Photo: Macall Polay/HBO
Our sophomore episode of The Penguin puts us through the first real phase of Oz Cobb’s plan to takeover the Falcone Empire. If you’re coming into this thing looking for a quality Sunday-night HBO crime show, the proceedings will prove efficient, if not underbaked. But where “Inside Man” may come off as paying thin gangster-cosplay lip service to its The Sopranos/Boardwalk Empire-baiting HBO time slot, The Penguin continues to make inspired use of the comic-book IP torch it’s been tasked with carrying.
Sofia Falcone is still reeling from her brother’s death and finds herself in a waking nightmare, which is exacerbated by the weird hypnosis therapy administered by Julian Rush, her hot doctor on loan from Arkham. It’s unclear why she’d willingly meet with a shrink from her Arkham days, unless, of course, there’s some benefit to her future — an angle to work on this guy. “You’re safe,” Rush admonishes, but Sofia knows there is no safety when you’re the daughter of an imploding crime family.
Meanwhile, Oz slams a bottle of Pepto in the rain outside Blackgate, prepping his mind (and quivering microbiome) for another tricky meeting with Salvatore Maroni. Sal is already in conference with his wife and current underboss Nadia (Shohreh Aghdashloo) when Oz drops in with his next proposal, and Sal is none too pleased about having his hand forced to take the fall for Alberto’s death. But Sal is openly wearing his ring around the old cell block, and the credit for Alberto’s death is imbuing the Maroni family with a “we’re back, we’re SO back” energy.
With the Maronis in, the plan is simple — Oz acts as an inside man and helps the Maronis’ boost the Drops. The Falcones are moving their Drops to the new locale of operation in Robbinsville via FEMA truck as cover (Drops “sitting pretty” inside barrels of “emergency water”). The route to Robbinsville is a straight shot; no highways, all neighborhoods. The Maroni’s can “waste” everyone in the lead car and truck but leave the follow car be. That’s where Oz is supposed to be safely nestled, except on the night of the move, Johnny Viti demands the Penguin — as he pointedly calls Oz in front of his entire crew — ride in the truck with the product.
This is where some of the seams of this show start to become more pronounced. Then again, so do some of its strengths. On one hand, the mini-action sequence of the Maroni guys crashing the Drop transport, with Oz talking and shooting his way out of the danger zone, is rife with the type of shoddy editing and flat photography that so many IP-friendly, vaguely prestige cable shows seem hellbent to wallow in. On the other, the staging, humor, and cracker-jack characterization at the moment demonstrate how well this show toes the line between grit, pulp, and dark-comic buffoonery, befitting even Batman’s campiest iterations.
After the Maronis’ robbery fails, thanks largely to Oz killing off their men to keep his cover, the Falcones meet up to debrief and find out how the transportation went to shit. Oz is there, too, casting blame on Viti’s route for the hijacking. But Oz didn’t do shit to protect the Drops, Viti argues back. And that’s where Sofie chimes in. Justice is what matters and that is what her brother deserves, she urges. What’s more, there’s clearly a rat in their outfit, working with the Maronis from the inside.
Luca Falcone (Scott Cohen), Carmine’s brother and reigning head of the family, is leading the situation with temperance (or weakness, as it’s received by just about everyone in the room). He ends the meeting and gives Oz and Sofia the cold shoulder. Once dismissed, Oz catches Sofia’s ear and, in barely hushed tones, tells her he’s willing to set aside that whole tying him up naked and almost killing him thing from the last episode if she is. Sofia doesn’t buy it, but she doesn’t seem to suspect Oz of being the rat either. Finally, he points out he owes her for his role in her stay at Arkham with just enough genuine remorse in his voice and eyes to leave a lasting mark on Sofia’s sympathies.
In the meantime, Sofia’s going to make some moves on her own. She starts with Detective Wise — a particularly dependable informant for her father. Wise isn’t having it at first, but a fat stack of bills and a bottle of Drops gets him to listen — Sofia needs to know how the Maronis had the info on their Robbinsville transport, and fast.
The next day, at Alberto’s funeral, Oz finds Sofia and makes one last Hail Mary to get on her good side. This is another chance for Farrell to monologue with the mouth and the eyes in equal measure, cloaking a strategically placed lie inside an emotional flow of truth.
“We didn’t have a service for my brothers. My ma said she didn’t want to deal with the pity,” Oz divulges. Finally, after about a month, Oz’s Mother got herself up and took her little Oswald to a Jazz club on the East Side. “We danced all night. It’s how we celebrated them,” Oz says. “I’d like to think it was me, I don’t know. She died a few years back, I never asked.” The point, other than making Sofia think that Oz’s mother is dead, is it’s “a helluva lot more fun to dance” than to deal with the pain of loss head-on. It’s better to get weird with your feelings and pop off with some strategic, albeit animated, carnage.
