I watched The Penguin for the plot.
The plot:
Hallelujah, our savior has arrived. It only took thirty-two years, but the spiritual successor to Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle has finally emerged. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Cristin Milioti, as Sofia Falcone.
In the recent HBO series The Penguin, my new crush Cristin Milioti crafted a brilliant character study of a woman driven to villainy by two important men in her life. Not unlike Selina in Batman Returns (1992), who was victimized by a man in power, Sofia sees her seemingly idyllic life shattered when she begins to suspect her crime boss father had her mother killed when Sofia was a child. To stop her pursuit of the truth, Sofia’s father then frames her for murder. After this devastating betrayal, followed by a harrowing stint in Arkham Asylum, Sofia emerges traumatized but resolute. While she was away her father was killed, and now she’ll stop at nothing to take control of Gotham City’s underworld.
In a way, The Penguin is about monsters, those born and those made. Towards the end of the series—SPOILER—the titular character, Oswald “Oz” Cobb, is revealed to be a true, natural born monster. His sociopathy is chilling. Sofia’s transformation into a ruthless crime boss and killer is always suffused with an aching humanity—no matter how dark Sofia turns, we always see at least a hint of the traumatized child that still lives inside of her.
Selina Kyle and Sofia Falcone have much in common, They share origin stories shaped by mistreatment at the hands of men in their lives. Both women are basically left for dead—Selina, quite literally; Sofia, left rotting in Arkham—only to rise from the ashes and begin laying waste to any and everyone who wrongs them. These juicy roles allow Pfeiffer and Milioti to deliver unforgettable, scorched-earth performances. Their ferocious feminine powers are intoxicating and absolute majestic to behold.
Milioti’s recent Emmy nomination for The Penguin is well deserved. Even though Colin Farrell is quite good as the Penguin, Miliot still steals the entire series out from under him every time she appears. Even when she’s offscreen her impact looms large. It’s the sort of stunning, funny, scary tour-de-force work that Michelle Pfeiffer delivered in her Batman universe film. I don’t compare many to Michelle’s brilliance, but Cristin Milioti deserves to be mentioned in the same company for this performance. Milioti has expressed a longtime love for Batman and, specifically, for Pfeiffer’s iconic performance as Catwoman. With her similarly electrifying performance in The Penguin, Milioti has made a rabid fan for life out of this Pfeiffer pfan.
The Starfire Lounge 
I always imagined an alternative take of Batman Returns where Selina was Max’s real or step-daughter, and she had been motivated to bring Max down by uncovering what he’d done to her mother. Maybe Chip was her step-brother, and Max had married Selina’s mother to get hold of her family’s money and pass the wealth instead to his own son.
Of course, I’m happy with the story we ended up with, in which Selina is instead an ‘underling’ of Shreck’s who’s killed as much for classist reasons as misogynist ones (i.e. “I can get away with killing this ‘lowly’ secretary cos no-one will notice she’s gone”), but I could hypothetically see Michelle playing this woman of privilege who’s then brought down and gaslit by a greedy man who wants to steal everything that once belonged to her.
Also, it’s interesting to note the parallels between Sofia Falcone, and her half-sister, Matt Reeves’ version of Selina Kyle (played by Zoë Kravitz). Both of their mothers were killed by Falcone, the man who connects the two young women.
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