Maxance Vincent
Warning: the following article contains spoilers for episode four of The Penguin.
As I told you last week, episode four of The Penguin was most certainly going to develop Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) after it focused on Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz) in episode three. Its episode, titled Cent’Anni, devotes its entire time to what led Sofia to be imprisoned at Arkham State Hospital and be branded as ‘The Hangman.’
Helen Shaver takes directorial reigns from Craig Zobel and brings us back to many years before the events of The Batman when Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) was simply a driver for the Falcone family and is keeping a watchful eye on the alleged heir to Carmine (Mark Strong) once he is out of the picture. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of Strong doing an excellent job with Carmine Falcone after John Turturro brilliantly established the character in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts with Severance, Turturro could not reprise his role in the television series.
In the context of the show, the recasting works. The Carmine we’re seeing is much younger than the one we meet in The Batman and far more manipulative in his relationship with Sofia and Alberto (Michael Zegen) than in the movie. When journalist Summer Gleeson (Nadine Malouf) discovers a series of murders where female victims are strangled and then ‘hanged,’ she turns to Sofia to investigate the connection between them, knowing that her mother also died in the same way.
But the Falcones have a strict policy of not talking to the press, and when Oz realizes that Sofia is talking to a journalist, he tells Carmine what’s going on. The journalist told Sofia that it’s Carmine who is not only suspected of being what the media now refers to as The Hangman but also responsible for her mother’s death. Not believing in these baseless accusations, Sofia tells her father she has complete confidence in him and apologizes for making a mistake. However, instead of forgiving her daughter, he frames her for not only the series of murders but for the one of Summer Gleeson.
We all know that Oz told Carmine not because it was his duty to do so but to gain his trust and climb the ladder. He’s in a vastly different position when we first meet him in The Batman than in this episode, where he’s treated as a Penguin (for his walk and pegleg) and is constantly ignored by the higher-ups of the family. The only person who treats him with respect and humanity is Sofia, whom he throws under the bus at the first opportunity. However, he admits never knowing that this would be her ultimate fate, where a crooked police officer arrests her and is immediately institutionalized in Arkham State Hospital.
Under the care of Doctors Ventris (T. Ryder Smith) and Julian Rush (Theo Rossi), Sofia is subjected to electroshock therapy and attempts to drive her into violence as she’s violently attacked by an inmate who was not shackled and pressured into retaliating by Ventris. Eventually, Rush learns that she has no chance of a fair trial and will always be locked up at Arkham through Ventris’ connection with Carmine. There’s a palpable connection between the two, longing to be explored, but the relationship is undercooked and underwritten.
In fact, we implicitly learn that Rush managed to get Sofia out through Alberto after he quit his profession within Arkham. That’s crucial information that shouldn’t be told subtly. In any event, I look forward to seeing how this relationship, if there is any, develops itself in the last four episodes. But the most interesting aspect of this episode isn’t Sofia’s time at Arkham, even if it leads to a brutally violent conclusion and sees firsthand the psychological shift that occurred, not because she was The Hangman (she’s not), but in Ventris reshaping her into a mentally disturbed individual so unfit that she could never stand trial, or get out.
No, the most intriguing aspect of the episode occurs by its conclusion, in which she not only learns that Oz killed Alberto by way of Nadia Maroni (Shoreh Aghdashloo), but that close members of her family, including Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly) and Luca Falcone (Scott Cohen) signed affidavits that confirmed of Sofia’s disturbed mental state since she was a child. Of course, all of this is untrue, and she decides it’s finally time to stand up for herself and get rid of the people who did not want to help her during her time at Arkham.
In this final scene, we get a true showcase of Milioti’s talents, both in holding our attention during a riveting Cent’Anni toast (hence, the episode title) but in the revelation that she poisoned the entire airways in the Falcone household that KILLS EVERYONE! Wipes out the entire Falcone hierarchy like that. I’ll personally admit to never seeing this coming. However, she did decide to spare Gia (Kenzie Gray) and Johnny. The former is justifiable: she’s a kid, and Sofia thinks her pure heart does not deserve to experience harm at any cost. But why Viti? He’s one of the members who signed the affidavit! Clearly, she needs something from him. What that will be is left in suspension for next week…
The fourth episode of The Penguin is now available to stream on Max.
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