‘The Penguin’ Showrunner Breaks Down Finale of HBO Limited Series

SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the last episode of The penguin on HBO.

HBO’s dark tale of the rise of Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot has come to an end, and unsurprisingly, the limited series from Lauren LeFranc has left us with a few burning questions.

Why would such a great character die in the finale?

Will Sofia ever get out of Arkham?

Is Oz’s mother actually ready?

Is Batman about to save the day?

LeFranc provides some answers, along with what to expect in the future from the classic DC villain.

DEADLINE Oz’s decision to kill Victor was so shocking in so many ways. First, he needs allies in this world, especially moving forward. Doesn’t he?

LAUREN LEFRANC I would think so, but Oz doesn’t see it that way. With the gangs, he gets number two to take out their bosses. It is very poignant in his mind. It’s partly Victor’s idea, so it also shows you a lot more about Oz. He hopes that the people under these chiefs will feel indebted to him. It is, in a way, creating his own coalition, one that he might tout as more democratic than it is, but one in which he holds the power.

DEADLINE Did you intend for viewers to end up sympathizing more with Sofia than Oz? We can understand why she turned bad because of the way she was treated, while it just felt like Oz was born damaged to the core.

LEFRANC I try to bring empathy to all the characters I write. It was really important to me, especially in the beginning with Oz, that you really feel for him. Regardless of his terrible decisions, I would never make excuses for him either. I wanted the audience to see who he was out of the gate, and when we unravel him, we see that there’s something a little off about this kid. So many of his choices were to show how desperately he wanted to be with his mother, how an impulsive decision he makes with his brothers becomes quite calculated as time goes on. I think the tragedy there, or the despicable way Oz had so many opportunities to tell someone what was going on with his brothers in the tunnels, is that he never said a word. With Sofia, I see her as the closest thing we have to a hero in our show, although of course she’s not. It was really important to me that we align with Sofia as well, because otherwise I think everyone would be rooting for Oz at the end. And I wanted it to hurt in a way, his rise. That’s largely why I made the fourth episode. I thought it was really important for Sofia to have a full episode where you really got to experience who she was as a character. Some people will align with Oz and some with Sofia. That’s the fun of having complicated characters like this.

DEADLINE Sofia is back in Arkham. Why is Dr. Rush there?

LEFRANC We found out in the fourth episode that he chose to leave of his own free will. He has redeployed himself to be close to her and try to help her this time. When we see her at the end, she’s obviously not in an emotional place where she’s ready to receive it.

DEADLINE Of course we are all looking forward to hearing what was said in that letter from Sofia’s half-sister. I guess we’ll find out in season two?

LEFRANC I don’t know. We don’t have a season two right now and we’ve always been the bridge between the first movie and the second movie. That has always been the goal for this season. So any payoff of something that we’ve established in our show would potentially be in the second movie or deeper after the second movie.

DEADLINE You put the Penguin in tails at the end!

LEFRANC Yes. Colin and I talked a lot about that, about imagining that he was coming from an event of a certain caliber, a certain class, to justify that Oz would be in a penguin-like tuxedo to show that he has achieved a level of power. He’s in a penthouse, but he’s still in the east side of Gotham and Crown Point, and it’s dilapidated and abandoned. So it’s not really the dream he imagined himself. We teased that build throughout the season. It’s an abandoned hotel, and we established it in all of our Gotham skylines throughout the season. It has been our Easter egg.

DEADLINE We ​​saw Oz’s mother cry. So is she still sane?

LEFRANC She is in a vegetative state. What that actually amounts to is a bit unclear medically to many people. She can breathe on her own and she’s alive, but how aware she is of her surroundings is honestly a bit unclear.

DEADLINE Does Eve really love Oz or is she just playing along?

LEFRANC It is a complicated question. I think Eve and Oz have always had this history with each other and in my mind she was his first sexual experience. She is also older. It’s always been important to me that Eve is a little older than Oz. I mean, (actress) Carmen Ejogo looks good, so I don’t know if people really necessarily realized that. There’s this motherly quality that I’ve always tried to instill in her. And yet Oz pays her. His whole thing to me has been that love is transactional. It’s his biggest fear, but it’s something he really abides by. And then when he realizes he can’t get his mother’s love the way he thinks he deserves, and certainly the last time he interacted with his mother – she told him he was the devil – he creates his own delusion with Eve. He pays her to be there with him and tell him everything his mother won’t tell him. Eva is a survivor. Eve has a love for Oz and it is her choice to still be with him.

DEADLINE Did you always know you’d end up with Batman lighting up the sky?

LEFRANC Yes. That’s something we found out early on. It felt like an elegant handover to the film. That was always a conversation that Matt Reeves and I had. Should Batman be on our show or not? I know it became kind of a controversial thing to say he shouldn’t, but it really just felt like it detracted from our grades. Batman takes up a lot of space. So in that regard, it just didn’t feel right for the characters in our show. If Oz has now achieved a level of power where Batman notices him, that’s really what we wanted to convey in the end.

DEADLINE So you’ve basically explained what’s going to happen. There is a movie every now and then, theoretically another season off The penguin if HBO wants it?

LEFRANC I don’t know. Right now, no, we don’t have anything. We’re not really talking about a second season right now. What we’ve always known is that we deliver from the first film. We are the bridge between the first film and the second film. And beyond that, there is nothing I can say that in any way suggests that there is a future or not.

DEADLINE What did you think of Colin’s comments about never wanting to wear those prosthetics again? Did you take him seriously?

LEFRANC First and foremost, Colin is the sweetest, nicest, best number one on a call sheet you could ever wish for. He is of course extremely talented. And what’s so funny to me is that when he told people he was grumpy and complaining, I thought, I’ve never had that experience, and neither has anyone in our crew. He is like a consummate gentleman and handled the makeup chair so gracefully. So I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure he felt a lot of things. I know that Oz as a character becomes very dark psychologically as we unravel him more and more in the show. And Oz as a character has to do some really, really terrible things. It is not an easy thing to inhabit. I certainly felt that as a writer. Writing a guy like Oz, it starts out kind of fun and liberating, and then you think, wow, that’s a very twisted way to live in the dark level for so long. But I know Colin will be in the second movie.