‘The Penguin’ Episode 7 “Top Hat” Review: The Evil Precedes

The penultimate episode of The Penguin, episode 7, is finally here and it was a big one. Read our The Penguin episode 7 review below. 

Following what I thought was one of the weakest episodes of the season, it seems we are back. The Penguin is on the verge of being the best DC series to ever air, and if it sticks the landing that the ending of this episode promises, it might just achieve that. 

The Penguin follows Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) as he steals the power away from longstanding mob families the Falcones and the Maronis. His goal pits him against Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) and Salvatore Maroni (Clancy Brown) and soon he must evaluate how far he has ambition ranked over his loved ones. 

As a whole, this episode doesn’t change too much of the status quo outside of the death of an enterprise and a major character. We essentially end where we left off in the last episode, and while many would find this as an issue or as a negative, with the right execution next episode I am absolutely fine with it. It leaves the viewers in the dark and allows us as audience members to theorise what could possibly happen in what is sure to be an explosive finale (no pun intended). 

That being said, not too much happens in this episode. We bounce back between maybe three or four scenes, one set in the past, one in Oz’s cave and the other in the Gigante estate. And as I said above, I don’t necessarily think they are changing the status quo here, it allows for some important context to Francis’ (Deirdre O’Connell) character as well as Oz himself. 

Here the performances take a back seat, at least from the main cast (with Clancy Brown giving his best Mr. Krabs), but the newly introduced flashback cast here does most of the heavy lifting emotionally. We learn the background of the deaths of Jack (Owen Asztalos) and Benny Cobb (Nico Tirozzi) and how that impacted both Oz’s (played by Ryder Allen) and Francis’ (Emily Meade) lives. 

While not too much happens in this episode, The Penguin continues putting out premium comic book content. Through performances from the leads and the flashback cast, this episode is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. 

The Penguin episode 6 stars Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb / The Penguin, Deirdre O’Connell as Francis Cobb, Rhenzy Feliz as Victor Aguilar, Cristin Milioti as Sofia Gigante, Theo Rossi as Julian Rush, and Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni. The episode was directed by Kevin Bray and written by Vladimir Cvetko. It is now streaming on HBO and Max.

Next Up On ‘The Penguin’

Ending the review off on a nitpicky note, surely Batman (Robert Pattinson) must do something regarding the ending of this episode. The rest of the series I can explain away, but here thats a bit much. Hoping we see some payoff of that next episode in that regard. 

The Penguin episode 8 will debut seven days after the release of the third episode, on Sunday, November 10th, 2024, at 9 PM Eastern Time (ET). It will be titled “Great or Little Thing”, and will be directed by Jennifer Getzinger and written by Lauren LeFranc, and will have a runtime of 68 minutes. DC Studios‘ The Penguin is now streaming its first seven episodes on HBO and Max. 

Thanks for reading our The Penguin episode 7 review, for more The Penguin content stay tuned here at Feature First.