich parents,
Speaker 5: and they've kind of gotten rid of that entirely. I
Speaker 5: will say, just on the with Alberta Alberto, what's the
Speaker 5: son's name again, it's albert Alberto Alberto.
Speaker 4: Thank you. He doesn't just insult him once.
Speaker 5: He's really braiding him and kind of like attacking everything
Speaker 5: about him. And I think that's it's It's the perfect
Speaker 5: seesaw moment because we are supposed to feel so sympathetic
Speaker 5: for him. He's being bullied, he's being badgered, he's being
Speaker 5: treated like he's absolutely nothing, and you're kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 5: if you were like to smack this guy across the face.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, he just killed him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Was the surprise.
Speaker 6: It was like you because you again, like the premise
Speaker 6: of the show, you understand like he's going to take over,
Speaker 6: he's probably going to kill most of these people, and
Speaker 6: you're like, oh, like, how is he gonna get Oh,
Speaker 6: he just did it.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: It was like the feeling of it and That's the
Speaker 6: interesting thing is like he's very impulsive in that way
Speaker 6: he does. He does this multiple times, and it's really
Speaker 6: like his silver tongue, like his talking that gets him
Speaker 6: out of it, Like he talks his way out of
Speaker 6: so many situations. And that that too is like a
Speaker 6: contrast to many other villains and or heroes right who
Speaker 6: use their powers, their superpowers to get out of situations.
Speaker 6: I guess his superpowers is talking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he doesn't.
Speaker 5: He doesn't have super strength, he doesn't have swimming ability.
Speaker 5: All he has is like charisma twenty one, an advantage
Speaker 5: on like deception and persuasion roles. And I feel like
Speaker 5: the thing with him is that they keep making him
Speaker 5: sympathetic but then having him overreact to what you think
Speaker 5: would be expected. Because even when his brothers get locked
Speaker 5: up and then die through his actions, I remember the
Speaker 5: kind of the way that scene starts is that the
Speaker 5: three of them are going out to play. I think
Speaker 5: I'm like hide and seek, and the two of them
Speaker 5: hide in an area that's really hard for him to
Speaker 5: get to because I think he has a brace on
Speaker 5: his leg.
Speaker 4: And I remember, particularly as a disable.
Speaker 5: Person, feeling this incredible rush of sympathy for him that
Speaker 5: these kids were kind of being jerks because they're actually
Speaker 5: make He says like, look, I can't climb down to
Speaker 5: find you, and they say, no, you have to, even
Speaker 5: though it's difficult and dangerous for him, And I felt
Speaker 5: so sympathetic for him, and because the kids are kind
Speaker 5: of being little shits and the way kids are, and
Speaker 5: but they don't deserve to die for that. And so
Speaker 5: when he first locks them in, it's kind of like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 5: that's fair, Like give them a dose of their own medicine.
Speaker 5: Let them, you know, have to be trapped for a
Speaker 5: little while, and then of course go let them. Okay,
Speaker 5: well you're gonna go let them out now, right are
Speaker 5: Okay it's raining, now you're gonna.
Speaker 4: Go let no. Oh nope, he's just he's killing them,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: That's what I kept feeling, is like his initial reaction
Speaker 5: is justified, but then he goes so much further than
Speaker 5: you're thinking.
Speaker 6: Not about justified, but relatable definitely, Like there's a ladder
Speaker 6: he can't get down, and he like spots them with
Speaker 6: his flashlight and he's like that's good enough, right, Like
Speaker 6: I caught you with the light beam. I think is
Speaker 6: the phrase or something, and and like, no, you got
Speaker 6: to come down here. It's like, but but I can't. Yeah,
Speaker 6: So it's it is relatable to have an emotional outburst,
Speaker 6: I think. But then it is is I don't know, calculated,
Speaker 6: the calculated way that afterwards, like he doubles down on
Speaker 6: it or just like continues on that path is what
Speaker 6: makes him a monster in this case, you know, not
Speaker 6: a maybe not a murderer, but responsible for their deaths.
Speaker 5: Well, and let me ask more about that, because if
Speaker 5: I remember, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I
Speaker 5: think we discussed the show when I was watching it,
Speaker 5: and you had said one of the reasons you were
Speaker 5: interested in it is that generally you don't love shows
Speaker 5: that are just about you know, bad people where there
Speaker 5: isn't really a hero figure.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I mean you mentioned Breaking Bad, like I've
Speaker 6: never been interested in watching Breaking Bad, Yeah, for that reason.
Speaker 6: And it's, you know, part of it is the main character,
Speaker 6: like I know enough about him, like I've seen stuff
Speaker 6: and like the crime aspect, so yeah, I would say
Speaker 6: like this one, and what kept me hooked was honestly
Speaker 6: the character of Victor.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: The more we haven't talked about. But is essentially his
Speaker 6: protege right and kind of becomes like an adopted son
Speaker 6: figure in this story and I love go Ahead.
Speaker 5: Victor is someone who he finds because there's a couple
Speaker 5: of people who are robbing his car, just like you know,
Speaker 5: like seeing the hobcaps, you know, because this is kind
Speaker 5: of just a pretty bad neighborhood right now.
Speaker 4: And he responds by shooting them.
Speaker 5: And I don't remember if he actually kills any of
Speaker 5: them or if he just drives them off, or he
Speaker 5: definitely wounds a couple.
Speaker 6: I don't I don't think he hits anyone he shoots
Speaker 6: at that ends up hitting his own car, which yeah,
Speaker 6: is mentioned later.
