‘The Penguin’ Episode 6 Is Everything That’s Great About This Show

Not a great deal happens in Episode 6 of The Penguin, but it’s nonetheless the hour that best exemplifies everything great about the show. Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti are, as usual, phenomenal, but with the pace toned down a little, Deirdre O’Connell as Francis Cobb and Carmen Ejogo as Eve get their own little spotlights, and they add an intangible lived-in quality to the whole thing that is worth its weight in gold.

Nick Towne wrote “Gold Summit”, and is worth a mention. The scripts have been excellent throughout but Episode 6 is particularly well written, at least in part because it unfolds almost entirely in conversation. The new pairings that the plot developments have thrown up in recent episodes — Sofia and Salvatore Maroni; Vic and Francis — yield a lot of interesting back-and-forths, clashing perspectives, and unforeseen parallels.

Sofia and Sal Send A Message

We pick up with Oz on a winning streak after deciding to move his Bliss operation underground in Episode 5. He’s now mass-producing the drug and distributing it all over Gotham, behind the backs of the fractious local gangs. He’s making a fortune, but the next step is to go international with the help of the Triads.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Sofia and Sal, who seem to be living together now. When Sofia finally takes a break from Dr. Rush — I’m not sure what entirely he’s getting out of this arrangement if the post-coital wounds are anything to go by — she sits down for dinner with Sal, and they resentfully brainstorm ways to stop Oz from continuing to embarrass them.

The solution is quite obvious, really — a show of force. Suddenly, the news is awash with corner boys who have been indiscriminately hung on the street with their pinky fingers missing. Just like that, all the local nobodies that Oz is co-opting to move his product — in the mistaken belief that paying them will earn their unflinching loyalty — are too scared to work for him. Fair pay is one thing, but there is no more powerful motivator than fear.

Oz’s Outside-the-Box Solution

Colin Farrell in The Penguin | Image via HBO

When Oz laments that he now can’t even give Bliss away for free, no doubt exaggerating, he hits on a winning idea — he decides to give Bliss away for free.

There are two justifications for this — the one Oz says aloud, which is that getting the drug everywhere will ultimately increase demand, and the one he doesn’t, which is that littering every neighborhood with the stuff will cause enough friction between the local bosses that they’ll become manipulable.

There are, it turns out, loads of small gangs in Gotham City, we just don’t hear about them because they’re small fry next to big families like the Falcones and Maronis. And this is Oz’s point. It’s his rallying cry. Why let the silver-spoon mobsters who don’t even know or care that the local bosses exist run the city? He’s making a class argument, positioning himself as one of the people to unite his peers against a common enemy. It’s as much an uprising as anything else.

Oz’s speech to the bosses is, I think, Farrell’s best turn as the character so far. It’s brilliantly written, sure, but it’s also brilliantly performed. The little nuances in his physicality and expressions are wonderful stuff. Behind all the makeup and prosthetics, it’s sometimes hard to remember there’s a man in there, but there is, and the man can act extremely well.

A Touch of Class

Cristin Milioti in The Penguin | Image via HBO

The class thing comes up again in The Penguin Episode 6. After Sofia and Sal break into Oz’s apartment, they find a drawer dedicated to Eve, and Sofia starts asking about her on the street. Eventually, she’s lured up to Eve’s apartment by Roxy, who turns out to have been sent at Eve’s behest. She knew what was coming.

But even though Sofia enters the apartment with a gun, clearly intending to either kill Eve or use her as a hostage to lure Oz out, she leaves with… something resembling an ally. Eve sells out Oz after hearing that Sofia isn’t the Hangman after all — those women, her friends, her family, according to her, were killed by Carmine Falcone, and Oz not only knew about it but helped to cover it up.

But it isn’t as simple as that. Eve makes the charge against Sofia that she was born with everything, but Sofia rightly counters that she lacks something crucial — loyalty. Not one of Eve’s girls sold her out, even at their own risk. Whatever Sofia might have been born with, that wasn’t included. Even with Sal at her side, and Dr. Rush at her beck and call, she’s fundamentally alone.

Vic Steps Up

Rhenzy Feliz in The Penguin | Image via HBO

“Gold Summit” is a real turning point for Vic, who kills Squid in cold blood, albeit reluctantly. The moment is tempered by the fact that Squid wasn’t a nice guy and Vic was terrified, but it’s still an important moment in his arc. As Oz tells him by way of comfort, “It gets easier”. This is a guy with more killing in his future.

Squid was trying to force Vic into bringing him into the fold with Oz, threatening to rat him out to Sofia and Sal and tell them about Francis if he didn’t. Oz was so distracted by his worry for Francis — more on this below — that Vic didn’t want to ask him for help. He tried to find a solution on his own and ended up doing the one thing he was trying to avoid.

Nobody’s going to miss Squid, but we’ll probably miss whatever part of Vic died with him since that was the part still tethering him to some kind of normality, to some hope for the future that didn’t involve him dying alone in an alley. I don’t fancy his chances for the rest of the season, honestly.

Momma’s Boy

Deirdre O’Connell in The Penguin | Image via HBO

I mentioned above that Oz is worried about Francis in The Penguin Episode 6, and he has good reason to be. For one thing, she’s going to become the most readily available target to hurt him, which she has managed to avoid until now because Oz has convinced everyone, including Sofia, that she died like his brothers. And another is that her own health is failing rapidly.

We knew Francis has dementia. Here, Oz clarifies to Vic that she has something called Lewy Body Dementia, a form characterized by “changes in sleep, behavior, cognition, movement, and regulation of automatic bodily functions.” At least the doctors think that’s what she has; Oz’s simmering frustration with all the experts and their fancy machines is just another facet of his general beef with society.

But Francis knows she’s ill, and in a terribly heartbreaking scene, she insists that if her mind abandons her before her body does, Oz has to kill her. What’s a momma’s boy to do? Oz isn’t above killing, as we’ve seen, but euthanizing his mother, even at her request, might be a bridge too far even for him.

Having said that, he might not have to, since “Gold Summit” ends with Sofia, having tracked Oz down, watching Vic and Francis dance in their apartment, a crowbar clenched in her hand.