Although the Best of 2024 list cannot be finalized yet because it is still early November, The Penguin will undoubtedly be at the top. In addition to Colin Farrell in the title role, the two women in the cast stand out: Cristin Miliotti and Deirdre O’Connell.

Just like Marvel’s Agatha All Along, The Penguin, from DC Comics, is a series where the supporting characters take center stage and they do make the heroes seem simple and uninteresting near them. Loki before everyone else, brought us the usual antagonist in a different light. But there’s a difference between studios: in Marvel’s narrative, the villain and the good guys are less clear. In DC Comics, the bad guys are cruel, but paradoxically realistic and rebellious. They are the simple people destroyed by society’s greed and violence; they can’t fly and have no magic.

Oz Cobb (Farrell) is still a tragic and flawed figure inside and out, but even if we don’t empathize (after all, he lies, kills, and steals without any problems), we don’t distance ourselves from his story.

Episode 7 Recap

Did we expect violence and revenge in the penultimate episode? We’ll have to wait. Sofia Gigante (Mliotti) kidnapped Francis (O’Connell) and gave her desire to cause pain to the Penguin, which caused the situation where she ended up in Arkham and also murdered her brother (and father too, but she didn’t like him), we can’t hope for anything gentle for her enemy’s mother. Just putting the two actresses in the same scene is already a great gift. Two award-winning Broadway actresses could do no less than leave us speechless, and the confrontation screamed EMMY EMMY EMMY from all sides for both of them.

Sofia may be everything, but her cruelty has its criteria. She, who has the unjust reputation of a serial killer, decimated her family only after giving them every chance to redeem themselves for what she faced. When she couldn’t and was humiliated, she got everyone killed within the same night. We don’t blame her. After all, she saved her cousin Gia from a future like hers. So we should pay attention: Sofia wants Oz to suffer, but she would hardly kill a woman just for that. That is, before a kamikaze Francis decided to tell some truths to his captor.

We already know that Francis, in an advanced stage of dementia, would rather die than lose his mind, so the attack on Sofia is calculated. And accurate. Because if Francis has a talent, it’s knowing how to belittle people, and not even a “Giant” has a chance with her. It’s even clearer that Francis listened and never forgot any detail his son told her about the Falcones.

In this frightening exchange, the effect minimally slows down and changes Sofia’s plan. She, who is shaken by having seen that Gia Vitti (Kenzie Grey) is traumatized by the death of her parents, is secretly more vulnerable internally, and when Francis throws in her face that not even different hair or surnames will change who Sofia is or how the game is dictated by men, the blow is felt more than the slap in the face she received.

Of course, we know that Francis’ boldness, who bets that Oz will come to rescue her before they do anything to her, seems unrealistic given the circumstances, but with his luck and agility in surviving, his confidence becomes credible. It’s only when Sofia asks about what really happened to Oz’s brothers that Francis weakens. I’ll get back to that in a moment. Sofia asks Dr. Julian Rush (Theo Rossi) for help to “take care” of Francis.

During this distressing exchange, we see that Oz is once again “lucky”. Sal (Clancy Brown) even wants to kill him, but he needs to deliver the Penguin to Sofia while he’s still alive. In this exchange of time, already tense due to everything, Sal has an unexpected heart attack and falls dead. Well, Penguin gets away with it too. He tries to negotiate with Sofia to deliver the drugs in exchange for Francis, and Sofia pretends to fall into the trap. However, after a brief panic attack, the gangster reaffirms her greatest wish in life: that she wants “Oz to feel pain, real pain”, something like she felt after being betrayed by him three times. “I need him to suffer for what he did,” she says. For that, only Francis has the key.

Much of the episode, which pays homage to Fred Astaire‘s classic Top Hat (from which Oz gets the inspiration for his likely future look), is a large and important flashback. We confirm Oz’s involvement in the deaths of his brothers and it was simpler and more profound than we could have anticipated.

Being the chubby and defective one of the children, Oz was treated with the same affection by Francis, but, like everyone who has an unresolved Oedipus complex, he wanted her all to himself. The opportunity, or the accident unconsciously caused by him, goes back to a stormy night in Gotham, where, playing with his brothers, he feels humiliated and revolted. He closes the sewer outlet in a fit of anger.

No, as a reckless child would do, the problem is that the brothers can’t get out and end up drowning. The news destroys Francis, but Oz never reveals his involvement to her. He lies that they both went to see Beetlejuice (a reference to Tim Burton and Michael Keaton, who later made Batman together) and we’re not sure if Francis suspects the truth.

Therefore, seeing that Oz escapes from the same place where he led the brothers to their deaths and his obsession/guilt with Francis highlights how exciting and scary the final episode will be. Sofia, instead of going to find him in the sewer, throws a bomb. Oz barely escapes, but as she imagined (he doesn’t tell his partners and runs away alone) and now if he wants to see Francis alive, he needs to go find her.

Invisible and diminished: the unexpected strength of the antagonists

There’s no way to praise the penultimate episode of The Penguin enough. The peculiar dynamic between Francis and Oz is all bathed in Freud’s theories taken to the extreme, in a toxic and complex relationship. Many theorize about the paternity of Oz and his brothers and how Francis tried with great difficulty to raise his children away from a life of organized crime, only to start demanding that Oz be everything he always wanted: a rich and feared gangster.

Actress Deirdre O’Connell commented that Francis used her son as a weapon of revenge against the society that left her in such a dangerous environment for her children. She resents anyone who had or has a better material life than she has and does not mince hurtful words, not even to her own son, much less to her rivals. Oz is her weapon, her executioner, and her retribution against the oppressors.

For her, acting alongside Cristin Millioti was one of the highlights of the season and we have to agree. The energy of both is a masterclass in acting (it’s no wonder that both have already won a Tony for Best Actress). It was a show.

Who is Deirdre O’Connell?

The 71-year-old actress is better known in theater than in film or TV, to OUR dismay. She has appeared in Nurse Jackie and other series, but it is with The Penguin that she has entered the mainstream circuit.

The daughter of a playwright and an actor, Deirdre always wanted to be an actress. She started out in experimental theater in Boston, before conquering Broadway in New York in 1986. She immediately began to be nominated frequently for all the theater awards, winning several.

Deirdre began to appear in films in the late 1980s, debuting in the film Tin Men and others such as State of Grace, City of Angels, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, among others. On TV, she has appeared in Six Feet Under, Nurse Jackie, and Law and Order, usually in a supporting role and, as she would say, “the mother who loses her child”.

But it is in the theater where she has made her name. Her performance in the play Dana H. earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in 2022. It’s Emmy time, don’t you agree?

Pesquisar

Pesquisar