Diksha Sundriyal
The eighth and final episode of HBO’s ‘The Penguin’ puts Sofia and Oz against each other in a final battle that will decide the fate of Gotham. The events unfold with many twists and turns, making it impossible to guess who is going to win the war. Even when it all seems to have come to an end, something else happens that completely flips the table. By the end, Oz emerges as a truly despicable character, making one wonder if there ever was a redeemable thing about him in the first place. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Does Sofia Die? What Happens to Her?
Since Oz killed her brother, the only thing Sofia really wants is to hit him where it hurts. She wants to take away the thing he wants the most, and she eventually finds it in the form of his mother. But that’s not where the interesting part lies. Through Julian Rush, Sofia discovers that not only did Oz kill his brothers when they were children, but also his mother knew about it and even tried to have him killed, only to change her mind at the last moment. At first, she tries to force Oz into confessing the truth about the murders, but in the end, Francis ends up confessing about almost having Oz killed.
Sofia’s intention was to drive a wedge between the mother and the son and she almost succeeds when Francis stabs Oz, but then, the Penguin turns the tables and runs away with his mother. His brute strength and his desire to save his mother become evident here, but with both of them gone, Sofia has no leverage left. Back at the Falcone house, Sofia reconsiders everything about her approach to handling the business. She even starts to question her position and wonders if she really would be better off if she walked away from it all. But she cannot do it without having her revenge.
Because Sofia can’t do it by herself, she calls a meeting with all the gangs in Gotham and makes an offer. Whoever brings her Oz will get to have the entire Falcone empire, from the houses and the businesses to the connections that helped Carmine Falcone run the city. The offer is enticing, and the bosses agree to the terms, but then, the subordinates start to question their bosses’ commands. Link is the first one to take a step. He calls Victor and proposes a plan that would allow Oz to walk free and get rid of all the mob bosses, allowing their subordinates to take the leadership position while being loyal to Oz.
Part of the plan is to have Oz held captive by Zhao, who then calls Sofia, who has no idea what has happened behind the scenes. The ruse works when Sofia is caught off guard, along with Zhao and the other mob bosses, who are all killed, but not Sofia. Oz has different plans for her. He takes her out to a solitary place, where she is sure he is going to shoot and bury her. Instead, he calls the cops on her. Unbeknownst to her, Oz previously visited a familiar councilman and concocted a story about Sofia being in a war with Sal Maroni’s gang. He uses the truth about Sofia being behind the explosion in the tunnels, but instead of claiming Bliss and its lab as his own, he calls it Maronis. He says that Sofia blew up the place to kill Sal, and sure enough, the authorities find his dead body in the tunnels.
While the councilman knows that the Penguin is not telling the whole truth, the lie is enough to serve his purpose. By arresting Sofia, he could claim to have ended the Falcone crime family while ending the war between the two gangs. It would also solve the case of the bombing and boost the image of the councilman as the person who is dedicated to solving the crime problem of Gotham. So, it doesn’t matter who takes the fall for it all. This allows Oz to pin everything on Sofia and he gets his perfect revenge: throwing her back into the nightmare that is Arkham, someplace she never wished to go back to.
Does Francis Die? What Happens to Her?
There are many things that make Oz a hatable character, but his love for his mother makes him somewhat human, if not likable. Francis, who is struggling with dementia, also seems to love her son enough to support him in his every endeavor and hope for the future that he envisions for himself. By the end, however, this facade between them breaks completely when it is revealed that Francis knew Oz killed her other sons. She was so terrified by Oz’s actions that she even considered having him killed. Rex Calabrese was ready to do the deed for her, but she changed her mind the night in Monroe’s when Oz promised her everything she’d ever wanted.
When Sofia pits Francis and Oz against each other, Francis’ anger for Oz erupts such that she stabs him. The hit doesn’t kill Oz, but it is enough to show how betrayed she feels and how much of her hatred for her own son she has kept hidden over the years. It is also the guilt of never having done anything about the murders of her other sons that eats at her. When she stabs Oz, she sees Jack and Benny and feels the guilt wash over her all over again. She falls unconscious, which spurs Oz into action, and he runs away with her while Sofia and her men shoot at him.
Later, it turns out that the reason Francis collapsed was because she had a stroke. Due to her old age and her already existing condition of dementia, the stroke did even more damage to her than it would have to a normal person. It put her into a coma, and the doctors believe that she may never come out of it. While her body doesn’t respond, her mind is still working. This means that she is still alive to see Oz commit all the atrocities he will in her name, but she will not be able to do anything about it. Moreover, she won’t be able to escape or tell him exactly how much she hates and has hated him all these years. She is held captive in her own hell now, and there is no escape.
Why Does Oz Kill Vic?
One of the many things that ‘The Penguin’ does so well is to paint a very gray picture of the characters. There is no distinction between heroes and villains and everyone is doing whatever they can to survive. But there is one character who is, perhaps, the purest of them all: Vic. His character development has been very strong over the course of the season, and by the eighth episode, he proves just how much he has learned under Oz’s guidance. In fact, it is he who eventually helps Oz win by conspiring with Link and the other subordinates of the gangs behind the backs of their bosses. Along with a significant increase in his confidence, we also find Vic becoming intensely loyal to Oz. There was a point when he could have run away from Gotham, and he almost did. But then, he came back and decided to be all in with Oz in his fight to own Gotham.
