The Reel Rejects - THE PENGUIN 1x08 Breakdown & Review

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

SHOCKING ENDING SCENE!!! The Penguin Full Reaction Watch Along:  https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Save & Invest In Your Future Today, visit: https://www.acorns.com/rejects Follow Us On Socials: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  https://www.tiktok.com/@thereelrejects?lang=en Penguin Kills Victor, Mayor Penguin Tease, Sofia gigante date, & MORE! Penguin's inaugural season reaches its harrowing conlusion in The Penguin SEASON FINALE Reaction, Recap, Commentary, Analysis, Theories, & Spoiler Review for the HBO spin-off of Matt Reeves The Batman tying into the Riddler destruction. Will Robert Pattinson make an appearance? WHO KNOWS! However, we get an emmy worth performance from Colin Farrel, Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni, Rhenzy Feliz as Victor Aguilar, Michael Zegen as Alberto Falcone, Theo Rossi as Julian Rush, & Mark Strong (Kingsman) as Carmine Falcone. The Penguin is from the larger part of the DC Universe (elseworlds) that will connect to The Batman Part 2. James Gunn DC world is set to have the new Superman movie, Joker, and The Brave & The Bold.  Follow Coy Jandreau:  Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@coyjandreau?l... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coyjandreau/?hl=en Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CoyJandreau YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwYH2szDTuU9ImFZ9gBRH8w Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I think, uh... I think we're going to get the Batman. You're going to get the Batman? Hey, oh, Vagents! Hey! Let's watch this. In three, two, one. Spotify, listeners, we just finished the finale of the Penguin,

hopefully season one, not the series finale, but I hope the season finale. This was intended to be a one and done, but I would like so many more. That was dark and harrowing and intense in every bit the psychological mind bleep that we have experienced for the last eight episodes, this, in my opinion, stuck the landing in a way that I knew all three of them wouldn't make it and Penguin had to. I really thought we were going to lose Sophia.

Once Sophia went to prison, I was like, maybe that's enough. And it was right in front of us the whole time that Victor had to go. What a dark ending. He is a villain. We got there. Craig.

He's a villain? He's done the bad things. He's a bad guy. He's a bad guy. He's a bad guy. He did some bad things. Kills the people. including his friend victor yeah man we're worried that victor's going to die this whole season since

episode one i only believed he was going to live when he was at the hospital with the ma i was like oh i guess victor's going to live the only time i finally believe this guy's and then that's how they get you five minutes before he dies yeah so it's going to make it out of the show now the bad guys are gone what else would there be what else could be but him himself the last thing i ever saw coming was penguin himself would end of killing him and we should have seen it the the whole time and you got it i mean there was never really other than the fact that he killed his brothers and the fact that's pretty clear a clue he would kill family and colin farrell from the beginning by the time the last episode ends you will not be able to forgive him and i'm like as the

first episode he was going to kill vick and then he killed his brothers and then what he did was my like it's been very clear and yet yeah we wanted to like him so much there's been clues this entire time yeah no he's the worst he's he's an awful he's an awful person that's the worst he's an awful being i still think they accomplished it like we call and feral talked about it was that you would hate him by the end uh i don't hate him um i'm fascinated by him i definitely find it to be a pure villain now but uh he's just too compelling of a character to hate like i'm fascinated i'm i'm excited to see how he does factor into the next batman because we care about him so much more now now i liked him in the movie but now i love him like the world and the hierarchy of power has

changed in the streets of gotham after the and and time has now passed since batman one to Batman too with this and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the hell we actually get into but this finale was a pretty messed up finale I love that it stayed contained I'm so glad it didn't get to Batman Eams I'm personally glad that there was no Bruce Wayne on the TV or like a Batman lurking in the gargoyly darkness I liked the bat signal to show like hey this is what's coming and you're right like the hierarchy of power is the thing that needed to shift and that did happen with Penguin being established in the corrupt government system He is now ingratiated with the people he wanted to be. He's got his penhouse. He's in power. All of that. Plus, he's got his thumb on the pulse of the criminal underbelly because he got them there. All of the underbosses are now the bosses.

The crime element in Gotham has shifted. And all of that is going to affect the Batman season two. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Penguin is the ultimate monster since birth and killing his own brothers. And then positioning his mom into a way where she has led a very confused life. Everything she want as a mother, I understand the conflict where you're like, he's my son.

