The Penguin has come to a dramatic conclusion, as Colin Farrell's Oz Cobb faced off against Cristin Milioti's Sofia Gigante (formerly known as Sofia Falcone) in his pursuit for power in Gotham City.
Picking up after the events of The Batman and the chaos caused by the Riddler, we saw Oz stake his claim for control in the city's criminal underbelly, coming up against various obstacles. But were any of these the Dark Knight himself?
Is Robert Pattinson's Batman in The Penguin?
The short answer is no, Batman isn't in The Penguin, which is something we were aware of going into the show. As our The Penguin review says, "this may make it hard to digest for the more devoted Batman fan, used to the fight between good and evil usually so crucial to this world," but executive producer Reeves and showrunner Lauren Lefranc have their reasons why.
"I’m a point-of-view filmmaker," Reeves told Total Film. "When I’m doing a Batman story, Batman and Bruce is going to be the main point of view. To explore the rogues gallery, they could never get the real estate we can do in a series. So Batman is in this [show] only as a sense that he’s a presence. You’re aware that all of these events began because of the Riddler, but the Riddler doesn’t appear and Batman doesn’t appear… We did talk about all that but we felt the best way to do this was to go on a grand exploration of a guy grabbing for power in this moment."
Meanwhile, Lefranc told SFX, "I understand why people's desire would be to have Batman, or to think that unless Batman's in a show or a film then it doesn't have the same punch. To me I think it packs a different punch. Matt's films are through the lens of the Batman, so you're high up, looking down on the city. It's a different perspective. With Oz, you're in the city streets, you're in the grit and the muck and the grime. He's looking up, wanting to claw his way to the top. So it's a different experience. I think Gotham is an interesting enough city that it deserves to have more doors unlocked within it, and for us to walk through those and see what we think."
However, just because we don't see the Caped Crusader himself doesn't mean there aren't references to him. In fact, the very last shot of the finale looks up to the sky at night, with the Bat-Signal lighting it up. And that's only one of the ways that the series directly sets up upcoming movie sequel The Batman 2.
Interestingly, Reeves also recently told Entertainment Weekly the creative team did actually work on ideas of how to include Pattinson's Batman in the show. One cameo would have seen Bruce Wayne appearing alongside a young Vic, but Reeves says these were all ultimately shelved as "even that ended up throwing things off too much".
All episodes of The Penguin are available to watch now on HBO and Max in the US and NOW in the UK.
For more, check out our guide to The Penguin release schedule, or take a look ahead to the other upcoming DC movies and shows.