Speaker 5: He definitely compell a lot of fear into them, and
Speaker 5: Victor is the one who doesn't get away. And Victor
Speaker 5: has a very bad stutter at this point, and I
Speaker 5: think is otherwise like he's kind of the runt of
Speaker 5: the group. I think Penguin really sees both. He kind
Speaker 5: of is like has the kind of like I've survived this,
Speaker 5: and I'm mad at you that you're not this, but
Speaker 5: also a lot of sympathy for him, and it builds
Speaker 5: this really interesting connection where Penguin is both like bullying
Speaker 5: the hell out of this kid and threatening his life,
Speaker 5: but also, as you said, kind of making him a
Speaker 5: protege and turning him into like a minime.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I love the parallel of their introduction, at least
Speaker 6: to me, Like I read it as a parallel to
Speaker 6: Batman and Robin Jason Todd Robin who is trying to
Speaker 6: steal the Batmobile or steal his upcast or something. It's
Speaker 6: rims and that's how that's how they meet. And so
Speaker 6: like when I saw that, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: this is this is cute.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very much like the Mirror Universe version of that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I just want to acknowledge. Victor Aguilar is
Speaker 6: the character's name, played by Renzi Felise and does a
Speaker 6: pretty good job like not a stand up but again
Speaker 6: when you're up against these these superstars giving amazing performances,
Speaker 6: like he he is never distracting, and that's he's good
Speaker 6: for this role.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think he's still pretty young. I think the actor
Speaker 5: was like probably around eighteen. He might have been seventeen,
Speaker 5: might have been like nineteen, but uh, actually no, forgive me,
Speaker 5: he's a good deel older. He's twenty seven, but he
Speaker 5: looks a lot younger, but he's someone who, like, if
Speaker 5: you told me he was I agree that he wasn't
Speaker 5: the standout actor of this by any means, but if
Speaker 5: he told me he was in something that would make
Speaker 5: me want to watch it, Like, I definitely feel like
Speaker 5: I want to see what this kid can do.
Speaker 6: And you mentioned his stutter, and I thought one of
Speaker 6: the best scenes in this show. There's a lot of
Speaker 6: great ones, but one of the best scenes to me
Speaker 6: was when Penguin takes into a fancy restaurant mm hm
Speaker 6: and they're ordering their food and he's stuttering because he's
Speaker 6: very nervous, like he's never been in a setting like this,
Speaker 6: and the waiter interrupts him and like finishes his sentence
Speaker 6: for him, like the order. He's like, oh, you want this,
Speaker 6: and the penguin just snaps and says you, like, you
Speaker 6: don't do that, like, don't interrupt them, let him finish. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And it is like bonding moment because the penguin has
Speaker 6: a physical disability and really like emphasizes with Victor's stutter
Speaker 6: and like wants him to not be put down because
Speaker 6: of his disability.
Speaker 5: Well, and it's such an interesting moment because if you
Speaker 5: count the total number of times that Victor is bullied
Speaker 5: because of his stutter, probably eighty five percent of them
Speaker 5: or from Penguin himself, and there's some degree what it's
Speaker 5: trying to him, trying to help him, like come on,
Speaker 5: get over this, and with a tough love approach. To
Speaker 5: some extent, it's just him being frustrated, but it feels
Speaker 5: very much that kind of dynamic of like as your
Speaker 5: big brother, I get to bully you, but I will
Speaker 5: protect you like like hell from.
Speaker 4: Anybody else, you know, and I and to me, that
Speaker 4: was a very.
Speaker 5: Striking dynamic and in one that's like fairly toxic but
Speaker 5: also makes complete sense for where Penguin is coming from.
Speaker 5: And you see why it works so much for Victor,
Speaker 5: Like not so like all the bullying, but like this,
Speaker 5: this moment means so much to him, and his daughter
Speaker 5: gets better as the show goes on, as he gains
Speaker 5: more confidence.
Speaker 6: I have to say, I don't remember that dynamic to them,
Speaker 6: hm hm, but like so like this moment stood out.
Speaker 6: And then I think at the end in the final episode,
Speaker 6: Victor gives like a full speech, like a rallying speech
Speaker 6: the Penguin, like we gotta you know, we gotta do
Speaker 6: this thing and win in the end, et cetera. And
Speaker 6: he compliments him on it. I mean he he razes
Speaker 6: him and he's like that, that's this. You memorize that speech,
Speaker 6: you practice that, like, but does it in that I'm
Speaker 6: very proud of you right otherly way? And it is
Speaker 6: a it is a complicated relationship for sure. And there
Speaker 6: are definitely moments where you think that Oz is gonna
Speaker 6: kill a victor, including like the very first one, because
Speaker 6: like that he says he's going to he's like hey,
Speaker 6: like he forces him to help him get rid of
Speaker 6: Alberto's body, right, and it's like, well, now I got
Speaker 6: to kill you because you know, but then decides not
Speaker 6: to and takes them on as this prota in crime,
Speaker 6: which is not good. But that is what kept me
Speaker 6: hooked on this show was their relationship. It was strangely heartwarming,
Speaker 6: it really was.
Speaker 5: And it's I think you're very right that there's a
Speaker 5: very intentionality about how it mirrors Batman and Robin, especially
Speaker 5: Jason Todd, and that speech at the end, like, if
Speaker 5: you take it out of context, this feels like any speech,
Speaker 5: you know, it feels like Captain America speaking to the
Speaker 5: Avengers when they're down and broken and being like, no,
Speaker 5: we need to stop fighting with each other.
Speaker 4: United, we can do this.
Speaker 5: But he is talking to a group of people who
Speaker 5: Penguin has tried to unite to work together for a
Speaker 5: common cause, and they're all fighting with each other, and
Speaker 5: he gives us great stirring speech to get them to
Speaker 5: rally together. The thing is that Penguin wants an all
Speaker 5: rally together to be one unified crime organization under Penguin's
Speaker 5: direct control. And he's rallying them to go and like,
Speaker 5: you know, kill people together. And so it's just such
Speaker 5: a weird moment because it's very much this like heroic
Speaker 5: moment for a cause that is incredibly unheroic.