I've lost two. I've lost two. I kind of hate my son now because I know what he did. I hate myself now. Yeah, but I hate, but he's my son. And I, and there's this part of me. I will always love him because of my son. And watching that whole like opening scene, like to dovetail it around to the very

last thing of this, of the starting off your final episode about the mom, which is penguin's entire motive for everything that he does to end it off where she does get like everyone pretty much gets what they want by the end but it's not a actual victory for anyone yeah you know it's just a tragic ending for like she gets the top of the penthouse but she's clearly like living her worst nightmare she's just paralyzed here and and and in oz's world and aware enough to be broken at least that tier implied

some awareness yeah and then uh victor gets so body victor helps him get his victory but then he ends up being killed. At what cost victory. Yeah. And Sophia, I guess she's the only one really loses everything. Like she was able to wipe out her family. Like she got victories along the way

with wiping her family, burning down the legacy house. Selina Kyle writing her is so exciting. Like that is such a pop. That is such a moment for me to see what's coming. That also means Selena Kyle still aware of Gotham's going on because you went to Bloodhaven at the end.

You just might get to put the news, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My sister. Yeah. So I thought this was a really strong episode And I realized the show doesn't really have much action There's like a five seconds of action here

You know a little bit gun shooting He carries his mind A little bit of head popping He chokes the guy I mean to me the action from the beginning You're right that it's not like a lot of physical action But what has been impressed me from episode one And what I wanted this show to be is

The psychological trauma of living in Gotham Is why I find Batman fascinating I mean Greg's favorite I think hero overall dare double Batman's close second right like like Batman's your other guy and I consider them both very psychologically driven yeah I'd say that's that fair I probably yeah sometimes it's Batman more than Daredevil yeah it depends okay but Batman's in my top three as well and Batman to me is fascinating because he is such an interesting psychological study of

he has this one code and everything else is whatever like he just does what he thinks is right and he believes it to such a level that's what pink is so i love that the show went psychological so the action is all in one man believing so much that they're doing the right thing when it is so clearly the wrong thing to everyone at anyone's cost and i've talked a lot probably exhaustingly if you watch this channel as much that i think the psychological mirroring of his villains is what i'm fascinated by like like two face is very much a political version of bruce wayne and joker is if batman didn't have structure and he was pure chaos and the riddler is a lot of the intelligence mr freeze loves nora in the

the same way, Batman loves Gotham. His villains are the psychological flaws within Batman. I love that Penguin, to me, is Batman inversed where there is no confidence, and it's just a weak trying to get love, trying to get attention. Because Batman's so lonely, Batman takes on children and has them as his wards and needs people to be alongside him, but he doesn't ever let his guard down. And Penguin is this fascinating character that did that in this show by taking in someone. by accepting in a Robin, another bird,

and it being Victor, and then he kills that thing as soon as he realizes that that gives him a weak point. And I love that from a psychological perspective of even just the greater Batman mythos because this you couldn't tell in a movie. This shouldn't have other characters in it.

This enriched Gotham and it enriched the penguin, and it got to just be that. So by the time we get to Batman 2, every time you're going to see the penguin can punch in the face is going to land twice because you're invested in this charismatic villain and you know Gotham better. So this is exactly what the comics feel like to me.

When you're reading Detective Comics versus Batman versus a miniseries, it's all making the tapestry richer. If you're reading, you know, this great Tom King run, and then it goes into Scott Snyder's Court of Owls, and it goes into someone else. They're all still writing how they see Batman, but that only brings you as a reader a deeper understanding of the greater character

as long as you identify with that writer's choices. This feels to me like another run of a comic, and that is why I was glad there was no Batman, and this was so exceptional. This is my favorite superhero show since Daredevil and I need more time to say of the better world but like this is that same level of oh my god impact that

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when being bad at the end. Like he actually gets, they reveal how monstrous he is, but in the penultimate, just from birth, but it's, they never let him be redeemed. Not once.

And he asks for it. Because part of it was like, okay, well, you see how he's like kind of monstrous from his past, but maybe there's a part of him that'll change,

but he never confesses to what he did. He like never vocalizes it. End up this killing family because he did view Victor like family, and we all knew that. He did. We saw him make that decision. yeah at the end of the day he did and he was clearly hurt by when victor was like about to leave him in episode three and after being hurt by what his mom did uh it's just it's it's so cool to see a show that's willing to let their bad guy actually be bad and not pull any punches yeah and instead kind of just go the extra like i haven't seen something quite do it like that since um sopranos actually like sopranos had a really good message about like sometimes a sociopath it's just a sociopath even walter didn't kill jessie

Yeah, yeah, I know. Walter killed Jesse here. He was trying to do, like, good things for his family, by the year. Yeah. But here, he just does something terrible by the very end of it. Like the very last few moments, and it's like psychologically creepy. And there's a couple of threads that I felt maybe could have been a tad stronger. I feel like Christine, Kristen Miliani?

