THE PENGUIN Episode 2 Hits 1.6 Million Viewers - A 17% Increase From Series Premiere

It looks like The Penguin is a confirmed hit for HBO, as the second episode, "Inside Man," attracted 1.6 million viewers when it landed on the Max streaming service on Sunday...

By MarkCassidy - Oct 01, 2024 09:10 AM EST

Filed Under: The Batman

The Penguin appears to be a big hit with fans, as viewers tune in to find out how "Oz Cobb" (Colin Farrell) will dig himself out of a number of potentially lethal situations and establish himself as Gotham's new crime boss.

According to WBD, the series premiere has reached 10.4 million viewers after 11 days, taking The Batman spin-off above all current HBO series except for House of the Dragon and The Last of Us. The second episode hit the Max streaming service on Sunday, attracting 1.6 million viewers - a 17% increase from the premiere.

"Inside Man" saw Oz and Sofia Falcone form a tenuous alliance, as "The Hangman" comes to realize that she will never be taken seriously by the men who currently call the shots.

Actress Cristin Milioti relished the opportunity to play Sofia, especially after missing out on a number of superhero roles in the past.

"There were a couple of them," she tells THR. "I love superhero films, and I’ve tested for a lot of it. If someone my age was in it, I was probably up for it at different levels. Some I made to the final round. And yeah, you do start to think, 'Oh, OK, I guess I’m just not built for that.' And then with this, it felt like, 'I really get this character,' and it felt sort of fate. Whereas the others, I do understand why I didn’t get those. For sure."

What do you make of The Penguin so far? Let us know in the comment section.

The Penguin also stars Rhenzy Feliz (Victor Aguilar), Michael Kelly (Johnny Viti), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Nadia Maroni), Deirdre O’Connell (Francis Cobb), Clancy Brown (Salvatore Maroni), James Madio (Milos Grapa), Scott Cohen (Luca Falcone), Michael Zegen (Alberto Falcone), Carmen Ejogo (Eve Karlo), and Theo Rossi (Dr. Julian Rush).

The eight-episode DC Studios drama series continues The Batman epic crime saga that filmmaker Matt Reeves began with Warner Bros. Pictures’ global blockbuster The Batman, and centers on the character played by Farrell in the film.

The series is executive produced by Matt Reeves, Dylan Clark, Colin Farrell, Lauren LeFranc, who writes and serves as showrunner, Craig Zobel, who directs the first three episodes, and Bill Carraro. Based on characters created for DC by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, the show is produced by Reeves’ 6th & Idaho Productions and Dylan Clark Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, where Reeves and 6th & Idaho are under an overall deal. Daniel Pipski also serves as executive producer.

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38 Comments

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 9:19 AM

Rightfully so. Agatha sucks and this is great

DrReedRichards - 10/1/2024, 9:22 AM

@vectorsigma -

So bitter... Need a drink?

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 9:28 AM

@DrReedRichards - not really. This is a happy post tbh so lets drink to that

WakandanQueen - 10/1/2024, 9:43 AM

@vectorsigma - How is Agatha sucking relevant to the ratings of The Penguin again?

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 10:34 AM

@WakandanQueen - for more clicks and engagement, ask Mark 😂

Itwasme - 10/1/2024, 10:42 AM

@vectorsigma - 9.3mm > 1.2mm right?

Anyway, I would have expected this show to do even better, but I'm glad it's doing well.

WakandanQueen - 10/1/2024, 10:48 AM

@Itwasme - Let's be fair, Agatha pulled 9.3m over 7 days. Penguin pulled ~11m over 10 days I think. Smaller platform. They are performing similarly.

These are the views right out of the gate of ep 2, which debuted Sunday. We still don't have Agatha numbers for this week.

Itwasme - 10/1/2024, 11:14 AM

@WakandanQueen - yep, just noticed that. Thanks for the clarification. I figured Max was going to market Penguine more than they have which is more of the point I was making. I also am curious if Disney doesn't pick up the marketing for Agatha as Halloween approaches. It should get a nice bounce at the end there.

DrReedRichards - 10/1/2024, 9:20 AM

Given this one's success, Gunn might have to reconsider about bringing Battinson into the main DCU's canon, rather than whatever Muschietti's Brave and the Bold turns out to be...

TheVisionary25 - 10/1/2024, 9:28 AM

@DrReedRichards - I would hope being a creative himself that he wouldn’t force Reeves version into a bigger universe that he doesn’t want to be in

DrReedRichards - 10/1/2024, 9:30 AM

@TheVisionary25 -

I'm honestly conflicted about it. On one hand, I get that the tone and world might be contradictory when implemented. But on the other hand, I do believe that the success of Reeve's elseworld story risks overshadowing that of the DCU canon and confusing casual audiences.