Speaker 6: I have an interesting direction, Yeah, I want to take this,
Speaker 6: like you mentioned, under his control that I don't know
Speaker 6: if I would put it that way, Like he definitely
Speaker 6: wants to be like at the top of something, right,
Speaker 6: but I don't know that he wants to control everything necessarily.
Speaker 6: And to me, one of the most interesting threads throughout
Speaker 6: this show was what I would call crime socialism, if
Speaker 6: that makes sense, in that constantly like we are being
Speaker 6: told or shown that like the heads of these families,
Speaker 6: the thought Cones and the Maroney's, which are like the
Speaker 6: two famous crime families in Gotham City, did they control
Speaker 6: everything right? And under them is like these whole organizations
Speaker 6: of mobsters and they don't get their fair share and
Speaker 6: the families at the top are hoarding all this wealth. Right,
Speaker 6: and so when when this it's it's a revolution, this
Speaker 6: revolution and crime happens. I don't mean like like they're
Speaker 6: doing something new, Like the people underneath are revolting against
Speaker 6: the top and getting rid of the heads and saying no,
Speaker 6: like we want our fair share. And part of the
Speaker 6: reason Oz succeeds is like he feeds that message. He says,
Speaker 6: you know, like you all are doing the hard work
Speaker 6: out here of crime and you're not getting your fair share,
Speaker 6: Like I want us to share the wealth.
Speaker 5: Right, he gets like all the second and third in
Speaker 5: commands to like lop off the head of their own organists.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's crime socialism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's true.
Speaker 5: And I think yeah kind of what he wants is
Speaker 5: almost kind of a feudal thing where it's like everyone
Speaker 5: has got to give him respect and like send him
Speaker 5: a take. But he's not gonna be giving them all
Speaker 5: direct orders. And I think that the idea of respect
Speaker 5: is really key to this because that's the thing that
Speaker 5: drives him again and again, is that he feels like
Speaker 5: his place and things should be respected. It's when he
Speaker 5: talks about why he had to kill Alberto, he talks
Speaker 5: about how disrespected he was and that his value was
Speaker 5: not being respected.
Speaker 4: And that's one of the dynamics with his.
Speaker 5: Mothers that his mother is saying to him, like, you
Speaker 5: have to be respected, you have to earn you know
Speaker 5: your place in the world. And and like you know
Speaker 5: earlier said that, we eventually learned that, like the reason
Speaker 5: why his mother treats him the way she does is
Speaker 5: in large part because she kind of knows that he
Speaker 5: killed his brothers.
Speaker 4: That doesn't make the way she treats him good. Like
Speaker 4: they have a very.
Speaker 5: Toxic relationship in both directions, and like to extint, she's
Speaker 5: pushing him or he's pushing her, is very mixed up.
Speaker 5: But this whole dynamic that he has is that he
Speaker 5: wants to have his place in the sun. He wants
Speaker 5: to be respected in that kind of a way, and
Speaker 5: it's incredibly toxic. But you also see all the way,
Speaker 5: all all the places that it comes from.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and there's also like his relationship not just with
Speaker 6: the criminal elements, but with the respectful elements of Gotham City,
Speaker 6: right he has he develops this working relationship with I
Speaker 6: think it's council member Haiti Yep, a member of the
Speaker 6: city council, and kind of like blackmail like forces him
Speaker 6: to do a thing restore power to Crown Point, his neighborhood,
Speaker 6: which has been devastated by the actions of the Riddler
Speaker 6: in the Batman movie. He's like, hey, like, these people
Speaker 6: deserve power, electricity and gets him to do that. And
Speaker 6: that's one of the things that Victor cites is like,
Speaker 6: no one else cared right about this neighborhood. You gave
Speaker 6: them electricity, you gave them dignity, you gave them jobs,
Speaker 6: criminal jobs like distributing, manufacturing, distributing drugs, but jobs. You
Speaker 6: gave them jobs, you paid them fairly.
Speaker 4: Mh.
Speaker 6: And again, like, this is what I found very compelling
Speaker 6: about this show and why I kept watching despite the
Speaker 6: monstrous acts that the penguin performs, like in his crime,
Speaker 6: is that he also did this thing which no one
Speaker 6: else cared about these people, and it was this element
Speaker 6: of like you know, I called it crime socialism, but
Speaker 6: also this is like he cared about the people.
Speaker 5: And I think this is something that can get kind
Speaker 5: of laughed off, but it's actually like something we see
Speaker 5: all the time in both real life and in other
Speaker 5: mob stories. Like if you've read the book The Godfather,
Speaker 5: you know that, like the way he comes to prominence
Speaker 5: in his community is because you know, the cops and
Speaker 5: the government have basically written off like, oh, they're just
Speaker 5: dirty Catholics, they're Italians, they're not good Americans like us.
Speaker 5: And so he you know, provides kind of policing and
Speaker 5: he provides like community help and he helps people get
Speaker 5: you know, you know, things taken care of that the
Speaker 5: government should care about. And like that's why you know,
Speaker 5: mobsters in New York in the seventies and eighties, when
Speaker 5: they're getting arrested, like the community loved them. It's why
Speaker 5: Pablo Escobar was so popular in parts of Columbia because
Speaker 5: you know, I mean, he was doing horrible things in
Speaker 5: a lot of his popularity was they would kill you
Speaker 5: if you didn't like him.
Speaker 4: You know, he brought.
Speaker 5: Government services to lots of people who weren't getting them
Speaker 5: and that's true of you know, the one of my
Speaker 5: favorite TV shows, Warrior, talks a lot about how the
Speaker 5: Tongs were doing that for Chinese immigrant communities in Turn
Speaker 5: of the Centry, CA, California, and and so this idea
Speaker 5: of you know, it's it's beneficial to him because it's yeah,
Speaker 5: it kind of is making him legitimate in the eyes
Speaker 5: of the community, but it's also helping him build his
Speaker 5: power base.
