The Penguin Episode 5 features a cameo appearance from a pivotal character we met in The Batman (2022), and a lot of fans may have missed it! Episode 5 of The Penguin “Homecoming” had to deal with the game-changing twist of Episode 4 (SPOILERS!) that saw Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) murder nearly all of her crime family in a bid to seize power. Well, The Penguin treats the death of the Falcone family with the gravitas it deserves – meaning the Gotham City Police Department shows up in force to deal with it.
The Penguin Episode 5 Brings Back The Batman’s Chief Bock
Matt Reeves’ movie made it clear that Batman (Robert Pattinson) has a pretty uneasy relationship with the GCPD. While Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) treated Batman as an ally and fellow detective, his superior Chief Mackenzie Bock (Con O’Neill) was vehemently opposed to the masked vigilante being involved with a police investigation.
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Bock only got the spotlight for a couple of scenes in The Batman; he’s primarily featured in the sequence after The Riddler blows up D.A. Gil Colson during Mayor Don Mitchell Jr.’s funeral. Batman is knocked unconscious by the explosion and taken to police headquarters; he wakes up to Bock, Gordon, and a gang of cops surrounding him, and immediately gets into it with Bock, who accuses Batman of having Colson’s blood on his hands. Bock and Gordon get into it a bit when Gordon steps up to defend Batman, but the chief ultimately lets Gordon talk to Batman one-on-one – which sets up Bruce to make a wild escape off the roof with this flight suit. By the end of The Riddler’s attack, Chief Mackenzie is one of the noble city officials left holding together a city that’s literally drowning.
The Penguin Episode 5 conveys a lot of history (and some great onscreen chemistry) with Chief Bock’s cameo. The policeman comes to the Falcone estate to personally supervise the crime scene and investigation – interest that Sofia Falcone weaponized against him. Bock goes fishing for a lead, questioning the “luck” that Sofia wasn’t in the house when the “accident” happened, because she was having a sleepover with her niece Gia in the greenhouse. Sofia easily dodges that hook and throws out her line of inquiry about what Bock is doing there – prying into his motivation to come and survey the demise of her family and the fall of their criminal organization. Sofia gets even darker, suggesting that Bock is secretly so pleased with the deaths that he and his officers will share photos of the crime scene and celebrate at their cop bar – before selling the gruesome images to the press. Bock doesn’t bite the bait either, leaving Sofia with sarcastic condolences before departing.
The Penguin continues to do a precise job of peppering in tie-in elements and unexpected character cameos that remind us the show is set in The Batman Universe and is reacting to events and mythology established in the first film. It manages to achieve that immersive effect without shoehorning heavy-handed name-drops or callback exposition, and (so far) the show has managed to feel relevant and interesting without having an appearance from Batman himself. If the back half of the season keeps that trend intact, Penguin will stand as a shining example of how to do these franchise universe spinoffs right in a TV format.
The Penguin airs Sunday nights on HBO and streams on Max.