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The Penguin: Homecoming

"Freedom always comes at a cost, doesn't it?"

There weren't many good quotes to pull from this week, but this one felt the most applicable. After all, it's time we dealt with some of the debts that had piled up.

We're officially in the second half of the series, and we spent it arranging our characters on the chessboard. It was necessary movement. It was done well. But I still can't help but feel like it was a small step back from last week. Our tension didn't grow, nor was there any catharsis. We just stagnated a little. Well, for the most part. There were a few bright and brilliant moments that punctuated the episode with violence and woke everything up a bit.

The level of violence surprised me, and maybe that's silly to say after Sofia killed her entire family last week and we've seen multiple people shot already. But the violence this week felt sharper and crueler. More dramatic. At least on Oz's side.

I mean, setting two people on fire and watching them burn alive and hearing them scream is on another level. And the way that the camera lingered on his face as he watched the Maronis burn? How fascinated he was by it? It was incredibly bracing, and underlined that Oz isn't a hero. He isn't even an anti-hero. He's a gangster and a comic book villain.

No matter how grounded an approach the show takes, that is still something to keep in mind. This isn't New York. It's Gotham. And at some point, we know that it's just going to get worse. That might be the thing that I took away from the episode: we're at the turning point where things are going to move away from the mild Sopranos-esque vibes that we had been dealing with more towards Gotham itself.

And I think I'm on board with that, especially if it gives Sofia more space to be her very worst best self. She is just so much more fun to watch than Oz right now. I specifically want to call out her costuming. Sofia has been very covered up so far. There was a lot of turtlenecks and heavy coats, but now that she's coming into her own power, those layers are falling away.

She still has a gorgeous coat, but she lets it slip off her shoulders to reveal all of her physical scars. And I love how the show never once called explicit attention to this. Sure, the lighting when she's talking to Sal highlights her shoulder in a way that it's impossible not to notice the scar there, but the show trusts the audience to notice it. I love it. So, so much.

There's something both predatory but almost innocent about Sofia, like the way that she blew a raspberry after shooting poor, over-talkative Johnny in the head. Innocent is the wrong word. Pure might be a better one. She's genuinely enjoying herself, and it's a drastic change from the paranoid and on edge woman that we were first introduced to.

I am curious to see how long this glee lasts, though. Sure, she now has her own Family that she is the head of, the Gigante Family, after her mother's maiden name. And sure, she seems to have the loyalty of the soldiers that still remain thanks to her promise of better profit sharing. And yes, sure, she now has an alliance with the newly escaped Sal Maroni.

It just doesn't feel sustainable, and I'm curious to see how she reacts when things start to go wrong.

Unfortunately, Sofia is such a presence that it actually made Oz's scenes drag a little in comparison, outside of the whole immolation thing. He had a big, violent fight with Eve and it just left me cold. I didn't even care about his scenes with his mom or the backstory that we got through them, even if I did enjoy Francis and Victor together.

Sofia might be the most fun to watch, but Victor might be my favorite character over all. There's a light to him that no other character has, even though he's continuing to get involved in objectively dark stuff. He got his hands dirty this week, tackling Maroni's son and making sure he couldn't get away. I've said this before, but watching his confidence and abilities grow is just a treat, even if it makes me more and more worried for him.

Because Squid absolutely saw him and Francis go into the apartment. He absolutely isn't just going to leave that alone. The only question is whether or not Vic will be home when he checks it out, or if he'll find Francis by herself. Either way, Squid is either going to cause his death, or he might be the one to finally push Victor over the edge and lose that light in him.

That's the only two fates for him, right? Either Oz is going to kill him, or he really is Victor Zsasz. I don't know which would hurt me more.

Random Thoughts

Police Chief Bock, played by Con O'Neill, was also in The Batman. I would have loved it if it was Gordon instead, but it was still a fun cameo.

Oz has Tik Tok on his phone, and I don't know how I feel about that.

RIP Oz's car. It was too beautiful for this world.

I still don't really know what Dr. Rush's purpose is. He's the only superfluous character so far.

Oz keeps mentioning Rex Calabrese, the old gangster that he idolizes and who Alberto Falcone insulted right before his death. Do we think he's Oz's dad? We got a lot of familial backstory, including learning that he had two brothers, but Dad remained both unnamed and tiptoed around.

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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.

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