The Sopranos Meets Breaking Bad In HBO's 8-Part Crime Thriller Series

Published Sep 5, 2026, 12:15 PM EDT Ben is a Senior Writer on the New TV team at Screen Rant. He graduated from the University of Central Lancashire with a First Class B.A. Degree in English Literature and History. Born and raised in Ireland, Ben has always had a love for storytelling in all forms of media and operates multiple projects under the name Benjamin Blogs. Ben is a comic book writer and podcast host, in addition to his work as an entertainment journalist. He has worked as both a writer and editor for Screen Rant, Collider, and other media outlets across various departments, including features, news, reviews, and interviews. Not all crime dramas are created equal, and many fall short, but HBO's recent release manages to capture a spark that has driven the narrative of some of the best shows this genre has to offer. When considering the crime drama genre, and its presence on TV, it's impossible to talk about this area without referencing spectacular shows like Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad, and David Chase's The Sopranos. Both of these shows feature compelling central characters, a complex and layered narrative that blurs moral lines, and profound acts of evil and villainy that the audience has to wrestle with as they watch the ruthless and often enigmatic leads of these shows continue to charm the audience and walk an invisible line that makes it hard to write them off entirely, at least most of the time. Well, HBO has managed to do it again with The Penguin, but the striking difference about this series has to be the fact that the show exists in the world of superhero and comic book movies, which has proven to be a controversial and divisive space for film and TV. That being said, The Penguin is in another league compared to the wider superhero genre, and delivers the extraordinary storytelling that exists in exemplary shows like those mentioned above. The Penguin Combines Parts Of The Best Crime Dramas On TV Across Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and The Penguin, the central characters of each transform from one end of the show to the other, resulting in each becoming a powerful crime lord. Both Bryan Cranston's Walter White and Colin Farrell's Oz Cobb managed to climb from lowly positions in life to become someone who is feared, while James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano starts out as a high-ranking mobster and goes on to become the man in charge. Each story creates a space for these characters to be vulnerable, open themselves up in a way that most career criminals are never depicted in media, and encourages the audience to see their humanity, while contrasting that with the reality of their more cruel and monstrous selves. In many ways, The Penguin appears to have shifted the focus away from the popular 2022 film where the character debuted, and removed the impossible-to-overshadow hero of Gotham, Batman, in favor of shining the spotlight on a character who appeared to many people in his community as invisible. And then it made him the biggest player in Gotham's bustling crime network. It also expertly wove in subversion and created shocking moments that the audience could not predict, with the finale in particular creating a massive emotional response in anyone who watched it, helping to further emphasize exactly the type of character that seemed so morally grey at times. All of this while setting up another major release, and never feeling like a prequel or a lesser product whose goal was to shift the attention elsewhere. HBO's Superhero Shows Are Lifting The Genre Into The Modern Era While The Penguin also possesses a natural distance from the rapidly growing DCU, as the project exists in the adjacent DC Elseworlds, with this show specifically connecting to Matt Reeves' Batman universe, the series also paved the way for another powerful new series that manages to build on this success with Lanterns. Both The Penguin and Lanterns belong to a larger franchise, and as such, it would be easy for these projects to be consumed by the larger narrative and lose their own focus, resulting in more flimsy characters and a story that feels hollow. But both shows have managed to clearly define their own identity, develop their characters with remarkable depth, and build something that is comparable to the very best of prestige TV. Hopefully, the quality of these shows can keep up, and the future of crime dramas will be able to continue evolving and informing the incredible innovation of shows like The Penguin, creating a better range of shows in the process. Release Date 2024 - 2024-00-00 Showrunner Lauren LeFranc Directors Craig Zobel