Speaker 4: To me, that feels very real, and I really appreciated that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 6: To me like I've always I've always liked villains in
Speaker 6: comic book stories who are complicated because they're villains, yea,
Speaker 6: but they are seeking progress, I guess, is what I
Speaker 6: would say. And that is what makes Penguin good. And
Speaker 6: and like so often in these stories, the villains are
Speaker 6: seeking progress in an unhealthy way or in a way
Speaker 6: that probably enriches them too much. But like the hero,
Speaker 6: what makes it interesting is when the hero comes to
Speaker 6: stop them. The hero is fighting for the status quo,
Speaker 6: which is also perhaps not the most well balanced. And
Speaker 6: so that's why like, villains like this are compelling because
Speaker 6: they are they are He's fighting for himself and his
Speaker 6: own wealth and enrichment, but you can see the elements
Speaker 6: where it's like, yeah, this.
Speaker 4: Is yeah, he's got this under sense of right wrong
Speaker 4: and very screwed up one.
Speaker 5: And part of it is that anyone who stands in
Speaker 5: his way is has like lost any moral right to live.
Speaker 5: But he also has a sense like like you know,
Speaker 5: when Victor is getting treated badly in that restaurant, He's like, no,
Speaker 5: this is not okay. And and similarly he stands up
Speaker 5: for other people like that, and I think that's I
Speaker 5: think one of the most interesting things about him is
Speaker 5: that it's easy and it's tempting to try and put
Speaker 5: people into one of two camps. Either they're moral and
Speaker 5: good and they're fighting for what's right, or they're only
Speaker 5: fighting for the good of other people so that they
Speaker 5: can earn their trust and their adoration and and for
Speaker 5: all these negative reasons. And I think Penguin is generally both.
Speaker 5: He respect, he craves adoration, and helping the people in
Speaker 5: his community is a great way to get that. And
Speaker 5: if I remember also, like getting the city services turned
Speaker 5: on in this neighborhood also really helps his drug operation.
Speaker 5: That requires like running water and power in order to
Speaker 5: make the drugs that he's trying to make. But also
Speaker 5: he does have a sense that this is not okay,
Speaker 5: that these people should be getting power, and that after
Speaker 5: a disaster, the idea that city services are mostly helping
Speaker 5: the rich and the more well off is wrong. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I think you're right. It's what's compelling about him because
Speaker 5: he does have he does feel like I have been
Speaker 5: wronged and so therefore I want to fight on behalf
Speaker 5: of everyone else who's been wronged, and that makes you
Speaker 5: want to root for him until again you realize like
Speaker 5: he's a murdering bastard and so just it's such as
Speaker 5: he's such a complex character, and I think that's why
Speaker 5: we love him so much.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you're correct. The initial reason is that
Speaker 6: he and Victor check out like this underground tunnel, like
Speaker 6: this would be the perfect place for a drug or operation.
Speaker 6: But you know what we need, We need electricity. It's like, okay, well,
Speaker 6: let me go talk to the councilman. And it's also
Speaker 6: like he's moved his mother to the neighborhood and they
Speaker 6: don't have power in the apartment, and she's she's very cold,
Speaker 6: and she wants to listen to her music. So it
Speaker 6: is like they portray his motivations as selfish, but the
Speaker 6: way that it connects to the community, and then like
Speaker 6: yeah again, like he provides jobs and for all, for
Speaker 6: everything we are led to understand, Like he pays everyone
Speaker 6: in his organization a fair wage, and it's like okay,
Speaker 6: like you're doing a thing, Like I don't agree with
Speaker 6: the drug part. But interestingly, like it is also portrayed
Speaker 6: as like a not not a bad drug, right, Like
Speaker 6: I don't want that to come off wrong, but yeah,
Speaker 6: I think it's.
Speaker 5: More like ecstasy than it is like herold in our cocaine,
Speaker 5: you know, in terms of like it's probably not good
Speaker 5: for people to be taking regularly, but it's not like
Speaker 5: leading to the very negative you know, addiction and death
Speaker 5: quite as quickly as some of the hard, harder drugs can.
Speaker 4: It's a party.
Speaker 6: Drug and and interestingly, the origin of the drug is
Speaker 6: from the system. It came from Arkham Asylum where they
Speaker 6: were using the drug. They're experimenting on inmates and using
Speaker 6: it to pacify them because of the effects of like ecstasy,
Speaker 6: like effects of just making them happy and content.
Speaker 5: So Arkham is definitely kind of a character in this
Speaker 5: as is someone who spent a long time in Arkham
Speaker 5: for unfair reasons, as we learn, but has kind of
Speaker 5: been turned into, uh, you know, the kind of like
Speaker 5: Arkham can turn you into what you weren't even when
Speaker 5: you started.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about Sophia fo Com.
Speaker 5: Who's kind of I think the main set the second
Speaker 5: main character of this show, primarily an antagonist at times,
Speaker 5: kind of a co protagonist.
Speaker 6: Very interesting. So yeah, Sofia Falcone. She later changes her
Speaker 6: name to her mother's maiden name, Sophia Gigante, played by
Speaker 6: Kristin Miliatti. She's the eldest daughter in the Falcone crime family,
Speaker 6: and in the flashbacks it's she's shown to be like
Speaker 6: the competent one, and the father is like, you're going
Speaker 6: to take over this empire, which itself is also progressive, right,
Speaker 6: Like these these stories and crime families are usually portrayed
Speaker 6: as very misogynistic and very patriarchal, and you hand to
Speaker 6: hand down to the first son. He's like, nah, like
Speaker 6: I'm not going to do that. Like you're you're the
Speaker 6: good one, You're the one that can handle all this.
Speaker 6: But then we find out that Carmine Falcone, the father
Speaker 6: played by the way by Mark Strong my favorite sinestro
Speaker 6: because he was the only sings. Carmine Falcone has been
Speaker 6: murdering I guess prostitutes, right that he's sleeping with, and
Speaker 6: actually it comes he murdered his wife, Sophia's mother, and
Speaker 6: then like, when the investigation into that gets too close,
Speaker 6: he pins it all on her because she has also
Speaker 6: been kind of investigating and like figuring it out.
