The Penguin Recap: Episode 2 - Inside Man

Ash Walker • 30 Sep 2024 Features

“I’m not safe. I’m home.”

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) may have been released from Arkham Asylum, but that doesn’t mean she’s well - a fact hammered home by the intense therapy session at the opening of this week’s episode.

She’s still traumatised by her brother’s death, still looking to make someone pay. She seems to have accepted the idea that the rival Maroni family was behind Alberto’s murder - an idea fabricated by our ‘hero’, Oz - but soon becomes convinced that the Maronis are working with someone on the Falcone payroll. An inside man.

A rat. Or, more accurately, a Penguin.

Our boy Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell, still unrecognisable), meanwhile, is busy with his own schemes. He once again visits Salvatore Maroni (Clancy Brown) in Blackgate prison, meets some more of the Maroni clan - most notably Sal’s mysterious wife Nadia (Shohreh Aghdashloo) - and spills the beans on the Drops operation being moved out of Gotham.

The plan is simple: the Maronis will hit the convoy, take out the security in the lead car and make off with the FEMA truck being used to transport the goods. Oz, who will be safely ensconced in the follow car, will come through completely unscathed.

Of course it all goes terribly wrong, and Oz once again ends up on the back foot. But, as is quickly becoming obvious in this show, the back foot is where Oz really seems to shine; he’s smart, adaptable and somehow able to turn any situation, no matter how bad, to his own advantage.

Ambition at any cost: it’s what makes Oz such a compelling character to watch - and root for - despite the heinous things he does. It’s also a philosophy that he drills into Victor (Rhenzy Feliz), in typically gruesome fashion, at the end of the episode. But despite his successes so far, and some of them have been a bit touch-and-go, you can’t help but feel like Oz is heading for a fall, and that he might take poor old Victor with him.

The rest of the episode is taken up by Alberto Falcone’s memorial service, and the shenanigans at his wake. Sofia has hired a burnt-out crooked cop to root out the rat within the Falcone ranks, and he proudly delivers a Maroni lieutenant, drugged up and barely alive, to the house - right in the middle of the party.

While Sofia pumps the Maroni goon for information, Oz has his own plans for the poor guy: to deflect attention away from Oz and onto Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly). It’s all very complicated, and it all inevitably goes wrong. The Maroni guy winds up on the pointy end of Oz’s knife and Sofia’s own henchman gets the blame - for the murder and for being the rat.

By the end of the episode, Oz has managed to weasel his way out of another deadly situation and, as an added bonus, now seems to have won the trust of Sofia Falcone. She even suggests they attempt to take control of the Falcone crime family, together.

To paraphrase The Simpsons, everything’s coming up Penguin. But for how long?

Easter Eggs & Comic Connections:

• We get some more nods to Sofia Falcone’s past as the Hangman - most notably that she apparently murdered seven women before being locked up in Arkham. This is a bit of a deviation from her nefarious deeds in the comics, which were purely driven by revenge and targeted at the men who were responsible for her father’s death.
• At Alberto’s memorial there’s a Riddler logo painted on one of the signboards held by the angry crowd - another nod to The Batman and another hint that while Riddler himself is locked up, his followers are still very much out there.
• Sofia’s therapist, Dr Julian Rush (Theo Rossi), isn’t a character that appears in the comics, but as a general rule you should never trust a psychiatrist in the Batman universe - especially one who practises hypnosis. Just look at Scarecrow and Hugo Strange.
• Penguin mentions the Sprang River, a longtime geographical feature of Gotham in the comics. It’s named after Dick Sprang, the wonderfully-monickered artist who is best known for his contributions to the Batman mythos during the Golden Age.

Shout-Outs:

• This week we finally discovered the reason Sofia always wears turtlenecks and scarves - beyond looking fabulous, of course. Turns out she regularly wakes up clawing at her own neck, leaving some nasty scars. Peculiar behaviour for a supposed serial killer… This seems more like something one of the Hangman’s victims might end up doing.
• And speaking of repressed trauma, there were some definite vibes between Sofia and her therapist. Not sure what’s going on there, but very much looking forward to finding out.
• Only one brief scene with Francis Cobb (Deirdre O'Connell) this week, but she’s still angling for the Toxic Mother of the Year award: “If my son is nothing, what does that make me?” Ouch.

Verdict: A bit of a slower-paced episode as we settle into the story and characters, but no less eventful for that. Another great hour of television.

The Penguin airs every Monday at 9pm on Sky Atlantic, and can be streamed from 2am the same day.