The Penguin Series Recasts A Major Character From The Batman

This article contains some spoilers for "The Penguin" episode one.

Whenever a franchise jumps between mediums, from feature films to television or the other way around, a major role being recast becomes par for the course. After all, recastings can happen even if a series isn't jumping mediums, and although some franchises are increasingly attempting to stave off recasting by the use of lookalikes, de-aging, and other digital technologies, there's a reason the old fashioned style of just hiring a new actor to play the same part is still the most valid. Yet perhaps less common is the phenomenon of a new actor being hired to take over the role of a character who, in the narrative of the film or series, has already died.

This posthumous scenario happens to be the case in the new HBO Max series "The Penguin," which is a side-quel and spin-off of Matt Reeves' "The Batman." In Reeves' film, John Turturro played mob boss Carmine Falcone, who it turned out was at the center of so much of the moral and political rot within Gotham City. After his exposure and capture by Batman (Robert Pattinson), the Dark Knight inadvertently led Falcone into the crosshairs of the Riddler (Paul Dano), who executed the gangster on the street outside the Iceberg Lounge club run by Oz/The Penguin (Colin Farrell, who reprises his role in "The Penguin"). Falcone's death doesn't mean that his crimes have ceased, however, as his decades-long grip over Gotham continues to have further consequences and repercussions.

Perhaps that's why there's a new Carmine Falcone in "The Penguin," and while it's sad that Turturro did not return to reprise his role, he's been replaced by an actor of equal intensity and stature: Mark Strong.

The casting in "The Batman" is stellar across the board, so much so that it's kinda difficult to pick an MVP from the roster. Even amongst names like Pattinson, Farrell, Dano, Zoe Kravitz and Jeffrey Wright, Turturro stands out. His Falcone isn't just a generic mafia don existing in the margins of Gotham City; the way Turturro plays him with a quiet dread, it feels like he is a black hole at the heart of the film, amorality personified. To borrow a quote from the more outlandishly evil Max Schreck from "Batman Returns": he is the light of the city, and his is its mean, twisted soul. It's a performance that helps make the rest of the movie make sense, allowing us to believe that such a man could be capable of atrocities which resonate throughout generations and yet remain believably a person.

Given that "The Penguin" takes place mere days after the conclusion of "The Batman," it only follows that the aftereffects of Falcone's life and death would still be rippling around the city. In fact, his children are directly involved in some of those ripples, particularly his son Alberto (Michael Zegen), a blowhard drug addict, and his daughter Sofia (Cristin Milioti), a wild card who's just been released from Arkham Asylum and seems to have Oz's number. While Alberto is put out of his misery by Oz during the first episode's opening moments, it seems Sofia is not going to be dismissed so easily, especially as Oz is deliberately stoking the fires of a gang war power grab between the Falcones and the family which previously held power in the city, the Maronis, led by the still imprisoned Salvatore (Clancy Brown).

As for Mark Strong's Carmine Falcone, he appears via an image on the news. Now, unless there happen to be any Lazarus Pits lurking near Gotham (and we have it on good authority that there are not), Carmine Falcone will not be coming back from the dead anytime soon. However, one doesn't hire Mark Strong to just appear in a still photo on a news broadcast as the character, as he does in the first episode. It seems highly likely that Strong will appear as Falcone in flashbacks at some point during the season. Let's hope he's as strong as the character as Turturro was — pun intended.

"The Penguin" airs on HBO and streams on Max.