“The Penguin” continues to be frighteningly great – and full of surprises

Last week's episode The penguin featured a truly touching moment between Colin Farrell's Oz and Cristin Milioti's Sofia Falcone. “How can I trust you?” she asks him after they make a deal with the Triad gangs. We learn that he is the one who reported her a year ago – out of concern for her, as he points out – and ultimately sent her to Arkham Asylum. With tears in his eyes, he tells her how much he cares about her. How can she trust him? “Let me continue to show you how it’s done,” he says.

And then the Maronis show up with squealing tires. They think Oz has betrayed them and it's time to pay the piper, but before they execute them, Nadia Maroni reveals the truth: Oz killed Sofia's brother Alberto. It's kind of an amazing moment. One second, with tears in his eyes, Oz is telling Sofia how much he cares for her, and she's clearly thinking to herself, “Okay, maybe I can learn to trust him again,” and the next moment, the whole awful truth brought to light. Talk about whiplash! It's rare to see something like this on television, where such a big reveal follows a touching character moment so quickly.

Victor (Rhenzy Feliz), who ran away after a fight with Oz at the beginning of the episode, reappears just in time and rams one of the Maroni gunmen with Oz's purple Maserati. Last week we actually didn't see Maroni talk about Oz's betrayal, and when he gets in the car and asks Victor “What about Sofia?” and Oz says “Leave her!” it's a bit of a shock. It makes more sense when we see the scene play out again this week.

And then we see the true extent of Sofia's betrayal and what Oz did to her when he told her father that she had met with a reporter. I don't think he wanted to get her into that much trouble, but he certainly doesn't feel the kind of remorse that you or I would feel if we had screwed over an innocent person so badly. We also learn how vile, evil and despicable Sofia's father, Carmine Falcone, really is. When she finds out that he has almost certainly murdered a number of working girls in the same way he almost certainly murdered his wife Sofia and Alberto's mother, she confronts him about it.

Within hours he accuses her of the murders, has her locked up in Arkham Asylum and throws away the key. If she wasn't crazy before, a decade of torture, drugs, electrotherapy, and worse is certainly helping her lose her mind. Isolated and alone, only her brother shows up to help her, and assistant psychiatrist Julian Rush, who helps her, but possibly only because he wants to put her to bed. Her only “friend” in Arkham is Magpie, but she finds out that she works for Dr. Ventris works and beats her to death. “I told you I was innocent!” She yells at Ventris as he looks on, grinning.

It is only after her father's death that Sofia is freed from her torment and returns to a mafia family that would prefer her to remain imprisoned and a dead brother thanks to Oz. The only family that cared for her or tried to help her was taken away from her the moment she was released. I admit, this really changes my perspective on our titular hero. I had a lot more sympathy for the Penguin when he killed Alberto – the smug idiot – and then took Victor under his wing than I do at the end of this episode, when we see what a cunning, ruthless opportunist he really is. Given what we know now, it's no wonder Alberto was so smug and haughty towards Oz.

After this latest humiliation, Sofia has had enough of everything and everyone. Her old doctor, Julian Rush, picks her up from the club and takes her home, and even he tells her that she needs a fresh start, so she goes to her Uncle Lucas and kills everyone there, from her cousins ​​to hers Uncle, with carbon monoxide. She only spares two people: her niece Gia Viti and the family underboss Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly). I'm not sure why she spared him. She and Oz blackmailed Johnny into helping them with the Triad, but now that Luca is dead, that blackmail is ineffective and he strikes me as more of a threat than an asset. I'm sure Sofia has a plan!

This was a bottle episode, but an important one. Expanding Sofia's story adds important layers to her character and makes her much more likeable, as we know that she wasn't actually the executioner, but was framed by her own father – a serial killer mafia boss who is far more evil and sadistic was we noticed. Expanding Sofia's story and fleshing out her character casts Oz in a new light, making him even more complicated and less likeable, just when we were starting to think he might be a gangster with a heart of gold thanks to his weakness for the weak and oppressed the weak.

I continue to be pleasantly surprised The penguin This is better than it has any right to be, with strong characters, solid writing and just the right amount of twists to keep us on our toes without overdoing it. Colin Farrell is great, but the dark horse here is Cristin Milioti, who gave us a truly phenomenal performance in this episode as she battled the horrors of Arkham, survived them, and made it out the other side.

I know who I'm rooting for right now – they better not give us another “shocking twist” by revealing that she was actually the executioner all along and was just so crazy she didn't even notice. I mean, that could be cool, I guess, but since I've already brought it up, I feel like it would be a little too obvious. We'll see.

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