By taking Sofia to Arkham Asylum in the latest episode, The Penguin does more than ensure Cristin Milioti gets an Emmy nomination. It also sheds some light on a canceled DC project.
Spoiler alert: The following article contains spoilers for episode 4 of The Penguin, “Cent’anni.”
After the third episode of The Penguin ends with the series most vicious cliffhanger yet, episode 4 takes us back to before Sofia was committed to Arkham Asylum. So far, the series has been giving the audience hints Sofia might not be the Hangman, a serial killer with a penchant for strangling sex workers. Episode 4 explains the whole affair by showing how Sofia has taken the fall for her father, Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong). What’s worse, Carmine only manages to commit Sofia to Arkham Asylum and drag her name in the mud because he had the support of her whole family.
While “Cent’anni” helps us understand Sofia’s motivations, it also gives us a glimpse inside Arkham Asylum. The mental health institution is the place where Batman’s insane foes are kept and theoretically rehabilitated. However, the unsanitary conditions of the place might explain why the Dark Knight’s rogues also return to a life of crime. In her ten years inside Arkham Asylum, Sofia was physically and mentally abused, restrained by a corrupt administration, fed only slop, and exposed to other dangerous inmates that forced her to take violent measures to survive. How can anyone expect to improve their mental health in such a place?
With one episode, The Penguin has demonstrated how emotionally challenging a story inside Arkham Asylum can be. That might explain why Matt Reeves scrapped his Arkham Asylum series, one of the first spinoffs he conceived after The Batman. Yet, The Penguin’s latest episode also makes an exceptional case for reviving the project.
The Penguin shows how an Arkham Asylum TV show can work
Parallel to The Penguin, Reeves came out of The Batman’s production thinking about a TV show set one year before the movie’s events and focused on the Gotham City Police Department. Reeves later revealed that the concept had evolved into an Arkham Asylum series, shifting the focus to Batman’s villains. Considering the Joker (Barry Keoghan) is locked away in Arkham Asylum during the events of The Batman, this show could give us a glimpse of the Dark Knight’s actions in the year before his fateful encounter with the Riddler (Paul Dano).
The project took an exciting turn when Antonio Campos, creator of The Staircase, was announced as developing the Arkham series. James Gunn later confirmed that the show had been grandfathered into the new DC Universe (DCU), separating it from Robert Pattinson’s Batman continuity.
Initially, moving the Arkham series to the DCU seemed like a great idea. Reeves’ Bat-verse is so grounded that it would be hard to explore more comic-booky villains, such as Poison Ivy or Killer Croc. However, now that The Penguin gave us a taste of what a grounded Arkham Asylum may look like, maybe they should also find a way to explore more of the institution in Reeves’ canon. Heck, the episode even includes Magpie, an obscure DC character, so it would be nice to use Arkham to give some D-listers the spotlight.
The DCU is juggling many projects, and we haven’t heard a word about the Arkham series anymore. So, there’s no way to know if the project is even moving forward. Considering the fantastic critical reception of The Penguin, maybe it would be wise to give Arkham Asylum back to Matt Reeves.