TheVisionary25 - 10/1/2024, 9:41 AM

@DrReedRichards - I think we need to give the casual audience more credit atleast in regard to differentiate different versions because they have been able to beforehand I feel

I just think it would be best to have a Batman alongside his world in the DCU that is built from the ground up then forcing this into the DCU.

ItsNotForMeWahh - 10/1/2024, 9:23 AM

Big fan of the world they are expanding on. Colin Farrel does amazing

MarkCassidy - 10/1/2024, 9:28 AM

I'm enjoying this and Agatha, but even if I wasn't, they're both setting out to do completely different things. It's like comparing The Sopranos to Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something.

WakandanQueen - 10/1/2024, 9:45 AM

@MarkCassidy - Kinda getting tired of them being compared, it's not fair for either. Disney+ is a bigger platform, but Penguin is a more recognizeable character and his show is spinning off a film, not another TV series. Yet the very TV series is also part of the biggest franchise in the world. Too many nuances in studying how each is doing. I'd argue it seems both are off to great starts.

slickrickdesigns - 10/1/2024, 9:29 AM

The first episode was ok/meh… I’ll watch the second soon but I’m surprised so many people like boring Batman villain shows.

Agatha is still more entertaining than this at the moment.
Both shows are decent enough to watch though. I just don’t agree with VictorSigmas comment.

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 9:35 AM

@slickrickdesigns - the writing of agatha is all over the place, the horror elements forced and poorly executed.

First episode was good but in no way better than the Penguin imo

JackBurton1 - 10/1/2024, 9:46 AM

@vectorsigma - Well.....viewers would agree with you also.

slickrickdesigns - 10/1/2024, 9:55 AM

@vectorsigma - agree to disagree… Penguin hopefully picks up. Seems like a slow burn but in no way feels like a more entertaining show than Agatha.
If you’re not a Marvel fan I get why you feel that way. But so far Agatha has me more intrigued to see the bigger picture and makes me want to try to solve the mysteries like a murder she wrote or any detective murder mystery show.
Penguin is a show where they’re trying to copy gangster style shows and we already know what will happen it just showing you how it happened… to me that’s like making a Han Solo movie where they reveal how he got his lucky dice.
To each their own.

TheWalkingCuban - 10/1/2024, 9:31 AM

It’s not that I’m not interested in it, but I’m not watching it anytime soon, I don’t feel like adding Max back on my phone and bills again right now. As for Agatha, that’s probably going to be a never.

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 9:38 AM

@TheWalkingCuban - avoid it like the plague, you wont miss anything. They sing to execute an encantation and the writing is bad

HashTagSwagg - 10/1/2024, 9:46 AM

WakandanQueen - 10/1/2024, 9:48 AM

Saw all the comments being about Agatha and the show ain't even mentioned in the article... that show is living in some people's heads rent free.

Anyway, will binge this once it's over, love what I'm hearing.

FireandBlood - 10/1/2024, 9:59 AM

@WakandanQueen - That’s just @vectorsigma. He’s just a very, very insecure DC fanboy who knows 9/10, Marvel’s putting out better content.

Agatha is good. Not Penguin good, but way better than it had any right to be. But because he knows people are enjoying that show, he’s going to try piss on its parade any opportunity he can. Just like he does everything Marvel.

TheVisionary25 - 10/1/2024, 10:02 AM

@WakandanQueen - those people are morons

Instead of celebrating the fact we have 2 positively received comic book shows running together , they can’t help but pit them against each other

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 10:45 AM

@FireandBlood - "Marvel putting out better content"

A few years ago, maybe.

Tell me again why is it good aside from "it is enjoyable"

Ill tell you why it is bad

- poor writing. When the audience is reminded on back to back episodes why these witches are joining the coven, you begin to question the show as it assumes you are dumb to forget them right away

They try to also hype up that death scene to build some sort of compelling drama that the witches road is dangerous when the one who died was written campuly and the audience wont bother to care as everyone has poor character development

- bad production value. The horror elements are badly executed, you wont feel any sense of dread or scare from these apparations. The pracrical and special effects look cheap.

