This was a really slow starter for me. I enjoyed The Batman but I wasn’t sure how I’d connect with a show about Oz’ rise as a crime lord. Matt Reeves has created a decent ficton for his Gotham and Batman, but did I really want to spend time caring about “Oz Cobb”? I’d probably still say that Burgess Meredith is “my” Penguin, and that’s almost a completely different character.
That said, the addition of “Vic” to humanize Cobb, and several scenes where Cristin Milioti really chews up the scenery helped to make it interesting. Even though this is another tale where we get Yet Another Origin Story {YAOS(tm)} there is an especially slow burn on revealing aspects of Oz’ character. I knew his mother wasn’t a throwaway character but it takes until the end of the show to really show case Deirdre O’Connell’s acting. And I suppose I really need to mention Colin Farrell’s literal transformation into Oz Cobb/the Penguin. The prosthetics are amazing, but so is Farrell’s accent, use of his eyes, and hand gestures.
It’s hard to care about a villain, but what is interesting is that this world is now a little harder for me to discard for the DCU in its coming phase. I hope there is enough room to see how -this- Gotham plays out.