Oh, my God. I mean, obviously her best episode was her origin tale. and she's had like great moments in each one of the following episodes I did feel that they kind of it made sense to end her story here or at least put it on pause because I felt like the writers

were even running out of room of like something different to do with her in this episode it was like yeah this is about like the logical conclusion now we're like on a routine with where her character would be and like we didn't really get any standout performance moments

from her this time around. I thought the torture and the directing was pretty captivating. I literally like... Yeah, that's great there. That was a pop. That's great there. It's still more of a...

She's great supporting in that scene. I meant more like a... Oh, like she didn't lead... I mean, yeah, I think it had to go back to transitioning into Penguin's story. I mean, it's called The Penguin, but it had to have a screen time worthy of how much he had to go through.

Yeah, and I still do think that while Theo Rossi is really great in it, there is something about the writing with it that I did feel. feel like kind of still I kept wanting to be like who is he? And like I think it's just because of the actor being captivating

beyond the role because like the role was exactly the you know kind of Harley Quinn Joker inversion and that's all it needed to be but I think because Theor Rossi is so interesting I'm like maybe he's bad hatter because I like want to put something on him like I'm projecting yeah and the purpose that he served with

pulling out the truth of the mom I like I love that version of torture. Yes, psychological Like, let me, you rob me and my brother, so I'm going to rob you of your closest relationship. I'm going to literally destroy it from the inside before I even do anything physically to you guys. I think it's a brilliant form of torture and knowing that this is what Oz cares about the absolute most. And what do you do when you reveal that the one you care about most hates you actually? That using Theo Rossi's character is the way to psychologically pull out for like the plot elements, I think is great.

and as being seen as supporting with Sophia, I think is great. But there was something about the usage, specifically like the, I guess the time placement within the amount of runtime he has as a character here. Yeah. That I felt was a little bit underserved in terms of the writing department. Maybe they just didn't have enough time. Maybe it wasn't necessary.

That's what I mean. I think maybe the character was exactly what you need to be. We're both like, Dio Rossi. I think it might be us. It might be us. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think the dude's cool and he likes Wu-Tang. So I'm excited.

I mean, my introduction, a lot of people's introduction of his son's of anarchy. My introduction to him was, was Luke Cage. So good in Luke Cage. Where he's like such, apparently, he's like such a prominent character of Anarchy, and he's such a prominent character in Luke Cage. I just like, he's a comic fan. Like, at cons, he actually talks comics and like cares.

That's cool. That's why I'm like, Bill Russ. He's a really cool actor. So, like, that may be us, though. Like, again, like, it might have been a perfect, like, because I haven't seen a lot of that online. I see people guessing. But I think with any superhero show, people are like,

it's got to be something. And I liked that the state contained. Even though I yelled Matt Hatter at one point, I liked that it didn't have to be. Yeah, yeah. And I think leaving room for what Penguin's image is for Batman 2 is smart, as opposed to they only allude to it here. You know, like he's in the tuxedo.

He's clearly coming out, coming from like a really fancy party. Still has the chance to put on a monocle. He still has a chance to put on that monocle. They showed the umbrella. They did see the umbrella. I love that there was an umbrella moment to be like, There it is. There's the umbrella.

Man, that was intense. Eddie even gets his woman back, but he's not even really getting his woman back. He just wants to approval from the mom. He gets that psycho dance. Like, literally Norman Bates. He's, like, dancing with his mother. I know, he's creepy. Like, he's so uncomfortable.

This was creepy. This was the one was the creepy one. Yeah. This was the one that had, like, unsettling psychological stuff. Where the other ones were, like, great ginkster stuff with the psychological things constantly. Right. There's always an undercurrent. This and episode four are, like, psychological trauma.

Yeah, but the way they explain. who they really are is on a nasty level. And what great mirroring, episode four being the psychological and then eight and the show's bridge is just the arc,

the pacing, the show's overall structure was so well put together. I didn't feel like it needed to be 10. I thought eight really worked. I thought the runtime in the episodes was good. A lot of times of the show

like one feels short or the next one will feel a little off. This really felt like structured throughout. The mom doesn't show up in episode one, right? That's all episode two. She shows up? I think she's in episode one and in a very small capacity.