Speaker 5: And she's importantly the one who discovered the body of
Speaker 5: her mother.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, and what was it? Like the reporter is
Speaker 6: talking to her, is asking her questions, and that leads
Speaker 6: her to ask questions and like investigate. But then I
Speaker 6: think the crime family murders the reporter and pins it,
Speaker 6: pins that on her because they had been in contact,
Speaker 6: Like it makes it much easier for that, right, And.
Speaker 5: Again for people who've seen the movie, this is what
Speaker 5: Selena Kyle discovers about how Carmin and Falcone killed her mother.
Speaker 5: It's the same thing and as later reveal, because that reason,
Speaker 5: Selena Kyle and Sophia are cousins because they're for both
Speaker 5: them their fathers Karmin and Krma killed both their mothers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so Sophia gets sent to Arkham because of this
Speaker 6: because these crimes have been pinned on her. And it's
Speaker 6: Arkham Asylum. So you you go in a normal person,
Speaker 6: you come out a little dark and twisting because they
Speaker 6: are they are giving these drugs to the inmates and
Speaker 6: they are doing like shock therapy experiments.
Speaker 5: There're setting up situations who are really like you have
Speaker 5: to kill someone or they have to kill you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like in the mess hall, the guards are just
Speaker 6: watching and they're like, oh no, Like this very violent
Speaker 6: inmate who hates you has like gotten loose and they
Speaker 6: like force him to have basically a cage match, and
Speaker 6: it's terrible. Like the portrayals in Arkham, I feel are
Speaker 6: very accurate to Arkham in you know, comics, in comics,
Speaker 6: but I hate it, and I hate that that kind
Speaker 6: of portrayal of criminal justice. You know, quote air quotes justice.
Speaker 6: And she comes out a little unhinged and wants revenge
Speaker 6: and it turns out like the person she needs to
Speaker 6: get revenge on his os the penguin.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's because he was her driver.
Speaker 5: He was connected to her, and in some ways he
Speaker 5: didn't necessarily help the framing, but he didn't stop it either,
Speaker 5: And and there's so much more to the plot that
Speaker 5: we're not even gonna get into. It's a very complex plot.
Speaker 5: There's a whole sort of sideline where fighting with the
Speaker 5: Maroney family, and Clancy Brown plays the head of the
Speaker 5: Maroni family, and it's just wonderful and just like adding
Speaker 5: a small little detail that his wife is Iranian and
Speaker 5: Muslim and that he's picked up some of that. It's
Speaker 5: just a beautiful part of the story. And I think
Speaker 5: just the way they let her be, like we've long
Speaker 5: had the image of the like sexy fem fetal who
Speaker 5: could kill you but you might like it, you know,
Speaker 5: go back to Star Wars and I was talking about
Speaker 5: Ventres like stabbing someone with her lightsaber and then pulling
Speaker 5: him close to kiss him.
Speaker 4: Sophia kind of feels.
Speaker 5: Like the actual thing that that that's inspired by, you know,
Speaker 5: where she is very deadly, she is very attractive, but
Speaker 5: she's also not walking around in like you know, six
Speaker 5: inch Dominatrix boots. She's you know, she looks like a
Speaker 5: normal person who is just in this place. And I
Speaker 5: think like Penguin is like originally a product of her circumstances,
Speaker 5: but also she you know, like in some ways, I
Speaker 5: think maybe even a lot worse than what he went through,
Speaker 5: but comes out of it pretty awful and pretty terrible
Speaker 5: and pretty willing to kill everybody she.
Speaker 4: Has to, and I think she did that.
Speaker 5: There were a couple of moments where they start to
Speaker 5: team up, and I was really rooting for them and
Speaker 5: I wanted them to team up, but they're they're both
Speaker 5: because we are so distrusting. They're both so focused on
Speaker 5: like I have to get ahead, and where she has
Speaker 5: a family that she is so locked into.
Speaker 4: He's the exact opposite.
Speaker 5: He is just literally like he's going to be on
Speaker 5: the side of whoever's holding the gun to his head
Speaker 5: at that moment.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he plays all the sides in this story, and
Speaker 6: you're it's never it's never made clear, like where he's
Speaker 6: going to end up. I guess you know he's going
Speaker 6: to end up on top, but like, is he going
Speaker 6: to collaborate with Sophia? Is he going to collaborate with
Speaker 6: Salvatore Moron like he does at various points, and then yeah,
Speaker 6: when it's inconvenient for him, Mean, he drops them.
Speaker 4: I want to say.
Speaker 5: The character sophiaf hol Colin was created by writer Joe
Speaker 5: The character sofiafl Collen was created by writer Jeff Lobe
Speaker 5: and artist Tim sal and debuted in nineteen ninety seven's
Speaker 5: Batman The Long Halloween. And you know, I think she
Speaker 5: was kind of tied in with the Eventually she was
Speaker 5: kind of linked to the Holiday. I think she was
Speaker 5: the Holiday Killer in one version and another version she's
Speaker 5: referred to as the Hangman, and that's in this show.