In hindsight, it seems that Vic would have been better off had he left Gotham when he had the chance. Had it been any other mob boss, Vic would have been significantly rewarded for helping them win a war where everything seems to be stacked against them. Vic did the impossible for his boss, but instead of being rewarded for it, he is choked to death by Oz. It is quite a shocking turn of events but also not entirely unexpected of Oz. If he could kill his own brothers, who is Vic to him? It also serves the purpose of making Oz completely irredeemable because after this, no one is going to be rooting for him, and this is exactly what the creators of the show wanted. Apart from giving him a rich backstory, the show also sets the Penguin as a villain worthy of standing on his own against Batman. So, later, when we (hopefully) get to see Batman beat him to a pulp, we will think about Vic and cheer for the punches.
Still, Oz’s psychopathic behavior isn’t enough to explain Vic’s shocking death. After all, Vic had proven himself to be a worthy lieutenant, and he could have been a huge asset to Oz. Killing his own loyal soldier seems like self-sabotage because how would it inspire confidence in his other soldiers? Why would anyone be loyal to the Penguin when they know it will not be enough to protect them? According to Oz, the reason to kill Vic is because Vic has become like family to him, which means that he has become Oz’s weakness which can be exploited by his enemies. He cannot afford to have that, especially now that he has come out on top after so much struggle and bloodshed. This is why he kills Vic.
What Happens to Eve? Does Oz Know She Betrayed Him?
At the end of the day, Oz has everything he wants. All his enemies are gone, for now. He has all the gangs of Gotham working for him or with him. He no longer has a boss to answer to, as he is running his own gang now. In the last scene, we see him walking into La Couronne Hotel. Couronne translates to “crown,” which subtly hints at the Penguin becoming the king of Gotham’s criminal underworld. He has also come through with the promise he made to his mother. He puts her up in one of the rooms of the hotel, from where she can see the entire Gotham. This was her dream, to live in a penthouse and have everything she ever wanted right at her feet. While Oz can give it to her now, she is in no condition to enjoy it. Still, he knows that her brain works and her eyes see everything. So, he gives her the sight of Gotham under his thumb. But that’s nothing compared to what we see next.
There is another penthouse that Oz has designed exactly how his mother would it. And there we find Eve, dressed in Francis’ clothes, welcoming Oz as if he is her son and telling him how much she loves him and is proud of him. It seems that she is entertaining Oz’s fantasy, something that he can only get by having someone enact the part of his mother because Francis is never getting out of her bed now. Considering that Eve not only knows that Oz hid the truth behind the murders that were attributed to the Hangman, but she also betrayed Oz’s location to Sofia, it seems weird to see her there. Does this mean that Oz doesn’t know she betrayed her? Not really.
Oz is not the kind of person who cannot deduce how and where a piece of information exchanged hands. Considering that Sofia walked into a place that Oz had hidden from the rest of the world and took away her mother, he would be interested in knowing how she found his apartment in West Point to begin with. Only a handful of people know about it, and it wouldn’t have taken him a lot to know that Eve is the one who told Sofia about it. He could have had Eve killed for it, but instead, he has something more sinister in mind for her, just like he had a worse fate than death in mind for Sofia.
Instead of killing Eve, he traps her in a prison she can never escape. Because she is the reason behind everything that happened with her mother, he makes her take Francis’ place and make her talk to him as he wishes his mother would talk to him if she were well. It will make Eve hate him even more, but she cannot do anything about it, especially if she wants to live. Interestingly, it also paves the way for Eve to betray Oz once again, perhaps when a certain vigilante comes knocking to figure out how to take out the Penguin.
What is in Selina’s Letter? What does the Bat Signal Mean?
There are many mysteries in ‘The Penguin,’ but the biggest of them all is where is the Batman while the war between Sofia and Oz is taking place? While there are references to the actions of the Riddler from the movie, the Batman himself is never quite referenced, until the final scene, when we see the Bat Signal flashing in the sky. This means that Oz’s meteoric rise in the criminal world has raised a lot of alarms for the Gotham PD, leading Commissioner Gordon to call for Batman’s help. The Penguin has become too big of a threat to be handled on his own, especially after the explosion that has razed the entire Crown Point. Oz had always been a menace, but he was a minor player, a pawn, so far. Now, however, he is the king, and that makes him worthy of the Bat’s attention.
Interestingly, the Batman is not the only one from the movie to receive a mention. Trapped again in Arkham, Sofia feels as if she is completely lost. Earlier, she had Alberto to hold on to, but now, even he is gone, and Sofia doesn’t really have anyone to hold on to. That is until she gets a letter. It is brought to her by Julian Rush, who seems to be her only remaining ally now. He tells her that the letter is from her half-sister, Selina Kyle. When Sofia reads the letter, it puts a smile on her face. While we never get to see the contents of the letter, it is clear that Selina has offered to be Sofia’s friend. Both the girls were wronged by their father, Carmine Falcone, which gives them something to bond over. But there are several other things they have in common, and perhaps, they could bond over it and create a gang of their own sometime soon.
Read More: Did Colin Farrell Gain Weight for The Penguin? Is He Wearing Makeup or Prosthetics?
