‘The Penguin’ gives the iconic villain a new young protégée

Gotham is expanding. That’s right, the city of crime is getting bigger as The Penguin has waddled its way onto HBO. Thanks to his stand-out performance in Matt Reeves The Batman, Colin Farrell is back under all those prosthetics and wigs, but he isn’t the only character worth focusing on.

Batman is arguably one of DC’s most popular characters. Sorry, Superman, you may be the strongest, but Batman has a bigger fanbase. His story has been told time and time again, from Tim Burton’s goofy take to Christopher Nolan’s gritty, dark trilogy.

Most recently, director Matt Reeves took a stab, handing over the titular role to Robert Pattinson, who absolutely ate it. 2022’s The Batman garnered mixed reactions but did better than anyone expected. Now, thanks to Farrell’s phenomenal performance, we have our first television spin-off with The Penguin.

Who is Victor Aguilar?

The show brings with it a host of new characters, including Victor Aguilar (played by Rhenzy Feliz), an ambitious teenager who has been scraping by as a petty criminal but dreams of bigger things. The teenager, whose last name traces back to the Latin meaning “haunt of eagles,” is taken under Cobb’s wings, who sees much of himself in the young boy. It would seem that in this iteration, the Penguin has beaten Batman to the punch when it comes to having a young sidekick. Aguilar’s from one of the lower-income neighborhoods of Gotham, and thanks to Riddler’s flood which killed his family, he now has no one.

Of the new character, the series’ showrunner Lauren Lefranc told IGN, “I was really interested in a mentor/mentee relationship for Oz. I think in the criminal world, young men are brought up and raised into it, and I think [of] questions of why a kid like Victor would be interested in a world like this.”

Though he doesn’t appear to have the viciousness or strength to survive in Gotham’s criminal underworld, coming across as meek and with a stutter, Aguilar proves himself useful to Cobb. He becomes the Penguin’s driver and protégé. We will have to wait and see if he has the stomach to follow the bloody trail that the Penguin will cleave for him.

The series’ first episode aired on Thursday, Sept. 19, taking audiences back to the streets of Gotham, where violence and mayhem rule. This is especially true given that the series picks up right where the film left off, with a huge flood having devasted the city thanks to the machinations of the Riddler.

Now, with the city in chaos it’s a battle to see who can amass the most power, and crime boss Oz Cobb—otherwise known as the Penguin—will do anything to be at the top.