I'm a bit behind my TV Series mostly because of work related stuff but thanks that's over now and hope I can now concentrate more on pushing some posts, The Penguin series has a lot of great feedback and reception from both critics and the audience, people has been loving this series, I have to confess we have a couple of banger TV Series on 2024.
Bliss", The Penguin Episode 3 remains a solid episode and keeps revealing a dark and thrilling aspect of Gotham City crime, this is further expose on the show by exploring each characters reasons for doing things and their past, especially Victor, Oz’s second in command, I mean its just the two of them. This is another of those episodes where they develop more each character, through out the series I guess we going to get more of this type of episode specially for the main characters and so far we missing Sofia's rewind type of episode, we already got Oz's and Victor's.
We start with a glimpse of the night of Riddler’s attack on Gotham to finally get a view of the carnage from the ground level, from the victims perspective and not just the news. It is a grim dark side perspective revealing the life of Victor before the flood, I say dark because of the aftermath, things were going OK for him before the flood, he has a family whom he loves and a girlfriend whose main aspiration is to free themselves from the neighborhood they live in since she wants something better but nothing fancy. It is important to notice that, in this scene, the effects using water to floods buildings are magnificent; the water floods the buildings in matters of seconds. A very fast and violent scenario how Victor's life change from one second to another, I'm sure we will get other stories like this, goes very well with the rest of the series. The scene is based on the election day, November 5th, a few hours before the Riddler’s seawall bombs explode, notice that campaign flyers for Bella Real are labeled “Real Change” scattered throughout the area, an irony because of what is about to happen. Victor’s family is presented including his mother, father and a sister, with him watching from the front building, gives us an idea of the life that Victor left behind.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15435876/
- Platform: Amazon
In the present we get to see Oz and Sofia still working together as they attempt to take charge of the drug dealing business in the city of Gotham, as they are bringing in a new product known as Bliss, in my opinion the name is a bit weak I was expecting something harder but as Oz mention its a party drug, a powerful stimulant euphoric that is produced from special mushrooms, Bliss as they call it is original from Arkham Asylum, which might mean there is more to the story than just the inmates, the staff of the Asylum and possibly Hugo Strange or Scarecrow, this fact really makes your imagination fly when you know a bit about Batman story from all the movies but specially animated series.
This begins to escalate as Oz and Sofia try to involve the Triads into their business and then meet the crime boss Zhao, Oz is a sleazy corrupt guy who doesn't seem to be in best terms with everyone, the Triads is another example so its not easy for them to jump in with business, kind of the political shenanigans of the series, classic power struggles but specially for Sofia been a Falcone. On this scene we get to watch Sofia and Oz getting closer as they get to the edge of the knife when they lie about their support from the Falcone family and Zhao asks for proof but been Oz the sleek guy he is already had a card in his favor.
Once again Farrell does a great job of expanding the character of Oz and has a way with both the threatening nature of the role and the likeability of course even when he is the liar of the series you still rule for him. He does a great job in this episode of giving us a small taste of what we rarely see of Oz, the softer side, specially during a scene when he goes both soft and hard on Victor. Victor's girlfriend name Graciela shows up back on his life making him rethink his current situation as part of the Falcone family even at the low level he is but still part of a gangster organization, making him wants to go away, after a few kind of childish scenes he finally had to tell Oz one way or another, here is where Oz show him how much he likes him and knows what is to be in that position, he wants no slave just loyalty, its weird this is what he expect been he trying to over throne the Falcone's doing the total opposite but I guess that's is how the game is?
On this episode we also get to watch Sofia and Oz get closer as I mention, he confess it was him ratting her but never thought her father was going to put her in Arkham, its also kind of weird but I'm not sure if Oz actually wants her? this relationship is a love and hate relationship that I guess wont last for long after how this episode ends.
What I think the episode does best is growing the world of Gotham, new factions show up to the scene, such as the Triads and mention other criminal gangs such as the Neon Dragons and the Odessa mob, small touches such as these make this version of Gotham feel fresh and part of the Batman universe, is how Gotham was that much of a success after all the details and characters the series brings to life.
Drug’s connection to Arkham Asylum gives a lot of reasons to doubt who is really behind its production and sale, does Sofia has another partner? besides Oz, I mean Oz is just the connection for distribution. When they start selling Blizz at the club there is a scene where at first I though Victor took some Blizz because he start having all this hallucination but I guess is mainly because of all the stress he is going through rather than taking the drug, a bit confusing scene, eventually I think Victor will fall for the dark side after getting tired of been the good guy and nothing going in his favor, this time he lost his girlfriend and Oz plants the seed making Victor wanting more from life and just take it no matter the consequences.
Something I forgot to mention about the relationship between Oz and Sofia, he was previously Sofia’s driver before she was transferred to Arkham, this makes things a bit complicated for both since they know cant trust each other, both are attempting to outsmart each other even though they have a sort of respect for each other nonetheless.
The most crucial part of the episode is how Victor at the ends decides to stay with Oz in the insane world he lives in, Victor had all the time and money to go away with Graciela even had Oz permission but even though it was his decision and the series wants us to believe he did it because he wanted I don't think it was the case, I think he did it to not get her involve because he knows that one way or another this part of his life can get to them some how, its the classic mob movie where gangster get young guys into the business but then when they know too much they can never get out without loosing their life.
After two great suspense action episodes we get an episode that mostly tell just Victor's story and how he finally accepts what life has put in front of him, this time been part of a gangster organization leaving everything behind, there are still five more episodes to go so I guess we get at least two more episodes that go back in time to provide more context to the story, so far I can't find anything wrong with the series, both the cast and scripts are great add to that the visuals of the city and all the details the series is exposing about Gotham underground business life style.
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