How ‘The Penguin’ Ending Sets Up ‘The Batman Part 2’ – And Maybe Season 2

Warning: This article contains spoilers from The penguin season finale, “A Big or Little Thing”.

When Batman director Matt Reeves knew what the general story of his sequel to the film would be, he hinted at Lauren LeFranc, showrunner and head writer on the HBO spinoff series The penguin. “I’m always interested,” she says Weekly entertainment. “I’m like, ‘Can I plant something for you? Is there anything I can do to help your film?’ We have the property to do that.”

The penguin‘s grand finale with the season finale episode “A Great or Little Thing” does the most in that regard.

Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), dressed in a tuxedo reminiscent of classic Penguin villain images from DC comics, celebrates his many victories in a penthouse suite. He successfully planted his feet as a kingpin in Gotham’s criminal underworld after a lengthy gang war that claimed many lives; he sentenced his main rival, Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), back to her worst nightmare at Arkham State Hospital; and he now has his ailing mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell), all to himself as she is essentially trapped inside her own unresponsive body, forced to stay in a hospital bed at her insane son’s home.

But the ending signals – quite literally, in fact – that the game is not over. While in her Arkham cell, Sofia receives a letter from Selina Kyle, Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman of Reeves’ Batman. She hopes to connect, acknowledging that they are both half-sisters. Jayme Lawson also reprises her role as Gotham City’s new mayor, Bella Reál, for a brief appearance in the show. Then, in the final shot of the hour, as Oz dances with Eve Karlo (Carmen Ejogo), who is dressed as her mother, the bat signal blazes in the night sky in the distance. Robert Pattinson’s Dark Knight will soon join the fray.

“During the writing of the season, we discussed many times whether or not there could be a crossover that would feel earned,” Reeves tells EW in a separate interview about referencing Pattinson’s Batman. “We tried a few different ideas conceptually, nothing that ever got written in the end, but nothing seemed to gel in a way that felt deserved.” One idea they toyed with was to have Bruce Wayne appear before Vic (Rhenzy Feliz), Oz’s right-hand man. “But even that ended up throwing off too much,” adds the filmmaker.

“We wanted our characters to be the prevailing people that you follow in this show,” explains LeFranc. “Everything that started to detract from it was not servicing the type of show we wanted to make.”

LeFranc knew the ending she wanted from the beginning. “Everything I put in the first episode, I purposefully put where we were going,” she says. LeFranc wanted Oz to ultimately kill Vic, strangling the child to death on a similar park bench where the pair once shared slushies in the premiere (“suicide slushies,” she now calls them). “It’s not about how he kills Vic because he thinks Vic failed him or someone manipulated him,” Reeves notes. “He kills him because he can’t stand that he actually has that closeness with this child because it makes him weak. He’s basically trying to stifle his vulnerability.”

LeFranc also knew she wanted Oz to be the one to drive Sofia back to Arkham as a twisted mirror of his beginning being her driver years earlier. “There are also references in the final scene between Oz and Sofia from conversations they had earlier in the season,” the showrunner points out. As for whether a physical Kravitz cameo was ever in the cards, LeFranc recalls that they never “dug deep” into that scenario. “Fans know they’re half-sisters, so it felt important to acknowledge that in this way and create a potential future,” she notes, “but even more so than finishing Sofia’s arc back in Arkham. She’s in this terrible state in mind, and yet this letter from Selina feels like this glimmer of hope.”

The third element LeFranc knew she wanted early on was for Francis to become her worst nightmare. “We planted the purple dress all season to get that payoff,” LeFranc says of Eve, who now wears the sequined outfit in the finale.

Finally, the showrunner knew she wanted the bat signal to appear at the very end “to launch Matt’s second movie,” she continues. “I really liked the idea of ​​Batman subverting the weird, delusional scenario that Oz created for himself at the end to deserve all his past actions and say, ‘I finally did it.'” And then for us to say, ‘Maybe not’.

Reeves previously confirmed to EW that Oz will be one of the entry points Batman Part IIwhich is scheduled to be filmed next year and hit the big screen on October 2, 2026. “We’re kind of flirting with you at the end to say the story isn’t over,” Reeves says. “The idea that Oz and these characters could be on a collision course at some point with Batman, that’s obviously out there. So we wanted to leave you with a sense of that without overshadowing that this really is the end of the story.”

At the same time, there can just be a reality in which The penguin the series continues with season 2. Reeves acknowledges from the beginning of development that the executives at HBO might want to see more from the show. Now that the cartoon-inspired crime drama maintains an audience on par with The last of us and House of the Dragon (according to Warner Bros. Discovery’s November earnings call to investors), plus the criticism leveled at Farrell and Milioti’s performances, there are talks.

“We have, in a very preliminary way – me, Lauren, (Reeves’ producing partner) Dylan (Clark) and Colin – started talking about what would be the path,” confirms the director. “To me, it’s really important that we earn it. The idea of ​​revisiting means that we have to hold the same bar. I know that none of us want to go back and just do more. We want back and do something awesome. So that’s what we’re talking about now.

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An early report (released after EW’s interviews with Reeves and LeFranc) suggested another spinoff Batman centered around Barry Keoghan’s Joker was considered for the next HBO series. However, a source close to the situation tells EW that this is false. Reeves admits that “there is urgency” in the sense that HBO would clearly love to know what those plans might entail, but says, “I couldn’t tell you what the timeline is yet.”

All he can share at this particular time is, “We’re leaving Oz and (Gotham) in a state where the city is still trying to heal itself from what happened. It’s also a time that you see (with ) what’s going on with Vic and Crown Point, where the town is deeply hurt.As we go into the movie, all of that is still very much the table setting for how we go in (Batman Part II).”