Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Pennyworth’ On Epix, Where A Young Alfred Works Security For Bruce Wayne’s Father

A show about Alfred Pennyworth, who most people were introduced to as Bruce Wayne’s longtime butler and protector, would seem to be a step too far in the prequel department. But the way Alfred was portrayed in Gotham made his backstory more interesting; his combat and killing skills are in the elite category, and his history with the Wayne family goes a lot deeper than just serving them tea. So Pennyworth, by the people that brought you Gotham, should be a pretty decent story. Read on to see if it is…

PENNYWORTH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: To the strains of “Paint It Black”, we see a fox hunt: Aristocrats in riding gear, horses, hounds ripping apart a fox.

The Gist: The owner of the estate comes upon a blond woman in a car on his land, who promptly has her thug pull him off his horse and takes him hostage. The woman, Bet Sykes (Paloma Faith), works for a super-secret organization called the Raven Society, whose members are in the highest reaches of the aristocracy and the government. And this particular lord has leaked sensitive information to a financial forensic investigator.

Meanwhile, Alfred Pennyworth (Jack Bannon) has just come home to London from 10 years in he British air service, serving in battle zones where he’s had to kill people in the name of the queen. The time period is unknown, but it looks like it’s the mid-sixties. He still has flashbacks to those kills, which are traumatic, but he keeps a stiff upper lip. His buddies Wallace “Dave Boy” MacDougal (Ryan Fletcher) and Deon “Bazza'” Bashford (Hainsley Lloyd Bennett) are having issues readjusting to civilian life, Alfred wants to start his own security firm. He doesn’t want to be a butler like his dad (Ian Puleston-Davies), even though it’s an honest living.

While being a bouncer at a night club, he gets punched in the nose while helping an American pour his drunk sister into a taxi. The man gives him his card: Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge). When he comes back inside, a dancer named Esme (Emma Corrin) gives him a hankie for his bloody nose. Alfred uses the return of the hankie as an opening to ask her out. They hit it off on their date, where she finds out he killed people and he finds out she wants to be an actor.

Meanwhile, Lord Harwood (Jason Flemyng) a high-up in the Raven Society, gets the name of who the captured aristocrat leaked the information to. To really get the job one he abducts the lord’s illegitimate son and threatens to harm him. The lord gives the name: Thomas Wayne. Harwood’s thugs try to shoot Wayne in his hotel room, but Wayne escapes. Sykes finds the card Alfred gave Wayne that night at the club. Figuring they can get to Wayne via Alfred, Sykes kidnaps Esme, coincidentally right after Esme dumps Alfred after an uncomfortable dinner with his parents.

Alfred, with his air service buddies, find Wayne and manage to infiltrate Harwood’s estate. Despite all the violence, Wayne is impressed with Alfred’s competence and wants to hire him on.

Our Take: Danny Cannon and Bruno Heller, both veterans of Gotham, are at the helm of Pennyworth, and, while the look of the new show is more Sixties mod — and a bit brighter — than the dark Gotham, the storytelling basics are the same. The idea of this show is to tell Alfred’s backstory, a prequel that tells the story of Bruce Wayne’s butler and protector, played by Sean Pertwee in Gotham.

What you shouldn’t expect to see is Cannon and Heller in any hurry to advance the story of Alfred Pennyworth any more than necessary. They make him very young for a reason; they don’t want fans to sit there waiting for Bruce to be born, they just want to show that Alfred was more than just a butler, and his path to becoming a loyal Wayne family employee.

Bannon does a great job playing a skinny, young Alfred who has great confidence in himself and his ability to get himself out of sticky situations with his fighting skills and guile. And Corrin is a great match for Bannon as Esme, whom he finds fascinating because her “posh” accent belies an inner strength that allowed her to hold her own against the likes of Sykes.

Having him eventually join forces with Wayne and fighting against the Raven Society, who is trying to suppress the “depravity” that permeates postwar Britain, makes for an interesting parallel to what we’re going through both in the US and UK now, with the “depravity” only slightly different now than it was then. The look of the show, though, is the Swinging Sixties all the way, even if Alfred and the people he’s up against are a bit more uptight than the people who look and dress more like Austin Powers.

Sex and Skin: We see Alfred and Esme doing some light post-shagging making out, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: After getting a medal from Queen Elizabeth (Jessica Ellerby), who tells him to keep it a secret and hopes he’ll help during “the dark times ahead,” we see someone being led into prison shouting, “I’ll be back! I’ll be baaaaaack!”

Sleeper Star: We like Paloma Faith’s take on Sykes, who is not your average henchman. She spews working-class nicknames for people like “pet” and “love”, and she really loves to dance. But she’s also pure molten evil. Also, Richard Clothier plays a Prime Minister who’s in the pocket of the Raven Society and seems more interested in heroin and young women than being an effective leader.

Most Pilot-y Line: We hate to be the ugly Americans about this, but Alfred’s working-class accent is so thick that he’s hard to understand sometimes.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Pennyworth is a fine prequel to Gotham, and there’s more than enough storytelling room to get the full picture of the guy who we used to just know as Batman’s butler.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Pennyworth on EPIX