Men, it should go without saying, but NEVER call a woman crazy. Even less so, an intelligent and innocent woman. The Penguin episode was dedicated to the character who has been stealing the spotlight in the series: Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti). And as the internet has already shouted: Emmy? It’s hers.

In this week’s episode, even though the series is The Penguin, the villain (Colin Farrell) remained in the shadows because today we discover how the Hangman – at least here – is not Sofia, just as she ate the bread that the devil kneaded for 10 years, just because she asked the wrong question to her father, Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong).

Sofia has been a complex and empathetic character, although cruel and vengeful because she has to deal with several traumas in addition to sexism and slander. She is betrayed by virtually everyone around her, except her brother. And the journey to survival has not been easy. Cristin Milioti‘s performance, if it hadn’t already taken your breath away, does so here, in a time travel to a very distant past, a more recent one, and the present day. We follow her transformation with each betrayal and violence until, when she carries out her revenge, we are already rooting for a lot of blood. Something she spared us.

In this eight-episode miniseries, the idea is to present more about Oz Cobb, a mobster who strives to reach the top of Gotham’s criminal underworld. Therefore, the inspiration comes from gangster movies and series, where women are for show and have no voice or character volume. Hence the spotlight on Sofia.

Straying from the obvious (which nowadays is having a non-linear language), The Penguin picks up the story where the Batman movie left off, but if you haven’t seen it or have already forgotten the details, don’t worry. With flashbacks and precise explanations, even without the millionaire vigilante in the scene (they don’t even mention him!), we can follow how organized crime is getting organized after the Riddler (Paul Dano) destroyed part of Gotham.

We start where we left off, with Penguin once again betraying Sofia and abandoning her to her own fate. She escapes, still dazed from the beating she received and with the discovery of what her former driver and current partner have been doing over time. MAX’s Sofia is darker than the agitated and ruthless one who spent years in the Gotham series, but both deal with the machismo of the criminal world.

When he still had the less prestigious job, which was being the Boss’s daughter’s driver, Os gets close to her, always paying attention to everything and informally acting as her advisor. She likes him, but underestimates him. Maybe because she only repeated what she saw, which was men mistreating Oz, or because she was also pedantic, but she didn’t take care and was ‘sold’ by the driver at the worst possible moment.

As a child, young Sofia is Carmine’s favorite and still deals with the trauma of discovering her mother’s body (hanged) and repeating what her father explained: that her mother took her own life. Years later, the most responsible and intelligent of the Falcones, she has no chance of working with her father because she is a woman, something that she deeply resents.

After being approached by a reporter investigating the Hangman, Sofia puts two and two together and comes to the conclusion that seven women were killed by her father, including her mother. That’s why the Penguin’s betrayal is so shocking: upon realizing that Sofia not only knows the truth but can also prove it, Carmine is ready to sacrifice even his only daughter, without mercy.

Accused of crimes she didn’t commit, Sofia is committed to Arkham, where she undergoes attacks, electroshocks and humiliations, in theory, for six months that turn into 10 years. By going through what Sofia was forced to live through, we better understand her father’s atrocities, the ineptitude and sexism of his heirs and who betrayed her both by lying and by abandoning her.

And here’s the interesting fact. In the comics, unlike the series so far, Sofia was the Executioner (Hangman), but now we discover in an exciting way how she really embraced a dark side that she didn’t have. In the comic Dark Victory, she is revealed to have killed important members of the Gotham Police Department, but she will get there after being a victim of her father’s cruelty. It became less personal for Catwoman (who is Sofia’s half-sister), and in the film Carmine also tried to kill her. I think his death was gentle because of what he did.

It’s complex when we empathize with a villain and here, since we know everything Sofia suffered because of her family’s cowardice and connivance, we root for her and cheer for her annihilation. Or am I alone in this?

In addition to being innocent with her father, who didn’t hesitate to get rid of her when confronted about her crimes, Sofia made a mistake by making Oz feel small when he tries to advise her. He is always attentive and knew everything the young woman was doing, even though she was defending Carmine when She never realizes that he is the Hangman. As he was already ambitious, when he was hurt by the only person who treated him well, Oz handed her over to Carmine and sealed Sofia’s fate.

Sofia’s descent into madness and trauma while imprisoned in Arkham is painful and distressing. It’s an episode that screams for an award and where Cristin makes us feel every aggression and abuse with her. Sofia doesn’t “break” in spirit, but the trauma is inevitable. Worse still, a terrifying monster is born. The outside world is less threatening or scary to her, which should make others afraid. Knowing today that they conspired with Carmine and that they knew Sofia was an innocent young woman, they are mistaken in believing that she is still fragile.

After this dark journey, we return to the present where Sofia wants to end Oz, but first, she has another debt to collect. Isolated and without allies, Sofia plans to reverse the scenario by strengthening herself with quick revenge. She literally executes all the Falcones at a farewell dinner, suffocating them with the gas redirected throughout the house. She saves two people: her little cousin Gia, and Johnny Viti (Michael J. Kelly), who left the window open, but wakes up scared of Sofia’s gunpoint. Now we have, effectively, an evil monster who doesn’t measure consequences.

And the Penguin? Well, he doesn’t know if Sofia survived, but now she knows what he’s been up to and since the second betrayal was even more personal than the first (where he genuinely didn’t know that Carmine would sacrifice her without guilt), he knows he’s on her debtor list. In the promo for the penultimate episode, he celebrates the fact that Sofia eliminated the Falcones, leaving only one other family in his path to dominate Gotham Crime. Oz is underestimating Sofia once again. I hope he doesn’t call her crazy…

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