The Fantasy Review’s review of The Penguin, Season 1, Episode 2 – Inside Man.
Spoiler-filled Review of The Penguin, Season 1, Episode 2
I’m Not Safe. I’m Home
The Penguin, Season 1, Episode 2 begins very differently to episode 1. In Inside Man, they don’t have a timeline or world to explain, so they can give us awesome cold opens like this instead!
Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone was a highlight of episode 1, so it was great to focus on her initially. So, the episode starts and we think we are in Arkham with Sofia, having a visit with her brother, but instead it is a very fancy therapy session.
Dr. Julian Rush is a very cuddly doctor and looks a lot like Juice from Sons of Anarchy. He helps calm Sofia down and tells her she is safe, to which she responds, “I’m not safe. I’m home.”
I joke about the “cuddles,” but in all seriousness, Dr. Rush and Sofia have a relationship we don’t understand fully yet. The way that he looked at her with almost puppy dog eyes and a lot of overfamiliarity immediately made me think he has abused his power over her in the past.
This Man is a Dog
Oz meets with Salvatore Maroni in prison and convinces the old crime boss to lean into it and take the credit for Alberto’s murder. This didn’t take much, considering Salvatore was already “flaunting” the ring, like Oz points out.
Nadia Maroni, played by the brilliant Shohreh Aghdashloo, tells Salvatore essentially to go for it, especially as she doesn’t see Oz as a threat. In Farsi, she says to her husband: “This man is a dog. But a dog can be made submissive.”
They underestimate Oz, seeing only the benefits the situation can bring them, just as our protagonist wants. He will make himself small so they feel big. The Rings of Power writers could learn a lesson or two from The Penguin writers on how to write a manipulation storyline.
Everything Goes Simple
Oz has a simple plan. Move the Drops and let Maroni’s men steal them during transport. Everyone there dies except him, who is far enough away in a follow car.
Johnny Viti ruins this safe plan when he makes Oz sit in the main truck which is about to be attacked. The subtitles at this point told me there was “tense string music” and I agreed.
I need to mention again how incredible Gotham looks in this series. I just finished writing a recap for Joker (2019), and while that movie is amazing, its version of Gotham is not my favourite.
Gotham is dark, grimy, and somehow looks like an ominous place. The setting for a story is sometimes forgotten about in TV and movies and I don’t know why. Perhaps they’re too excited about the story, or they blew the budget on an actor over-charging for their time.
The Penguin doesn’t make that mistake and instead almost makes the setting a character of its own. It watches events unfold from the shadows like a malicious spirit.
The raid goes about as well as it can for Oz. Being in the truck forced him to dirty his hands, killing some of his own men after joking with them seconds before. It highlights the lengths he will go to meet his own ends, but he takes no pleasure in it. He is all business, plus a smidge of remorse.
Sofia is the Only Falcone With Brains
After their product is nicked, the Falcones worry about the money and blame Oz. Sofia turns up to the meeting and essentially calls them morons.
They can always get more money. It is respect and revenge which need to be the focus now. She’s right, and Oz looks at her in a mixture of awe and fear. He respects her, but he also knows she might be the only one he can’t manipulate easily.
Luca Falcone, Carmine’s brother and the new boss of the Falcone Crime Syndicate, kicks everyone out of the meeting except for Sofia. Despite pretending to respect her, Luca tells Sofia to leave everything to him.
Both Oz and Sofia are underestimated by the people around them, and that will be the downfall of the men in suits. If Oz realises they underestimate Sofia, he could use this as an angle to manipulate her, or else he’s going to struggle getting past her to his end goal.
They Think You’re Crazy
Okay, I wasn’t expecting to be right in the next scene! Oz waits for Sofia outside the meeting and tells her she should be the next boss, not Luca. This is an angle he understands deeply, as he is underestimated every day of his life.
Sofia is just too fucking smart, though. She says, “You think you know what’s best for me?” with almost a smile on her face. It’s like she is reading him like a book.
Snakes in the Grass
“You think I’ve done enough, asshole? You ain’t seen what I can do.”
There are small moments that really bring out Oz’s character. When he’s talking to Victor, he just assumes the kid has the same twisted logic and morality that he does. It comes across as humor for the viewer, and it is funny, but it is also dark, and shows a lot about who this man is.
While Oz and Vic host a party, Sofia catches up with a detective in a bar who used to work for Carmine. She gives him some Drops and a bunch of cash to find the inside man (Oz).
There is something satisfying about Sofia going to someone who is also probably underestimated for help. It enhances the theme of the show. The downtrodden rise up.
Eve, the woman Oz went to for an alibi the night he killed Alberto works it all out. She’s worried about her girls, but Oz has a plan to pin the murder on Johnny Viti, using the blackmail pictures he took from Carmine’s safe.
Tell That to My Headstone
Sofia wakes up looking like she was being strangled in a nightmare. She’s been sleeping in the wardrobe. She scratched her own neck in her sleep, to the point where there is blood under her fingernails and she has a Lady Macbeth moment at the sink.
