‘The Penguin’ Episode Seven Recap: “Top Hat”

Warning: The following article contains major spoilers for episode seven of The Penguin.

With such a potent cliffhanger ending in the sixth episode of The Penguin, it was clearer-than-clear that audiences weren’t going to have the satisfaction of what would happen next at the top of this week’s episode, titled Top Hat. Instead, director Kevin Bray and writer Vladimir Cvetko pull back the curtain on Oz Cobb’s (Colin Farrell) past and the relationship he always had with his mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell).

It instead opens up with a prolonged flashback sequence where the younger version of Oz (played by Ryder Allen) has a very close relationship with her mother (played by Emily Meade), so close that he will commit an unforgivable act to ensure she will always devote her entire attention to him. We open the episode by seeing how much attention she gives to his brothers, Jack (Owen Asztalos) and Benny (Nico Tirozzi), who seem to have developed a sense of trust further than Oz.

Because of this, Oz can now do something his mind has likely been boiling for some time but has never dared to do. With his leg, it’s hard for him to develop connections with humans other than his protective mom and his forced relationship with his siblings. But his brothers don’t treat him as an equal, as illustrated in the fateful scene where they play hide and seek and hide inside an overflow sewer tunnel. The brothers know Oz will never be able to climb down the (wet) ladder with his leg and purposefully hide there to spite him.

What they don’t know, however, is that instead of cowering in fear and being mocked at, he decides to close the door to teach them a lesson. There’s one problem: the door does not open from the inside of the room to prevent the water from leaking out. As a result, the two are left to die while Oz comfortably watches Mark Sandrich’s Top Hat (ergo, the episode’s title) with his mother. Some have described this scene as ‘unnecessary,’ but it may be the most revelatory moment of the entire series so far. Oz has always been like this, and only because he loves his mother too much. It’s a sick and twisted affair, but everything he does is to ensure she’s impressed by his accomplishments and not so much by the reward such power can bring him.

We then cut to the present day, where Sofia (Cristin Milioti) has successfully abducted Francis and left Victor (Rhenzy Feliz) with a severe injury. Oz awakens Victor and tells him to contact Feng Zhao (François Chau) and the other gangs to plan an offensive against Sofia and Salvatore Maroni (Clancy Brown). Before long, Sal breaks into the apartment at Crown Point and kidnaps Oz, asking to lead him to their Bliss operation.

Arrived there, Sal tells the workers that Bliss will now be controlled by the Gigante-Maroni family, which causes an improvised ambush by one of Oz’s men. This leads to a one-on-one fistfight between Sal and Oz but abruptly ends when Maroni suffers a heart attack and dies. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting this to occur as much as Oz, who yells a well-timed “What the fuck?!?” but ensures he says to Salvatore that he beat him before he draws his last breath and gets repeatedly shot by The Penguin. It has now made his plan much easier to return his mother from Sofia’s hands.

However, as Sofia spends time with Francis, something changes within her. This is also exacerbated through a conversation she has with her cousin Gia Viti (Kenzie Gray), the sole survivor of the gas leak caused by Sofia. Seeing the pain she is now suffering from the death of her mother, Sofia becomes disillusioned with the idea of climbing the throne of her father (Mark Strong) and inflicting pain on Oz, especially when she finds out how Francis is suffering from dementia and has difficulty remembering the past.

But when Dr. Julian Rush (Theo Rossi) reminds her why she’s doing what she’s doing, she goes through with her plan and explodes Oz’s Bliss base, killing everyone but The Penguin, who successfully escaped. But it has now created a massive hole in Crown Point and caused enormous casualties. Oz is knocked out and will likely reunite with his mother next week. How he will crawl out on top of this situation remains to be seen…but this will inevitably be how The Penguin ends.

The seventh episode of The Penguin is now available to stream on Max.