Back at the Falcone mansion where the rest of the memorial is being held, Detective Wise brings Sofia a captive Ervad, the Maronis’ capo and point man on the Robbinsville hijacking. He’s sedated, but he’ll talk soon. The only thing to do right now is get him into the basement for safekeeping. Meanwhile, Oz is called in by Nadia Maroni to answer for Ervad’s capture.
Nadia puts the blame for Ervad’s capture on Oz, inflating his position with Luca, but Oz argues this move must be Sofia acting on her own. Oz also manages to demonstrate some additional value with the photos in his jacket pocket of Johnny Viti hooking up with Luca’s wife. (“My JACKET POCKET!” I don’t know why but that delivery had me howling!) Nadia is satisfied enough, but she still wants the Maronis’ man back.
So Oz hatches a new scheme to frame Viti as the rat, tasking Victor with planting the stolen family jewels in Viti’s car while he finds Ervad in the basement and instructs him to drop Viti’s name. Alas, Victor gets caught trying to make the slip and bolts when questioned by Viti’s guard. Oz improvises fast, stabbing Ervad right in the heart so he’s good and dead by the time Sofia and Luca get down to the basement to question him.
Oz now needs someone else to pin as the rat. Castillo (Berto Colon), Sofia’s right-hand man, will do. When all the men are gathered to find out which one killed Ervad, Oz instigates a scuffle with Viti and plants the knife and diamonds on Castillo when he tries to intervene. Sofia demands a gun to shoot Castillo on the spot, but Luca asserts his dominance and shoots Castillo himself before dismissing the room.
Oz’s improvised B-plan works, jewels safely stashed in Castillo’s apartment in time for the Falcones to find them. Now Sofia doesn’t know who she can trust — other than Oz. She’s ready to dance, team up with Oz, and take over the family. The series of events that got her here were entertaining but, again, thin and perfunctory from the vantage point of a solid HBO crime series. It’s an episode strung together with a series of mob-story tropes — some flat, some executed with enough panache to at least be coherent. At the end of it all, it stretches credulity that Sofia would drop her suspicions of Oz quite so easily. But with a twin-inflamed sense of aggrievement secured between Oz and Sofia, we’re well set up for vintage Gotham City folie à deux. Next week: The Penguin and the Hangman take on Gotham’s aging fathers of organized crime!!
Under the Plum Hood
• “If my son’s a nothing, what am I?” says Oz’s mom. I have been and reckon I will continue to be a defender of The Penguin’s broadly drawn elements, but mostly as they serve the show’s mostly successful blend of pulp, grime, and genuine camp as they’ve always co-existed in the Batman oeuvre (in the context of the modern comic-book IP industrial complex, it’s even been easier to forget that DC stands for Detective Comics). Oz’s mom is one of those broadly drawn elements that has me a little worried going into the rest of the series. Deirdre O’Connell is delivering a well-calibrated performance, which undoubtedly plays to the strengths of where Farrell is taking his. But there’s something about their scenes that feel disjointed from the rest of the show, and they don’t add much to the A-story beyond letting you know that Oz is lying about his mom to Sofia. That said, I’m open to something more illuminating between Oz and his ma down the road.
• While we’re on the subject of broadly drawn stuff that doesn’t work, what’s up with the “FALCONES = FASCISTS” protest signs outside Alberto’s funeral? Like, I get that Sofia’s release from Arkham was a little “extra-judicial,” but why would anyone be using the F-word like that?? A small detail but a weird and amusing one nonetheless.
• Though no stranger to taking it on the chin from the bosses, Oz seems to take it out on Victor whenever his ego is hit hardest. After losing the chance to frame Viti, he also suffers the indignity of Viti ordering him to clean up the mess. He forces Victor down in the pit, horizontal and face to face with the fresh corpses of Castillo and Ervad. “Lay down where you belong. You want to survive? You gotta adapt; you gotta be quick. Whatever Carmine threw at me, I delivered on. Every goddamn time! You understand what I’m saying?” Looks like one of the ticking time bombs of this show will be how many of Oz’s trauma-response freakouts Victor will take before his loyalties break another way.
• Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti continue to have a blast with these characters. And while we’re on the subject of elements of this show being fit for Adam West-Batman, can we all just take a moment to appreciate Sofia’s red pantsuit and zebra-print jacket look as she strides into the Falcone family meeting the next day?
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