Recap: Underdogs Unite In ‘The Penguin’ Episode 2

Episode 2 of The Penguin, “Inside Man”, is as good as the premiere was, which got me thinking. Why? That isn’t a trick question. There isn’t a great deal happening in the show at the moment; there’s probably less here than in Episode 1, and a lot of it is very similar. Oz makes some big moves to further ignite a war between the Falcone and Maroni crime families, he tries to stay one step ahead of Sofia, and he visits his ailing mother. He even has another moment of crisis where he thinks about killing his new protégé, Victor.

So, why? It isn’t just the performances, although they’re still really good, with Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, and Rhenzy Feliz doing the best work. It isn’t the Batman association either, since he isn’t in it. The Penguin might be a follow-on from Matt Reeves’ feature film, but it has none of the hallmarks of a superhero show.

I think it’s because The Penguin is fundamentally an underdog story. Oz is a bad guy, historically, and he’s not exactly a good guy here, but he’s also the perennially put-upon second-stringer, the chubby little big-nosed henchman who is a bundle of affectations first and an actual character a distant second. There’s something uniquely compelling about the idea that this guy is playing two crime families off against each other with such alacrity that they don’t even suspect him. He’s so unnoteworthy, so incomprehensible as a serious player in Gotham’s underworld that he becomes through sheer force of irony a remarkably compelling protagonist.

Oz and Sofia Make An Unlikely Pair

Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone | Image via HBO

Sofia is an underdog too. She’s a woman, for a start. But she’s also mentally ill, having only recently been discharged from Arkham Asylum. The Penguin Episode 2 starts with her roaming through that facility’s hallways in a nightmare of her own design, coaxed along by her psychiatrist, Julian Rush (Theo Rossi). Sofia isn’t healed or rehabilitated. She’s hanging on by a thread.

Oz killed Sofia’s brother, Alberto, and is conspiring against her uncle, Luca, who is now the sitting head of the Falcone family, but they feel like two peas in a pod more than enemies. Sofia tends to be the smartest person in any room. After Oz conspires with Salvatore to hijack a shipment of drops, almost getting himself killed in the process, it’s Sofia who immediately intuits that there’s a mole inside the organization. Johnny Viti, one of the underbosses, laughs off the suggestion. But we – and Oz – know she’s right.

Sofia isn’t inclined to accept Oz’s help to ferret out the rat – she, rightly, doesn’t trust him either – but that’s kind of the point. It’s like she’s strung to the idea that she is the wildcard black sheep of the family, and that anyone who claims to support her is doing so out of pity, or because they want something in return. She’s right about that, too. As Oz tells Victor, he needs to be Sofia’s inside man because that’ll enable him to keep manipulating both sides without giving himself away. And since he was brought into the Falcone family as the driver of a guy was later killed for ratting to the feds, he has seen first hand what’ll happen to him if he’s discovered.

Colin Farrell’s Emmy-Worthy Monologue

The Penguin Episode 2 | Image via HBO

Sofia takes matters into her own hands by bribing a detective named Marcus Wise – who used to be on Falcone’s payroll – with drops and cash to conduct his own investigation into the mole. Meanwhile, Oz lays out the shape of his own plan to Eve, who has intuited that he killed Alberto and is putting her at considerable risk by using her as his alibi. Oz is in possession of photographs proving that Johnny Viti has been sleeping with Luca’s wife, and plans to use them as leverage to get Johnny to take the fall.

These two subplots position both Oz and Sofia outside of the Falcone family, even though both are technically part of it. They’re the only people who seem to be able to get anything done. There’s probably a case to be made that The Penguin is depicting the Falcones as being too dumb, but I don’t think their general disinterest and idiocy is too damaging to the drama yet since it’s coming from a place that makes sense.

And it makes the scenes that Oz shares with Sofia really bristle. There’s one when Oz finally makes it to Alberto’s funeral – he was late because his mother went walkabout in the neighbourhood, believing it was Sunday and she was late for Mass; he’s bribing her landlord to not have her committed to full-time care – that could win Farrell an Emmy. It’s a monologue about grief that is extremely telling about Oz’s upbringing and current attitude.

How Oz Sets Up Castillo

Rhenzy Feliz as Victor | Image via HBO

The parallels continue when Sofia is informed by her bodyguard Castillo that Detective Wise has kidnapped one of the Maroni men who was involved in the hijacking from the hospital, and Nadia Maroni tells Oz the same thing. The goon, Ervad Hakimi, is under anaesthesia in the basement of the Falcone estate. If he wakes up, he’ll sing, so his wellbeing functions as another ticking-clock device that once again sees Oz and Sofia with overlapping goals.

Oz’s initial plan is to get Victor to plant stolen jewels in Viti’s car and then tell Ervad to say it was him who killed Alberto. But Victor is caught planting the jewels, so Oz has to improvise. After sneaking into the basement using an argument between one of the Falcone bodyguards, Milos, and Castillo, as a distraction, Oz stabs Ervad to death.

This means that Oz has to frame someone else for killing Ervad and hope that the person is also blamed for Alberto’s death. He accomplishes this in one rather deft move. When everyone involved in the hijacked drops shipment is lined up by Luca, Oz noisily accuses Viti of being the rat but uses the commotion to slip his knife into Castillo’s pocket. When Castillo is searched, he’s shot by Luca, who subsequently dismisses a furious Sofia – she wanted to avenge Alberto’s murder personally – and tells her to leave Gotham for her own safety.

Underdogs Unite

All of this – the depiction of two outsiders, the paralleling and dovetailing independent plots, the monologues and arguments – are in service of the ending of The Penguin Episode 2, which sees Sofia finally pitch an arrangement to Oz. She plans to take over the family business, by force if necessary, and since Oz has ironically proved himself the only one in the organization who’s capable, she asks him if he wants in.

The structure and pace of The Penguin continues to be exceptional, probably more so than the show will receive credit for. Seeing how neatly the plotting and characterization knit together as things develop is peculiarly satisfying, a reminder of how badly written most television really is, and our two outcasts have been brought together so organically and skilfully that you can’t help but root for them. The fact they’re technically bad guys is, I think, beside the point.