Okay. Because I think in episode two We both went Oh, they're not doing the Sopranos thing I think in episode one It was very much like the mom Wondering what you're doing And then the second episode

We realized that she's manipulating I think Well, Sopranos's mom hates it, Tony But that's what we thought I think there had to be two episodes Yeah Cool What a good show

Let us know in the comments below My favorite show of the year We got two months left I don't know if everything's gonna take this This top hat But man I'm exhausted Let us know in the comments below what you thought of this show.

It broke me, psychologically, exhausted me. It was quite the experience. I hear what you think. Anya. What did you think, Anya? Oh, my God. Come on. Go ahead to me, Anya.

You waited too long to ask me. No, I don't wait to. No, we don't know. We don't have to goreel. We were in the process. You guys covered a lot. Yeah, we did. As you're supporting a floating voice.

Yep, there's a embodied voice. Thank you. Pardon? Thank you. I thought it was interesting that the mom, in a way, although she is in a vegetative state at the end, I can't really see how much further her storyline would have gone if she didn't have the opportunity to basically make Oz hurt

as much as he made her hurt. She got her revenge in her way. Yeah, I can't imagine if... She stabbed them. I can't imagine if she didn't pass out. It was a logical end of her. After stabbing her. After stabbing him, how that would have enhanced or deteriorated to really.

Like, there's no way, there's no way to take that. Actually, it actually reminded me that before essentially when she, I mean, she goes brain dead essentially by the end. In her end of her journey. But what I liked is that she got to see her boys one last time. Yeah. The last thing she saw was her boys. Yeah, exactly. So I know you like the wardrobe.

The Evolution of Red, you mentioned. Yeah. What was the choice? yeah she was like black and red and then she went to a little bit red yeah well yeah well it also seemed like most of the story is like dark right like it's actually physically pinch black in the falcony house seemed like a lot of the background and setting was black so it seemed like she went from being like this obedient heiress with her wardrobe like it's very cookie cutter um i was going to throw out some brands but i don't know if you're

audience like ma's Sandra like rich elite wardrobe versus when she starts taking over and embracing being a villain it turns from obedient heiress to black

and edgy and then she's fully embracing being a villain and the black turns into red I like that that's a really good point because she mentioned the jacket she wore of her moms and then she's like this isn't even me yeah and then she fully evolves into herself so she transitions through gigante into

I like that I wouldn't have thought a wardrobe I don't think a wardrobe as much just mad Batman didn't show you know

Greg's gonna pout for a while you liked it I thought it was great it was a lot yeah yeah would have been better

if Batman did you want Batman um Batman I was loud without Batman Punch vegetable mom punch the vegetable mom wake up

where's your son why didn't you say that name sorry she's talking of you Robert Pattinson's Batman when he's He's not in Batman uniform, and he says Bruce reminds me of a serial killer. I think that's the idea. I know.

It's just jarring. So I don't really love. My take is that Bruce Wayne isn't formed yet, and Batman is formed because he hasn't developed the persona of Bruce Wayne. Because Bruce Wayne's the mask. Batman is who he actually is. So I'm excited to see the Bruce Wayne persona. I like that it's a shell, and that feels like a psychopath. I'm excited to see him develop that.

That's why they're doing a spinoff show called Bruce. Just Bruce, and it's just Robert Pattton's walking around New York. grow past and learning to not to not move for a person takes off nirvana oh the nirvana cover using nirvana as her moment mirroring the Batman having nirvana

was genius love that I also I was excited I thought that Zoe might have made a cameo yeah the letter was that was probably nice little pop yeah that would have been cool yeah she makes more of a cameo

than Batman does she does you get the light she gets a whole letter what are you gonna do I thought Commissioner Gordon might show up I thought it might see Jeffrey right it would have made more sense for Gordon of any of them I thought when the mayor was up there

We might see Yeah, that was all of us Get involved Gordon I thought him made But I like the cop with the crazy voice Hey, the Batman guy What are you doing?

My stash There you go That's really good Yeah thanks All right that's gonna do it You lovelies We're gonna be out of here This was the Batman

This was the penguin This was We sound defeated This was so tired We just don't want to say bye We don't want to say bye We don't want to say bye the show We want to say bye

We love it Without him Who am I? Who am I? I don't know I don't know how to talk Without the normal voice, I miss him. I miss him already.

He's gone. All right. Rejectation. Take care of your mothers. That's what we learned here today. Take care of your mothers. Protect her. Don't lie to her.

She's your whole world.