The Penguin is almost at its end but that doesn’t mean the hype is dead, in fact, it’s only getting bigger each week. There are a lot of people watching Warner Bros.’s latest DC series, so many that it keeps breaking its own record.
Episode 7 of The Penguin has once again broken viewership records for the series reaching 1.9 million viewers across platforms in the U.S. on Nov. 2, which is six percent higher than the week prior, per Deadline. What makes this so impressive is the fact that with each episode the audience continues to grow.
To show just how much it has grown since its debut, the first episode of The Penguin has now been watched by more than 16 million people. According to Deadline, that’s an increase of two million since the last time figures for the debut were shared back in October, so it means there’s not just a returning audience, but plenty of newcomers to the series.
It’s not all that surprising to see these figures. The show launched with some hype but it has grown substantially over the run so far as fans and creators have taken to social media urging others to check out the show. With its almost perfect scores on Rotten Tomatoes, we also suspect that audiences just looking for something new could have easily stumbled upon the show given its high regard.
The best thing about The Penguin is that while it is a spin-off of The Batman, you don’t need to have seen the movie to enjoy the show. Since its narrative is self-contained you could easily pick up episode one with no prior knowledge and enjoy the story through to its conclusion.
Another contributor to the series’ success is the fact that each week it has just gotten better. Newer episodes have been filled with twists, emotional storytelling, and a ton of violence in a series that isn’t really action. For those who haven’t seen the show yet, the show is more a drama like The Sopranos than a comic-book action show like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and that’s a good thing.
It’s unclear exactly where The Penguin goes from here. No word of a second season has been shared, and there’s always the possibility that Oz could be folded back into the movie franchise with The Batman 2. Of course, we’ll have a greater idea of what’s coming once the finale airs next Sunday.
Given the trajectory that the series has been on we expect that the final episode will be its largest ever, and very likely could break the viewership milestone it has set with Episode 7. While that would be impressive, all we ask is that the show sticks the landing and concludes with the same high-quality storytelling it has maintained so far. Should you need to catch up or simply refresh your mind before the final episode gets here you can binge through all of The Penguin so far on Max.