Speaker 5: They she's the like the press that kind of named
Speaker 5: someone the Hangman because there's a series of hangings and
Speaker 5: then she, as you say it, gets framed for that,
Speaker 5: and so they sort of referred to her as that
Speaker 5: from the start, And yeah, I really enjoy their antagonism
Speaker 5: between each other. I know that the show is taking
Speaker 5: his side, but I think that it also very much
Speaker 5: like portrays her, Like I think you could have made
Speaker 5: this exact show with her as the main protagonist and
Speaker 5: it also be really interesting, and I kind of like
Speaker 5: wouldn't mind if maybe, like the next thing we get
Speaker 5: isn't necessarily season two, but the next thing is the
Speaker 5: Hangman or like, you know, so where we get more
Speaker 5: of the story and Penguin's the main character, but she's
Speaker 5: the main point of view character because yeah, I just
Speaker 5: think she is another character who's equally as fascinating and
Speaker 5: how she is monstrous but also very relatable and very like,
Speaker 5: you know, I support your rights and I support your
Speaker 5: wrongs kind of a thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was gonna say, I remember her in The
Speaker 6: Long Halloween. I believe in that story she is portrayed
Speaker 6: as like a large woman because like she goes VI
Speaker 6: Sophia Giconte in that and she's a giant. She's like
Speaker 6: the strong woman and gosh, like, I think the conclusion
Speaker 6: of that story was that Commissioner Gordon's wife was the
Speaker 6: holiday I seem to recall, which is just like a
Speaker 6: weird that I love. I love that book.
Speaker 5: There's an animated movie based on the book that Paul
Speaker 5: and I did a whole review on that you can
Speaker 5: find earlier in this podcast. So we've not got into
Speaker 5: was perhaps the most ethically complex and like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: we still like this show now, and for a lot
Speaker 5: of people it made them all of a sudden stop
Speaker 5: liking the show, which is what happens at the very
Speaker 5: end you want to So.
Speaker 6: Yeah, funny story about this. You said, I watched the
Speaker 6: whole thing on the flight. I actually barely missed like
Speaker 6: the last five minutes. As the plane landed, I was like, well,
Speaker 6: I got a flight back home, so I'll catch it.
Speaker 6: And I was like, this is a good show. I
Speaker 6: enjoyed it, and like the conclusion was pretty good. And
Speaker 6: then I got on my flight back home and I
Speaker 6: actually rewatched the whole final episode just to make sure,
Speaker 6: you know, I remembered everything, and then the last five
Speaker 6: minutes just like flipped me completely.
Speaker 5: So in those last five minutes, we have this real
Speaker 5: kind of heartfelt moment between Falcone and I'm sorry, between
Speaker 5: Penguin and Victor, in which one of the things he's
Speaker 5: talking about is how the connections that he has in
Speaker 5: his life have both really strengthened him, but also that
Speaker 5: his compassion for them has gotten in the way, and
Speaker 5: that he's talking here both about his mother but also
Speaker 5: the woman he's had a relationship with, where it's like,
Speaker 5: I think he's paying her to some extent, but also
Speaker 5: they seem to have does some level care about each other,
Speaker 5: or at least he cares about her and she pretends
Speaker 5: to care about him. It's all very complex, but when
Speaker 5: he really when she realizes that, you know, he's helping
Speaker 5: this guy who killed a lot of sex workers and
Speaker 5: other women down, you know, having no troubles. She turns
Speaker 5: against him and she is ready to work with Sophia
Speaker 5: against him, and he kind of has this moment of
Speaker 5: like talking to Victor about how much Victor has helped
Speaker 5: him and that, you know, the lesson he's learned from
Speaker 5: this is that he's caring for other people gets in
Speaker 5: the way, and that that was certain that he was
Speaker 5: able to play upon the loyalties of the various Falcones
Speaker 5: to and the Marconi's to get them to help him
Speaker 5: or to betray them, because this compassion for others is
Speaker 5: a weakness. And he's teaching this lesson to Victor and
Speaker 5: you're getting like, kind of where is he going with
Speaker 5: this until there's a moment where you realize what he's
Speaker 5: saying is that he can't do this if he cares
Speaker 5: about Victor as much as he does, and he kills Victor.
Speaker 6: And it's right after Victor says like your family and
Speaker 6: you say you think or hope that Penguin is going
Speaker 6: to be like yeah, like I feel the same way,
Speaker 6: and then like have a good heartfelt hug and then
Speaker 6: the show ends, happy ending, and then see you in
Speaker 6: season two where they like crime together again.
Speaker 5: No, And to be clear, like Victor saved Penguin's life,
Speaker 5: and that's part of why he says, your family, I
Speaker 5: did this for you. And and so there's this moment
Speaker 5: where you're like, Penguin, how stupid are you? Like you're
Speaker 5: only alive, You're only successful because of Victor. But I
Speaker 5: think I think the thing is that it's not that
Speaker 5: Penguin says, no, what are you crazy? You're you're not family.
Speaker 5: Penguin saying you're right, you are family, and family holds
Speaker 5: me back.
Speaker 6: And that's why, Yeah, that's why I have to kill you.
Speaker 6: Because you're a weakness, You're a vulnerability. And this is
Speaker 6: actually true right in the sense that so many Spider
Speaker 6: Man stories, the reason he hides his identity like he
Speaker 6: holds it so close to his chest is that he
Speaker 6: knows if his identity gets out, as Peter Parker, that
Speaker 6: his family aunt May Mary, Jane or Gwen Stacy whoever's dating,
Speaker 6: like they are of vulnerability or they become targets. And
Speaker 6: in this show, Penguins, Oz's mother became a target and
Speaker 6: she she has been debilitated, she's a catatonic. Yeah, she
Speaker 6: becomes them, He blames them, she becomes.
Speaker 5: A target, and people manipulate him with fear of hurting her,
Speaker 5: and you know, he he manipulates Marcone with fear of
Speaker 5: hurting Marcone's son, and all the Falconies are kind of Maroney,
Speaker 5: driven mad by by their own grief about the family.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, it's this really powerful moment of because right,
Speaker 5: it even gives us half of that heartfelt moment, but
Speaker 5: then this realization of just no, he can't be this person.
