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One of the best things about HBO’s The Penguin is that it doesn’t need Batman. Yes, it’s set in the “Batman Epic Crime Saga” pocket of DC Studios, which started with Matt Reeves’ film The Batman, but the show goes beyond that. It’s revealing parts of Gotham City we’ve never seen before. Digging deeper than any Batman cinematic universe ever has. These are all things we love and wouldn’t change about the show.
However, after this week’s episode, you can’t help but think (to quote Jack Nicholson’s Joker): “Where… is the Batman?” Because his absence has finally begun to have some ripple effects, even if they’re subconscious.
Episode six of The Penguin, called “Gold Summit,” culminated in Oz (Colin Farrell) bringing together the heads of multiple crime syndicates from across the city to team up against the Gigante/Marionis. It takes some massaging but this is the biggest step yet in the Penguin actually becoming the true-to-form DC Comics supervillain we know and love, at least through the lens of the Batman Epic Crime Saga.
Meanwhile, Sofia (Cristin Milioti) and Sal’s (Clancy Brown) devilish alliance is in full effect, with the two seemingly living together under one roof with one focus: to find and destroy Oz. The majority of the episode follows Sofia looking for leverage against Oz and, in the episode’s final scene, she does just that by locating his mom, who she believed to be dead.
So let’s step back here for a second. Gotham City is in turmoil. Crime families are falling left and right. Others are combining and gaining power. Thanks to Oz, there’s a new drug called “Bliss” on the street. The previous drug of choice, “Drops,” has dried up. We see Oz even having an impact on a local politician. There seem to be a lot of very bad, significant things happening in the Gotham City underground, and yet, the city’s savior, its crimefighting vigilante, is nowhere to be seen. He’s not even mentioned. You mean to tell me all of the drug dealers that Oz has on the streets are roaming around not thinking of the Batman lurking in the shadows? Wasn’t it established the fear his existence instills is his biggest power? That he basically roams the streets every single night? What’s going on here?
Now, pragmatically, the reason for this is The Penguin doesn’t want to get into all that. Once you introduce Batman, or even the idea of Batman, it overshadows everything else. So we get it and respect it. Truly, we do. Honestly, I’m happily surprised he hasn’t been mentioned yet. It takes some serious restraint not to play the ace up your sleeve.
On the other hand, by not mentioning him, the show kind of knocks him down a peg. Every time a crime is committed on the streets and there isn’t some fear of Batman, the sense that he’s important to this world lessens. His whole aim is to battle these crime syndicates which are very clearly running rampant without any fear of retribution from anyone except other crime syndicates. In The Batman film, Batman contemplates exactly how much of an impact he’s had and, by the end, believes he has given the city hope. That may be true, but we don’t see it here. Thanks to his complete absence from all aspects of the story, The Penguin strongly suggests the Batman has done almost nothing. He’s bad at his job.
Of course, the whole point of crime syndicates is to be criminals in secret. Maybe Batman just hasn’t gotten a whiff of it all yet. It’s only been a few weeks since the events of the film. Maybe he’s still licking his wounds. Plus, there are two episodes left. We have to assume he gets some kind of name-drop in one of them. Otherwise, it could be our first taste of where Matt Reeves is taking the Caped Crusader in the future: a place where Batman is failing to become the powerful, confident hero we all know and love, even after his victory against Riddler and Falcone.
Feel free to rip this theory to shred in the comments below. The Penguin is now streaming on Max.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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