The Penguin was never going to be a redemption story. Showrunner Lauren LeFranc knew that when she signed on to helm the HBO spinoff of The Batman centered around Colin Farrell’s low-level mob enforcer, Oz Cobb. Oz was grasping, he was ambitious, and he was more than a little pathetic — but he was never an anti-hero, despite the obvious influences of anti-hero crime dramas like The Sopranos.
“That was really appealing to me that he was more of an underdog,” LeFranc tells Inverse. “I started to ask myself what that actually looked like and how we could empathize and connect with a guy like Oz. I've never wanted to pull punches. I don't want you necessarily to think that he's a good man and he's certainly no hero.”
