IN REVIEW: PENNYWORTH: THE ORIGIN OF BATMAN’S BUTLER (S1 – EP10) – Highland Wedding

Synopsis: Wedding bells are ahead in Highland Wedding. But first Alfred has the small matter of a rescue to carry out.

The Story

Picking up from last week. Lullaby has been released on the whole of London via the consumption of Milk and a majority of London as in those that drank the milk have gone completely psycho. Meanwhile, Lucius Fox has been captured by Army General Thursday and has been detained on Level -7, which is the complex where the Army is experimenting on PWEs. Thankfully, just prior to capture he and Bet Sykes are able to get a message out to Alfred.

After somewhat of a spat with Thomas. Martha is able to sweet talk him into letting her and Alfred rescue Lucius and Bet from Level -7. However, all is not well in London as Prime Minister Aziz has taken a dose of Lullaby.

The Acting

Jack Bannon puts in a solid performance as Alfred. The scenes where he proposes to Sandra Onslow (Harriet Slater) at the end of the episode are pure fun. Especially given the chaos that is happening around them. We also get a great performance from Emma Paetz as Martha. I loved the scene where she holds General Thursday at Rifle Point and pretty much promises that she will injure him if pushed. This woman is not to be trifled with. 

Ramon Tikaram is fantastic as Prime Minister Aziz. I loved how he gradually becomes more and more unstable with each phone call that he has with General Thursday. I only hope that he survives the explosion that we saw at the end of the episode. As Aziz is a brilliant character who has been criminally underused in this series.

Overall

Highland Wedding makes a pretty good fist of trying to tie up loads of story threads that have been unraveling throughout this third season.  The plot involving the Lullaby Drug gets kicked down the road to the next season a little bit. As the focus goes more on rescuing Lucius Fox and liberating the PWEs. But that is no bad thing as the implications of what Alfred and Martha do is also setting things up for next season. Especially given the fact that General Thursday ordered an attack on Number 10 because he’d lost patience when dealing with a very unhinged Aziz.

It isn’t all psycho Londoners and property destruction though. Alfred does ask Sandra to marry him. And the wedding does happen to a point. But we get left with a massive cliffhanger that very much depends on whether or not the show will survive for a 4th season. Hopefully, it does. As it’s one of the most fun and unique shows on television.