On this very day, two years ago, I sat down for the first episode of The Penguin expecting something good but ended up getting one of the best things HBO streamed in 2024. Initially I wasn't expecting much, and wasn't really interested in watching... I'm a big Batman fan, but Penguin was way down on my list of villains to get excited about. That changed about a month before it began streaming, thanks to an amazing Hall H panel at that year's SDCC (San Diego Comic Con). The Penguin panel was one of the best panels I attended that year. Colin Farrell's transformation was shocking, and I couldn't wait to see more when I made it back home.
"After Hours" went up on HBO and Max on September 19th, 2024. Colin Farrell under all that prosthetic work by Mike Marino as Oz Cobb, Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, Lauren LeFranc running it, spinning out of Matt Reeves' The Batman from 2022.
HBO has yet to order a second season, but they've also never announced that there WON'T be one.
At the 77th Primetime Emmys in September 2025, The Penguin pulled 24 nominations. More than any other limited series that year. It ended up earning nine of them (the Television Academy has the full board).
Eight of the nine came at the Creative Arts ceremony, including Mike Marino's prosthetic work (TVLine has the full list). The makeup, costume and sound people pretty much mopped the floor with the competition!
The ninth Emmy award was the big one. Cristin Milioti won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Sofia. It was her first ever Emmy nomination, and she beat Cate Blanchett, Meghann Fahy, Rashida Jones and Michelle Williams for it.
Colin Farrell lost Lead Actor to Stephen Graham for Adolescence, which took Outstanding Limited Series as well. It was a tough one as he was favored to win going in!
Which is a little odd because Farrell had already won everything else: the Golden Globe in January 2025 and the SAG Award in February. Milioti's year was the complete opposite: she lost the Globe to Jodie Foster and ended up taking the Emmy he was favored for…
Variety reported 5.3 million cross-platform viewers for the premiere across its first four days, and Deadline ran the same figures. Then it kept climbing: 1.4 million on premiere night rising to 2.1 million for the November finale, a series high and 50 percent above where it started (TheWrap tracked the climb). It was third among HBO's current global series behind House of the Dragon and The Last of Us. As I write this it sits at 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes across 211 reviews.
A show that does those numbers, with the cast and crew winning those awards, typically gets a second season. It's a no-brainer.
The issue is that it was never pitched as an ongoing series or returning show. Add to that the fact that the lead wasn't too interested in continuing, and we get what we got… or haven't gotten...
LeFranc has been consistent from the beginning. On the Golden Globes red carpet in January 2025 she told ScreenRant that "we're meant to be a limited series," while leaving the door open for "more stories to tell there, for sure, if we can find the right idea or the right characters." On Deadline's Crew Call podcast that May she shared: "I fully arced everything."
Farrell has been a bit more blunt. Backstage at the SAG Awards in February 2025 he told Variety he had "no deep desire to do it" and was "in no rush," then: "I don't want it. I don't NOT want it." He'd warmed up a bit by this past June, telling People, via ComingSoon, that "could we justify a second or a third season when the first season was as strong as it was? They're the conversations that we still need to have."
Reeves, on the Emmys carpet in September 2025: "We're in discussions. Lauren is thinking hard and we're talking, so we'll see." A full year later that's STILL the latest he's said about season 2… at least that I've been able to find.
HBO boss Casey Bloys, to Variety back in March, talking about HBO Max's UK strategy: "Colin is going to be in the [The Batman Part II] movie. He's got other movies going on... I would say it's certainly complicated, but something everybody involved would like to figure out. I just don't know."
So it boils down to the guy running the network doesn't know. Nothing official has been released. The story they wanted to share is finished. The star is booked out with other projects. And nobody has found a good reason to revisit the characters.
On June 12th, we covered a report that HBO and DC wouldn't be moving forward with season 2, and it's still the biggest Penguin story we've run. That report is ONE post on X from recent controversial scooper Jeff Sneider, who wrote that he'd been told DC and HBO wouldn't move forward and the show "will remain a limited series." No trade ever matched it. HBO has never confirmed or denied it. CBR told readers to take it with a grain of salt at the time, and so far, that seems to be the right call.
One thing to note regarding the timing of it all: Sneider posted that the same day The Batman Part II started principal photography. On Farrell's role in the movie, the actor himself has been the source: he expected five or six scenes when he signed on, and two days before Sneider's post he said it was actually two.
Then on Wednesday, September 9th, Reeves re-upped his overall deal with Warner Bros. Television. Variety broke it: no financial terms, no new titles announced with the deal, one nice quote from Dungey about Reeves and "the psyche of his characters." That was it. Variety's story doesn't mention season 2 anywhere.
Either way, Oz himself is fine. The Batman Part II has been shooting since June 12th, 2026 at Leavesden, with exteriors in Liverpool and Glasgow. Farrell is confirmed back alongside Robert Pattinson, Jeffrey Wright and Andy Serkis, plus Sebastian Stan as Harvey Dent. Reeves moved the movie from October 2027 to February 18th, 2028. And Farrell walked us through the sequel in June and called it "terrifying."
For reasons anybody who watched the finale knows, Milioti probably won't be coming back, and she told us in August whether she'd return for Part II while she was out promoting Buddy.
After two years, here's what's actually confirmed:
- Nine Emmy wins from 24 nominations.
- Oz will appear in The Batman Part II.
- No official word that the show is finished.
- Reeves re-upped with Warner Bros. Television on September 9th, with no season 2 attached.
- The guy who runs HBO said in March that he doesn't know.
The thing that really matters is Colin Farrell deciding whether he wants to continue. Based on his own words he still hasn't decided, and he's the one everybody else is waiting on.
I like the thought of leaving it a limited series and letting it stand on its own. I think it would be nearly impossible for them to match, much less exceed, what they've already done. My worry is that Hollywood doesn't usually work that way, and the sophomore slump is a real thing for most properties.
What do you think? Would you like a second season of The Penguin?
Sound off below!
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