But that makes The Penguin’s plot seem more complicated than it actually is. Oz’s rise to power is portrayed as an elaborately planned heist, but it plays out like a series of reckless break-ins. It starts off promisingly: His attempts to cover up a fatal mistake across Gotham make for a riveting premiere that feels like a one-off comic book. Oz gets a key sidekick in original character Victor Aguilar, played by Rhenzy Feliz with a childish “what have I gotten myself into” face, that will serve him well throughout the series. But it also sets a pace that’s fatal to the rest of the episodes, which plow through every obstacle and undermine all potential conflict with a blunt, violent convenience that kills any tension in the race to fill the power vacuum left by the late crime boss Carmine Falcone.

As a fan of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s fast-paced TV dramedies, I was thrilled to see Falcone’s heirs apparent played by guys who once romanced the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Michael Zegen) and one of the Gilmore Girls (Scott Cohen). And as a fan of The Sopranos who spent a lot of time in The Penguin overanalyzing Oz’s taste in leather jackets and gold chain jewelry, I was pleased to find an actual (if somewhat peripheral) connection to that series in Cristin Milioti, who followed her brief appearance as Catherine Sacrimoni with her portrayal of Falcone’s daughter Sofia. When Milioti uncorks her portrayal of the crime family’s formerly institutionalized black sheep, it’s unlike anything else in The Penguin—her dazzling menace is more reminiscent of something out of Gotham, Adam West’s Batman series, or any other Caped Crusader-esque production that doesn’t take itself so damn seriously. Her unpredictability doesn’t exactly help the Penguin tell his story full throttle and no brakes, but her flashy wardrobe and Milioti’s brash acting skills – her table manners would send a chill down the spine of the fish-eating Penguin played by Danny DeVito in Batman Returns – bring some much-needed color to a depleted Gotham still recovering from the devastation wreaked by the Riddler and his followers.

More than any of its predecessors, The Batman created a setting that felt like a living, breathing city, with residents and institutions that existed and functioned independently of masked vigilantes or their eccentric enemies. While The Penguin is an extension of that world, it also makes Gotham feel smaller by focusing so heavily on a family that, as we now know, is explicitly tied to Matt Reeves’ interpretations of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle. Fine for a depiction of the all-encompassing, unavoidable corruption that defines this big-screen version of Gotham, but somehow it limits the scope of the types of stories that can be told in The Batman Epic Crime Saga. (It’s like Star Wars has a whole galaxy at its disposal, and yet we keep getting movies and TV shows that inevitably lead back to the Skywalkers.) Setting The Penguin in the aftermath of Edward Nashton’s coup de grace helps explain why Bruce doesn’t get involved—he clearly has other things to do—but as the bodies pile up and a new drug called Bliss hits the streets, it’s hard to believe any of this slips under his radar (or sonar?).

Or maybe he just can’t be taught. Aside from Sofia, the Falcones aren’t that compelling, and their internal struggles and tug-of-war with rival Sal Maroni (Clancy Brown) suffer for it. The Penguin props up this mediocre drama with elements from so many true mafia classics: here some shadows and lighting effects borrowed from The Godfather, here the Goodfellas-esque portrait of the gangsters who protected/terrorized Oz’s old neighborhood. But the fact that the theme of Oz’s fondest memories is played by Louis Cancelmi (Sally Bugs from The Irishman) can only help so much.

Characters and relationships are thrown into the rubble too quickly to leave a lasting impression; Oz switches between allies and enemies so ficklely and frequently that we’re never given a chance (or even a good reason) to understand how he’s pitting them against each other in a battle for control of the Bliss trade. The memorized message “crime doesn’t pay” is written on every aggressively toned image of the Penguin, but it only really comes to the fore in Victor’s arc—and even then, we only get one episode midway through the series to see what he sacrifices to be Oz’s right-hand man. As the following episode gives way to an extended flashback to Sofia’s harrowing stay at Arkham State Hospital, I found myself wondering: Is the Penguin wavering because he’s doing too much in such a short time…or is there actually not enough substance in Oz’s Scarface-style rise (and Sofia’s attempt to stop him) to fill eight episodes? The filler that surfaces in later episodes suggests the latter. Oz has his own tragic backstory interlude, a flashback involving his ailing mother Francis (Deirdre O’Connell) that’s full of last-minute revelations that are meant to shock but instead infuriate. (Why keep that kind of information secret from the audience when the characters are probably thinking about it all the time and could have added some much-needed dimension before now?)

The Penguin wants us to see its leads as outsiders—Oz likes to describe them that way—but it constantly takes shortcuts to gain our sympathy. They are broken and discarded people united by their misfortune, which the show literally translates into disabilities and illnesses clumsily implanted into its characterization: Oz’s clubfoot, Sofia’s mental illness, Vic’s stutter, Francis’ Lewy body dementia. None of this offers deeper insights into psychology or personality, but rather gives the actors more work to do on camera—the wobbly gait that contributes to Oz’s hated nickname, for example—and sometimes they seem like attributes that come into play only when the story demands it. At their worst, they’re something to stare at, as in a ghastly close-up of Oz’s gnarled foot.

Attempts to make the most of The Penguin’s limited scope occasionally lead to interesting results: Sofia’s attack on those closest to Oz leads her to the doorstep of his girlfriend Eve, played by Carmen Ejogo, and a wonderfully tense meeting of souls with her. But it also leads to some awkward detours, like the scenes of Sofia’s stay in Arkham – the kind of over-the-top, grimy, through-the-mirror psychodrama that gives the term “cartoonish” a bad name. The problems plaguing the series are brought into sharp relief by the finale, which extends the journey into Oz’s past into a second episode while attempting to land several low blows that fail to land because the people involved didn’t get enough screen time to matter to each other or to us. Without giving anything away, I found the finale extremely disappointing and misguided. The copycat acts reach their lowest point here, with a betrayal that recalls, but doesn’t quite evoke, the quiet devastation of the character deaths in The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. It’s breathtaking for all the wrong reasons. To the bitter end, Oswald Cobb’s ambitions win out over him. Maybe he’ll be better off with someone else’s spinning plates at the center of the picture.