Speaker 5: And I I think if the show had just shown
Speaker 5: him like laughing off, like haha, stupid Victor, how could
Speaker 5: Victor ever think that? I wouldn't have loved it. What
Speaker 5: I think I love is that I would guarantee that
Speaker 5: in season two he's gonna be haunted by guilt about that,
Speaker 5: that a part of him is going to hate that
Speaker 5: he had to do it, and he does because he
Speaker 5: did genuinely care for Victor, and he's trying to be
Speaker 5: as hard as nails person who he thinks he has
Speaker 5: to be. And like, I'm not saying that he's being
Speaker 5: set up for redemption arc by any means. I think, like,
Speaker 5: you know, like a lot of you know, these characters
Speaker 5: like he's probably gonna come to a bad end, it's
Speaker 5: probably gonna be deserved. But I think he genuinely cared
Speaker 5: for Victor. I think he genuinely thinks that he had
Speaker 5: to kill Victor. And I think that he's really gonna
Speaker 5: be wrestling in season two or whatever we next get
Speaker 5: from him with.
Speaker 4: How does he feel about that? Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 6: Sure if he'll be wrestling, I don't know. I agree
Speaker 6: that that could be an outcome here, you know, I would,
Speaker 6: I would be okay with like a ghost of Victor
Speaker 6: character that he talks to about it, like it expresses
Speaker 6: his guilt to that character, but then like outwardly it
Speaker 6: still acts in the same way. I'm not sure. I
Speaker 6: don't even know if we need a season two. It's
Speaker 6: like they have set up some interesting things, and certainly
Speaker 6: like at the end of it, we see him adopt
Speaker 6: the classic penguin suit and top hat because the council
Speaker 6: member is like, if you want to be in these circles,
Speaker 6: you got to dress better, Like if you want to
Speaker 6: be respected, you got to dress respectfully, And so we
Speaker 6: see him enter that world, but we don't know yet
Speaker 6: what he's going to do that I think like there
Speaker 6: are some storylines where he ends up like running for
Speaker 6: mayor Oh that was the movie, but I.
Speaker 5: Think it's happened in the comics a couple of times
Speaker 5: where he plays a you know, some some sort of role.
Speaker 4: Gotham.
Speaker 5: Gotham the TV show played a lot with that idea. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think he's supposed to always be the person who
Speaker 5: lives on the edge of respectability, and he wants respectability,
Speaker 5: but he's also willing to.
Speaker 4: Like he it's sort of like he sees.
Speaker 5: All the darkness behind these rich people and these elite people,
Speaker 5: and so he's willing to do it himself. But he's
Speaker 5: just a lot more like outrageous about it, and and
Speaker 5: so he gets rejected.
Speaker 4: He doesn't understand that, and it's you know, he's holding
Speaker 4: up a mirror.
Speaker 5: And I really and I think that's one of the
Speaker 5: most compelling parts about his character.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and his disability like deformity, like his look is
Speaker 6: part of why they looked at on it much. That
Speaker 6: is a part of his story and why like the
Speaker 6: character like never fully gains the respect of the people
Speaker 6: around him. And you know, we can we can say
Speaker 6: like that's not correct, but it is what drives this
Speaker 6: character in his stories so often.
Speaker 4: You really true.
Speaker 5: We could probably do a bunch more episodes on this,
Speaker 5: and I think this is gonna be a show that
Speaker 5: we refer to a lot because it touches on a
Speaker 5: lot of the things we most love to discuss in
Speaker 5: this podcast. But you don'tly have the kind of last
Speaker 5: things you want to say. We are gonna have some
Speaker 5: bonus content for members that's gonna specifically beyond who are
Speaker 5: other people in the Batman Rogues gallery that we would
Speaker 5: think could benefit from having a show like this, or
Speaker 5: even maybe some other people's rogue galleries, But for our
Speaker 5: for our non members, and for everybody, any last comments
Speaker 5: you want to.
Speaker 6: Make, Yeah, I wanna like you mentioned Salvatore Maroney's wife.
Speaker 6: She's played by the fantastic show re Aghdashlou, who has
Speaker 6: just been in like everything, and she is one of
Speaker 6: the best voices, like female voices yep in in media,
Speaker 6: and I just I just love her and in this
Speaker 6: like as you said, she gets to portray this character.
Speaker 6: And I believe, like the subtitles say that she speaks
Speaker 6: in Farsi, and I'm just gonna trust in that because
Speaker 6: I do not speak that, but but the Maronis like
Speaker 6: speak to each other like kind of as like their
Speaker 6: own coded language so that other people don't listen in
Speaker 6: and understand what's going on. I thought that was great.
Speaker 6: Michael Kelly, who we have seen in House of Cards
Speaker 6: and animated show Pantheon as a fixer, he's a fixer
Speaker 6: in this Johnny Vett. He's kind of like the right
Speaker 6: hand man in the Maroney family, and he is not
Speaker 6: himself a Maroni, so like he is always in this
Speaker 6: position of close to power, but never in power, and
Speaker 6: so you think, like at one point, like maybe he's
Speaker 6: gonna go for it, and then Sophia just undercuts him
Speaker 6: and it's another great it's another great crime socialism scene
Speaker 6: where she kills VD and then like basically to the
Speaker 6: rest of the people in the room is like he
Speaker 6: was the problem right, like he was also hoarding the
Speaker 6: power and now like you guys can distribute the power
Speaker 6: and the money amongst yourselves.
Speaker 4: One of their actor that I really noted.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you've ever seen this, but the
Speaker 5: show Entourage, a very fun, very problematic show, is not
Speaker 5: aged well, but the character of Billy Walsh, people will
Speaker 5: know that actor Reese Corio Reese Koiro is the plays
Speaker 5: the council member that you mentioned, So that was just fun.
Speaker 5: He looks so different, act so different. It took me
Speaker 5: a few minutes to realize who that was.
