The Penguin has eight episodes, and the strongest ones are those that make Gotham’s power struggle feel personal as well as consequential. This ranking weighs each episode’s impact on the story, character development, performances, tension and pacing, and its identity as a standalone hour. The placements are an editorial judgment, not an objective or consensus order.
Season one follows Oswald “Oz” Cobb as he tries to seize control of Gotham’s underworld after Carmine Falcone’s death. Sofia Falcone, the Maroni family, and Oz’s young associate Victor Aguilar shape the conflicts that unfold. The series aired from September 19 to November 10, 2024, with eight episodes in its original order. (TheTVDB’s season-one guide; Apple TV’s series listing)
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Which episode of The Penguin is best?
“A Great or Little Thing,” the finale, takes the top spot. It brings the season’s central struggle for power to its decisive point while giving the story’s character conflicts room to land. “Top Hat” is a close second: its focus on Oz and Sofia makes the personal stakes of their rivalry impossible to separate from the battle for Gotham.
The Penguin episodes ranked
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“A Great or Little Thing” — Episode 8
Original air date: November 10, 2024. The finale earns first place by making the season’s accumulating power plays feel like they have reached a real reckoning. Its strength is not simply that it closes the plot; it brings the conflict between Oz and Sofia into focus and gives the season’s character choices their fullest weight. As the final chapter, it also benefits from everything the earlier episodes have built.
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“Top Hat” — Episode 7
Original air date: November 3, 2024. The penultimate episode ranks highly because it concentrates the rivalry at the heart of the story. Oz’s ambition and Sofia’s position in the Falcone world carry both strategic and emotional force. Placing it just below the finale reflects the difference between escalation and resolution: this episode tightens the spring, while the next releases it.
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“Cent’Anni” — Episode 4
Original air date: October 13, 2024. The season’s midpoint stands out for the way it deepens the Falcone side of the story. With the family’s place in Gotham’s criminal order at stake, the episode gives the power struggle a longer history and a more personal texture. It is a strong example of the series using character context to make its crime drama more than a sequence of tactical moves.
Rank #2
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“Bliss” — Episode 3
Original air date: October 6, 2024. “Bliss” gives the season’s conflict a sharper shape by bringing Oz and Sofia into a drug-trade struggle. That focus makes the episode’s stakes easy to follow even as the larger fight for Gotham remains unsettled. It ranks below the top three because its value is primarily in advancing and clarifying the conflict rather than delivering the same sense of culmination.
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“Gold Summit” — Episode 6
Original air date: October 27, 2024. By this point, Oz’s attempt to navigate Gotham’s rival families has become a contest of leverage as much as force. “Gold Summit” earns its place in the middle of the ranking for the pressure it brings to the season’s shifting alliances and the way it prepares the endgame. Its position reflects a connective strength: it moves the story forward, though it is less self-contained than the episodes above it.
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“Homecoming” — Episode 5
Original air date: October 20, 2024. “Homecoming” keeps the season’s central contest moving and gives the family and underworld conflicts room to intersect. It sits below “Gold Summit” because the latter feels more directly shaped around the season’s tightening power struggle. Still, this is a consequential part of the middle stretch, where the story shifts from establishing competing interests toward pressing them into collision.
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“Inside Man” — Episode 2
Original air date: September 29, 2024. The second episode has the difficult job of turning the opening premise into a working crime story. Oz’s opportunity in the vacuum left by Carmine Falcone’s death starts to take shape as he contends with the Falcone and Maroni families. It ranks lower because it is more concerned with setting the board than changing it, but that groundwork gives later confrontations their stakes.
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“After Hours” — Episode 1
Original air date: September 19, 2024. The opener introduces Oz and the unstable Gotham landscape he hopes to exploit, while bringing Victor Aguilar into the story. It has the essential work of establishing the premise and major players, so its impact is necessarily more introductory than the episodes that follow. At the bottom of this ranking does not mean it is dispensable: it establishes the conditions that make the rest of the season possible.
Episode order and original air dates
The original season chronology runs from September 19 through November 10, 2024. TheTVDB lists the following titles and dates for season one.
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![The Penguin [Blu-ray] [2024] [Region Free]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51URXfhMt2L._SL160_.jpg)
- The Penguin
| Order | Episode | Original air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “After Hours” | September 19, 2024 |
| 2 | “Inside Man” | September 29, 2024 |
| 3 | “Bliss” | October 6, 2024 |
| 4 | “Cent’Anni” | October 13, 2024 |
| 5 | “Homecoming” | October 20, 2024 |
| 6 | “Gold Summit” | October 27, 2024 |
| 7 | “Top Hat” | November 3, 2024 |
| 8 | “A Great or Little Thing” | November 10, 2024 |
Source: TheTVDB, season one. The series is the crime-story continuation connected to The Batman; Apple TV describes it as a story of Oswald Cobb’s quest for power and control in Gotham. (Apple TV)
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