- the marvel way of hyping things up, like that dumb Mephisto namedrop and rumors of Death and Wanda kid to make the fanboys recall their d&w giddyness once again

- tbf i find the first episode good

FireandBlood - 10/1/2024, 10:55 AM

@vectorsigma - You get giddy about a movie you’ve never seen that’s already shown to have reasonably bad production values e.g. all those shitty costumes. Surely you wouldn’t begrudge a bunch of fans that actually enjoy content they’ve actually seen to enjoy? 😂

And in the last few years, DC released 1 good movie out of 6, and that was The Batman. In that time, Marvel’s dropped NWH, D&W, Wakanda Forever and GOTG 3. Shit, even DS2 was better than all those dog shit DCEU films.

DC’s output sucks runny shit and you know it, that’s why you’ve got this chip on your shoulder.

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 11:01 AM

@FireandBlood - i just agreed and said "a few years ago" right? Why tue need to enumerate, lolz 😂

You know what, i rarely go to youtube. And in those rare occassions it happened to suggest a video (due to my usage ofc) of stupid youtubers criticizing the Superman costume.

I thought to myself, "so that's where those people at cbm got their influencer fix about it"

Tbh, i never cared for costumes. If you guys are happy with a grown ass man wearing a bright yellow spandex crying his heart out, be my guest.

FireandBlood - 10/1/2024, 11:08 AM

@vectorsigma - The movie you’re going crazy for has its lead wearing bright red briefs over a bright blue motorcycle suit. Glass houses, buddy.

And you care. You just have to pretend like you don’t, because you know like we all do, those costumes are diarrhoea out of a dogs ass.

FireandBlood - 10/1/2024, 10:04 AM

Gunn’s DCU is in trouble. The same type of trouble Snyder’s DCEU would’ve been if Nolan’s Batman was running alongside it concurrently, because what Reeves is doing is hitting way too much for audiences to just start embracing something else entirely.

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 10:50 AM

@FireandBlood - the man has a plan. He can always use the Elseworlds card. The general audience will not care anyway as long as things are well written and produced. Add marketing as well.

The fact this is starting to be a great show signifies how DC is starting to gain that momentum through good creative hires

FireandBlood - 10/1/2024, 10:59 AM

@vectorsigma - You keep telling yourself that 😂

What’s funny is, Gunn wanted Reeves on board and he said

vectorsigma - 10/1/2024, 11:04 AM

@FireandBlood - isnt it obvious that the look and feel of Reeve's work is different from Gunn? Why would he tey to incorporate that? But tbf, i am outdated if such news came out

FireandBlood - 10/1/2024, 11:17 AM

@vectorsigma - Because it’s the only successful DC project in half a decade. And this is old news. They offered both Phillips and Reeves the job before Gunn, then when the job eventually got passed to Gunn, Reeves passed on working with Gunn.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/12/16/matt-reeves-didnt-want-robert-pattinsons-batman-in-james-gunns-dcu/

And unfortunately for Gunn, Penguin just gave Reeves even more clout. He’ll do what he wants now, while Gunn plays second fiddle with characters he’s “in charge” of. 😂

Forthas - 10/1/2024, 10:17 AM

Dramatic character driven stories is what Warner Brothers is good at doing. By grounding these comic book films they can bring them to a place where they can focus more on those aspects. While I would love and would rather have a full on DC universe with the Dark Knight Trilogy and Man of Steel as the starting point at this point they wasted their resources on the upcoming Superman film and given it to a slapstick director so for the time being I would just be fine with a Batman centric universe just set in or around Gotham city.

TheVisionary25 - 10/1/2024, 10:18 AM

Man it’s kinda surprising (pleasantly so though) that a Penguin tv series of all things on HBO is successful lol , truly crazy times we live in.

Anyway I did like the episode , maybe not as strong as the premiere but a nice continuation of the story…

It’s fun to see Oz be boots on the ground and play both sides in a bid to ultimately become the true kingpin of Gotham!!.

The entire cast is doing well but Colin Farrell and Cristin Miloti are truly the standouts!!.

Forthas - 10/1/2024, 10:45 AM

Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone...

FireandBlood - 10/1/2024, 11:00 AM

@Forthas - Absolutely smoking 👌😮‍💨

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THE PENGUIN Episode 2 Hits 1.6 Million Viewers - A 17% Increase From Series Premiere

It looks like The Penguin is a confirmed hit for HBO, as the second episode, "Inside Man," attracted 1.6 million viewers when it landed on the Max streaming service on Sunday...

THE BATMAN: Robert Pattinson Could Become DCU's Dark Knight As David Zaslav Pushes For More Batman

THE PENGUIN Episode 3 Preview And Featurette Released; Will THE BATMAN Sequel Adapt "No Man's Land"?