This review contains spoilers for The Penguin episode 8.By the end of the eighth and final episode of The Penguin, Sofia has become a very different person. No longer the morally conflicted daughter of mob boss Carmine Falcone, no longer the patsy sentenced to Arkham for her fathers murder of seven women as the Hangman, she has become Sofia Gigante and she appears to have won the gang war against Salvatore Maroni (now dead) and Oz.So, of course, she monologues, telling a story to Oz and his mother Frances about a trio of birds she saw when she was a little girl. According to Sofia, the mother bird doted on the stronger of the two baby birds, at least until she went away one day and came back to find that the weaker bird had pushed the stronger one out of the nest before it could fly.Of course, Sofia tells this story as part of her psychological game with Oz and Frances, referring to the former killing his brothers and the latter ignoring it. But the story also fits a show called The Penguin, and not just because its about a flightless bird. Because The Penguin ended up being a series in which Cristin Milioti, a lesser-known performer playing an unknown character, ended up pushing the Academy Award-nominated Colin Farrell out of the spotlight.To be clear, this is a good thing. A spinoff series from The Batman about the Penguin always reeked of corporate desperation, of the increasingly pathetic Warner Bros. studio trying to milk whatever it can from its hits to prop up its streaming service HBO Go HBO Max Max. While Colin Farrell absolutely popped as Oz in The Batman, he worked in part because the movie did not ask him to do any emotional heavy lifting. He could waddle and shout and call Batman Mr. Vengance, and it provided a comic book break from a heavy film.But after a few clunky opening episodes, it became clear that showrunner Lauren LeFranc had something more in mind than just the continuing adventures of the Penguin. Instead, she used the opportunity given to an HBO superhero show to make a show about the ability or inability of women to change a world ruined by, but still dominated by, patriarchy. Written by LeFranc and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, the finale A Great or Little Thing brings an end to Sofias failed attempt to break from her fathers ways. She gets a bravado sequence in which burns her fathers house and belongings, staring imperiously while a rocking version ofIn the Pines aka Where Did You Sleep Last Night? plays on the soundtrack.Its framed as a moment of triumph for Sofia, even as it raises questions about her ability to actually break from Carmines model, a model that builds power on the backs of destroyed women. How will Sofia Gigante be different than Carmine Falcone?Turns out, she doesnt have to worry about answering that question, because Oz comes back to seize control. While not quite as overt as Roman Sioniss misogynistic rallying cry at the climax of Birds of Prey, Oz gets all the small gangs to work against Sofia in part because shes a crazy woman. And so, the reign of Sofia Gigante comes to an end after shes betrayed by men, including the cops she thought she had bought, and put back in Arkham, once again Julians control.LeFranc pairs this theme with the culmination of Ozs storyline with Frances. As seen in a flashback, Frances made a deal with old school gangster Rex Calabrese, Ozs hero, to kill the boy and rid her of, in her words, the devil in her house. Instead, she changes her mind at the last second, making Oz promise to give her the high life that she always wanted.The Penguin presents Francess final fate as a EC Comics style twist of fate. According to Oz, he did everything he did for her, including all of the backstabbing and murder and manipulation that we see throughout the series. Thus, she earns an ironic punishment, comatose and trapped in Ozs penthouse, for her callous power grabbing.Of course, Oz didnt really want to do anything to Frances. Instead, he wanted a woman he could control, and Frances was the only one available. Theres something haunting in the final scene, when Oz walks out of his mothers room and into the great room of his new digs to find Eve Karlo dressed as younger Francis (she really is Clayface, it turns out). As the two dance together, she says again and again that she loves him and is proud of him. The real Frances would never say those words, so Oz forced Eve to become a version of Frances he could mold.A Great or Little Thing elegantly brings the two storylines together and pairs their themes. But not everything works so well. The episode doesnt really resolve the wreckage of Sofias bombing the Bliss plant, an explosion small enough that Oz and others survive, despite being right next to it, but large enough to blow a giant hole in the center of Gotham. The explosion does give one last chance for Oz to show off his ability to manipulate, but it feels more like a narrative cul-de-sac that preserves the wreckage of Riddlers attack. By not dealing with the explosion, The Penguin lets those who go into The Batman 2 having only seen the previous movie think that theyre just dealing with another Riddler bomb.Speaking of cul-de-sacs, Vics storyline proves to be a big nothing, as hes strangled by Oz just when he thinks that the two have bonded. The show set up Vic as Ozs foil, another boy forced into a violent system that wouldnt give him a fair shake otherwise. But when Oz suffocates the kid, he proves that he was never like Vic at all. He wasnt a good kid forced into a bad situation. He was just evil.Getzinger holds on the shot of Ozs disgusting, twisted face as he strangles the life out of Vic, making sure everyone knows that hes a monster. But heres the thing: we never really doubted that he was a monster. He never seemed sympathetic, even when the show wanted so badly for Vic to add shades to what was clearly a one-note character.In the end, Victor best represents what The Penguin could have been the show, not the person. The series could have been just more Batman content, devoting way too much time to a character who doesnt have enough depth to carry it. And, to be clear, The Penguin sometimes was that empty series. The entire sequence of Ozs men killing the heads of Gotham families feels like a poor cover of the baptism scene from The Godfather.To the credit of LeFranc and her collaborators, The Penguin proved itself much more. The world didnt need another show about a sad-sack, one dimensional Batman villain, but it did need a show about a woman vying for power that could never be hers. In the end, Im grateful that The Penguin became that show, even if it had to push the Penguin out of the nest to do it.All eight episodes of The Penguin are now streaming on Max.Learn more about Den of Geeks review process and why you can trust our recommendationshere.