Pennyworth's Politics Are As Boring As Real Politics

I'm sad to report that the 9th episode of Pennyworth has probably turned me off the show for good. 

The first 25 minutes of the 50 minute episode are almost entirely devoted to that cardinal sin of action drama...talking.  And not just talking.  Talking about politics. 

The episode starts by tossing Alfred into the world's weirdest co-ed prison.  It's almost a metaphor for the show.  Then he inexplicably gets out by the graces of the cop he sorta likes.  In what world does a cop have the power to release a convicted murderer from a 7 year prison sentence?  Pennyworth's Britain is indeed the weirdest place on any earth in the multi-verse.

Trouble is that the middle bit between arrest/conviction and release that hinges on Alfred killing some folks is almost a half hour of NOTHING.  Just more talking.  Talking about politics.  Then there's a shooting.  It's a teapot and several cars that apparently can't drive at all if you shoot their radiators, but at least SOMETHING happened. 

Seriously.  This show manages to be insanely weird and is full of great actors and a character who could be among the most interesting in the DC pantheon in the right hands.  Somehow it takes all that and makes it boring.  Boring!  And then there's what they're doing to Alfred's character.

Somehow Alfred has devolved from the hero of the piece to the tool of the rich and powerful, used to commit murder after murder.  Not sure where the showrunners envisioned this one going but one almost gets the feeling that this horse got away from them because the character they're putting on the screen is a damned site far off from the butler to Bruce Wayne that he's supposedly going to eventually become.  I can no longer see a way that they can square this circle.  I buy Alfred as a former S.A.S. super soldier but he just can't have a back story that involves him being a cold blooded murderer for hire.  This Alfred is little better than a  gangland enforcer and that's just not the character I know.

The oddest part of the project is how much effort they put into making Alfred's Britain into a unique and twisted version of the historical Britain we know.  I assumed that would give them a backdrop for bizarre Gotham-esque storylines with fanciful villains and comic book violence.  Instead it's as if they're using it as excuse to make Alfred walk a very dark path that doesn't suit the character.

I'll still watch this one for its weirdness and the tenuous Batman connection.  I just can't see it as the biography of the guy who sews up the bullet holes in Batman's cape when he's not tuning up the Batmobile.  Turns out that "Pennyworth" is Alfred in name only.  Too bad that.