Speaker 6: But there you go, a very minor role. But I
Speaker 6: think like if there were to be a season two
Speaker 6: a follow up, I think probably more prominent role. And
Speaker 6: we didn't even talk about the character of the doctor,
Speaker 6: doctor Rush, who's a doctor in Arkham who is say,
Speaker 6: treating Sophia and they have a relationship. Confusing relationship is
Speaker 6: not made clear, like whether they are sexual partners, but
Speaker 6: they definitely have a close relationship. And we could we again,
Speaker 6: like we could have a whole other episode about portrayal
Speaker 6: of asylums and prisons in media, and I think we
Speaker 6: should because this one is terrible, and it's because it's
Speaker 6: based on comics and it's like doesn't have to adhere
Speaker 6: to reality, but I think it brings up some things
Speaker 6: that do are paralleled in reality, that are bad and
Speaker 6: should be acknowledged in Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, I've said before in this podcast, and I think
Speaker 5: you're right it should get a full episode. Is that
Speaker 5: I'm often frustrated by how like the idea of a
Speaker 5: character being locked up, you know, in a mental institution.
Speaker 5: I've twice spent times in mental health hospitals and they
Speaker 5: saved my life and I was very glad for it.
Speaker 5: And I've also had one very bad experience, and I
Speaker 5: think a lot of people have had similar both pro
Speaker 5: and good and bad.
Speaker 4: This is Arkham Asylum, though this is definitely not one
Speaker 4: of the good ones.
Speaker 5: And while I believe doctor Julian Rush is a new
Speaker 5: character created for the show, if you've seen any other
Speaker 5: Batman properties where there are strange doctors off, doctor Strange
Speaker 5: is one of them, not the Marvel one, but you know,
Speaker 5: the one from the DC convict world. This character will
Speaker 5: feel familiar, and you're right. He has a very kind
Speaker 5: of complex relationship with Sophia that I feel, in some
Speaker 5: ways is kind of a fun inversion and I think
Speaker 5: somewhat intentional on the Joker Harley one, because in this
Speaker 5: it's kind of the same idea of the patient to
Speaker 5: seducing the doctor and like bringing the doctor over to
Speaker 5: the crazy side, And given the gendering of the Joker
Speaker 5: Harley relationship, I thought that was really fun parallel.
Speaker 4: I think you're right. I think for one. The actor
Speaker 4: is just amazing.
Speaker 5: It's Theo Rossi, who people remember either from Sons of
Speaker 5: Anarchy or from the Daredevil universe.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: He was a really big part of the Luke Cage shows.
Speaker 5: And you know, like I would expect that, Like I
Speaker 5: know Matt Reeves is working on another Batman movie with
Speaker 5: Robert Pattinson. We might well see him be a character
Speaker 5: in that. We might see like, this is not create this.
Speaker 4: Did Matt Reeves write this show?
Speaker 5: I don't think he did, but I think he was
Speaker 5: like connected and consulted on it.
Speaker 6: Probably a producer.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, he was a producer. And so I
Speaker 5: think this is very intentionally. They're kind of creating their
Speaker 5: own little micro universe with this show and that movie
Speaker 5: and that whether it's a Penguin season two or like
Speaker 5: I said, a foal Cone season or another movie, we're
Speaker 5: gonna get these. This is all part of the same continuity.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the kind of what's what I've read is that
Speaker 6: Colin Farrell will appear as a side character in the
Speaker 6: next Batman movie, and they're kind of talking about a
Speaker 6: season two of the show, but he's reluctant to commit
Speaker 6: to it because of the makeup requirements.
Speaker 4: Spent like five hours in the chair every day.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's what the primary person cited as executive for
Speaker 6: on this as Lauren la Frank and Matt Reeves is credited.
Speaker 6: But you know, it's it's always hard to tell, like
Speaker 6: what how much in something like this, So Lauren Lefrank
Speaker 6: is the highest build executive producers. I think she deserves
Speaker 6: the most credit here.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 5: One of the quick things just that the Internet is
Speaker 5: telling me is that and it makes sense that Julian
Speaker 5: Rosh he's very focused on fear and how fear motivates people,
Speaker 5: and so there's been some that he could be he
Speaker 5: could he could be the person who becomes Scarecrow.
Speaker 4: Okay, So yeah, yeah, whichold makes sense. That's good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like, I guess we'll talk more about this in
Speaker 6: our bonus section, but as a general thing, like I'm
Speaker 6: okay with different origins or like different named characters being
Speaker 6: these iconic villains, like it, Scarecrow doesn't always have to
Speaker 6: be Jonathan curright.
Speaker 5: So yeah, and I'm this is the whole other story
Speaker 5: we can talk about because it's part of me is
Speaker 5: kind of frustrated and partly because I'm like Killian Murphy
Speaker 5: played that role so well in the I don't want
Speaker 5: to say Christian Bale movies again, who's the director of
Speaker 5: the Nolan movies. But if we're just gonna get eight
Speaker 5: million versions of Batman, this is certainly a really good one.
Speaker 5: And this is of the various DC micro universes that
Speaker 5: are all maybe tied together somehow in the multiverse, this
Speaker 5: is certainly one I'm most invested in right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a good one.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. I'm really glad.
Speaker 5: Like I said, it's been a couple months since I
Speaker 5: saw the show, but Riki just got back and was like, hey,
Speaker 5: I watched the show and we hadn't figured out a
Speaker 5: topic for today, so this was perfect.
Speaker 4: Fans, let us know what you think. Would really love
Speaker 4: to hear your thoughts on the show.
Speaker 5: We're not going to do like episode by episode coverage
Speaker 5: of again, but certainly if there are other major questions
Speaker 5: from the show that you want to hear us do
Speaker 5: deeper dives on. I think we really can, especially because
Speaker 5: we could put it in conversation with some other shows
Speaker 5: and how we feel about them. Of course, if you
Speaker 5: want to become a member, it's only five dollars a month,
Speaker 5: fifty five dollars a year, all the animations in your
Speaker 5: show notes.
Speaker 4: I hope you become a member.
Speaker 5: We'll have Bon's content for the members, just a moment
Speaker 5: for everybody else made the Force fee.
Speaker 2: With What on you?
Speaker 6: What are you?