✔️Gangsters

✔️Underworld

✔️Looney Tunes accents (“moidah”)

You can’t make a show more of a Kendra-trap than that.

HBO’s The Penguin hits every damn note.

🚨! SPOILERS AHEAD!🚨

Ok, so from the start we know — thanks to the batman zeitgeist -- that the Penguin is a bad dude.

But the reason I love these types of villain shows (like Joker) is that, if done right, they completely humanize the villains, earning our loyalty even as they either:

1. utterly betray it, or

2. do things so completely horrible that we question why we love them so much.

With the Penguin, whose name is Oswald "Oz” Cobb, we’re presented with this overweight, balding, kinda-greasy guy with a deliciously Looney Tunes Brooklyn/New Joisey accent, who is very obviously a part of the Gotham underworld.

The same under underworld that has recently been rocked by the murder of crime boss Carmine Falcone.

Due in no small part to his appearance and the limp that makes him wobble from side to side like a penguin, you know this guy’s had a rough life.

This is only emphasized when Falcone’s son and heir-apparent mocks him, and Oz—with hardly any change in expression—takes out his gun and shoots the kid dead.

Any good villain must be understandable, if not likeable.

From the moment Oz shoots Falcone for mocking his desire to be remembered for helping people, the writers begin subtly layering the groundwork for empathy.

First there’s the limp and the wonderfully delightful scar that runs from his upper lip, by his nose, and up his face.

Then there’s his desire to be remembered as something more than a piece of shit.

After shooting Falcone Jr, Oz comes upon some teens trying to vandalize his car. He begins shooting again. The only kid who doesn’t escape the barrage is Vic.

Half shitting himself with fear, the kid begs for his life through a severe stutter.

Oz spares him, which was nice of him, but as he is a gangster, we all know it’s only so the kid can help him with Faclone’s body.

And sure enough, as soon as Oz is done with the kid, he tells the kid to turn around.

Vic knows he’s about to be shot and starts pleading for his life. But Oz gestures to the dead body and basically says, “Look, kid, this is for your own good. You don’t wanna be messed up with all this."

So now not only has he spared the kid, but now he's trying to spare him from what might prove to be an even worst fate if they find out Oz killed Falcone Jr.

But the show doesn’t stop there because next, we meet Oz’s mother, who, instead of berating him (thus giving him a reason for his underworld tendencies), she’s his biggest freaking fan!

She supports him and believes in him and even directs him to believe in himself!

Which--get this!--the Penguin then goes and returns the same mothering/mentoring instinct to Vic!

He gives the kid a chance to prove himself, forgives him a mistake, gives him notes! on the mistake, and builds up his self esteem.

So here, in a single hour-long show, we’ve got all these signals that should repel us (underworld, cold blooded murder, would-be child murder), and yet each moment is undercut with moments of care, patience, and restraint.

It’s like you almost have no choice BUT to root for this guy, even though you know what he becomes or what he is already.

God, that’s such good writing!

Hey, if you're like me and you love this kind of villainy and morally gray zone between good, bad, empathy, and revulsion, you might like my free story With Every Deed.

It’s about a woman who strikes a bargain with the devil—only to spend a lifetime learning that the true chains are the ones we forge ourselves 😈

I'm really proud of this one! You can get it here!