Elsewhere, Penguin gets a call from his mother’s landlord. He found her walking down the street, confused. Her dementia is getting worse.
These are the storylines that are going to get us to connect with Oz the most. Despite everything he has done and will do, we will remember the humanity of him dancing with his sick mother in her living room.
It’s here we start to understand more about Oz’s motivations for taking on the crime families. His mother wants to be out of that house – she is desperate for an escape. So, she uses her role as Oz’s mother to manipulate him, paying him with love and praise, but also holding out on those things if she wants more from him.
“If my son is a nothing, what am I?”
Alberto’s Funeral
Outside the funeral, Oz walks past a protest at the gates of the church, demanding Sofia is sent back to Arkham. I mean, she’s killed seven women – why was she released?
Oz tries a different tack for his manipulation of Sofia which goes better than before. He talks about his brothers dying and how it left his mum unable to leave the house until she took Oz to a jazz club where they danced all night.
I’m assuming here that all that is true, as the best manipulation often is. He makes sure to tell Sofia his mum is dead, though – she’s his one major weakness.
I think that even though this was smart, it might come back to bite him. Sofia is the kind of person to do their research and she might find his mother alive, and use her to get to Oz in the future.
Back at the Falcone mansion, the drophead detective has brought in one of Maroni’s men who was there when the shipment was taken. Oz discovers this immediately after, when Nadia Maroni bollocks him for not seeing it coming.
Oz knows immediately that it is Sofia, not Luca, behind this. He knows she is the only Falcone with brains.
Before Nadia has him killed, Oz gives her the blackmail he has on Johnny Viti, who has been sleeping with Luca Falcone’s wife. You can see now how easy it is going to be to bring these idiots down when they make such egregious mistakes.
Entertainment at the Wake
Sofia Falcone suffers the whispers at Alberto’s wake and even leans into the crazy. Just giving the people what they want. Cristin Milioti’s performance is absolutely incredible.
If more shows had actors and writers like The Penguin, we would be living in a golden age of television. Instead, most of these companies seem happy just pumping out soulless content written by people who don’t understand how stories work.
She leans into the expectations of others some more when she runs into her cousin who acts all nice and friendly, suggesting a “girl’s trip,” but then clams up when her daughter comes by. She is scared of Sofia like everyone else, so Sofia puts on a menacing display – an act – and dismisses them.
Oz, meanwhile, is working the room. He’s still trying to pin everything on Johnny Viti, so he gets Vic to plant gems or something in Viti’s car, then lets Viti know there’s something he might want to see in the basement (Sofia’s prisoner).
Unfortunately, Vic gets caught breaking into Viti’s car and is chased off. Oz is losing time and ammo for this scapegoat plan.
Oz goes to the basement to see Ervad. Nadia told him to get Ervad back, but I don’t see a way this guy leaves the basement alive. Oz promises to help the drugged-up Ervad if he tells Sofia it was Johnny Viti who killed Alberto.
However, because the jewels aren’t in Viti’s car, Oz needs “to give them something solid,” so he kills Ervad. I thought it might end like this!
Fuck Your Mother, You Dirty Rat!
Sofia and the Falcones find Ervad dead, so they round up everyone who is connected to the drops raid, including Johnny Viti. Oz takes this as the perfect opportunity to openly blame Viti and start a fight with him, planting the knife used to kill Ervad on him.
Oh, okay, twist – Oz plants the knife on Sofia’s man. This is a great twist with several layers. Oz proves he is often lucky, but when in a scrape he can think fast.
Luca shoots the man and leaves. Sofia is furious. “He was mine to kill, for Alberto.” But Luca makes it clear he has no respect for her, saying it was his call. If Oz doesn’t destroy these guys, she will.
Luca tries to send Sofia away to Italy, and proceeds to have a meeting without her. Yeah, she’s going to burn this family to the ground.
Final Scenes
This The Penguin, season 1, episode 2 review and recap ends as we watch Oz and Vic bury the bodies. Oz feels like the work is below him; it’s another way the Falcones disrespect him, with this kind of grunt work.
“You wanna survive? You gotta adapt.”
Oz makes Vic lie in the grave and gives him his version of a pep talk, while simultaneously ranting at the kid for messing up. To be fair, Oz is putting a lot of trust – too much trust – in Vic, when he would have had to do this all himself if the kid wasn’t around anyway.
Oz then has a third and final chat with Sofia. I love how they did this, giving us three stages of Oz reaching out to her, each time going better than the last. It’s a gradual and satisfying progression.
Sofia reveals her intentions of taking over the family, getting back what she believes is hers, and she recruits Oz. He then says, “let’s dance,” as a way of agreeing to help her, which mirrors/links back to the dancing he does with his sick mother to make her feel better.
Damn, The Penguin is an amazing show.
