The Penguin Episode 7 Recap

Gothamites, you would not believe what a treat episode 7 is for Penguin fans. We kick off this week with a flashback to Oz Cobb’s childhood. Immediately, Ryder Allen (Palmer) earns my vote for the Emmy Awards to add an Outstanding Child Actor in a Drama Series category. This kid is basically Colin Farrell’s Penguin shrunk down into a four-foot frame.

Two major aspects of Baby Oz’s performance immediately jumped out to me, and I can’t tell which is funnier. First, it’s uncanny how much the kid acts just like Farrell. At the same time, it is equally hilarious that present-day Oz Cobb hasn’t changed how he talks at all since he was a kid. The Penguin is still out here slinging that Jersey accent and cozying up to Ma as if he isn’t forty years older now.

We can’t have too much fun, though. HBO needs to remind viewers every now and then that the cool gangster we like to hang out with every week is not a good guy. Even at a young age, Oz was bad to the bone. He travels down into the abandoned trolley lines with his brothers in the flashback and leaves them for dead when they refuse to play nice. The rain comes down heavily that night and Oz doesn’t say anything. He just goes home and watches a movie with his mother. Presumably, he’s fully aware that they’re drowning down in the sewers.

Phillip Chin//Getty ImagesLadies and gentlemen, Baby Oz actor Ryder Allen!

See Ya Later, Sal!It’s high time that the Penguin pays for his crimes. Killing his brothers is undoubtedly his worst sin yet. So, when Oz returns to his hideout in the present, he finds that Sofia (Cristin Milioti) kidnapped his mother. She found their secret apartment during last episode’s cliffhanger. Then, Salvator Maroni (Clancy Brown) arrives to beat up the Penguin with a golf club. If you remember, he killed Sal’s family in a blaze of fire. Oz deserves punishment, but The Penguin is a villain vs. villain show.

Twenty minutes later, Sal Maroni is dead. That’s how quickly things change in The Penguin. Oz Cobb is as much of a smooth talker as he is the luckiest guy alive. When Sal arrives at Oz’s drug operation and threatens to take the whole thing for himself, the Penguin’s lackeys jump into action. Oz’s men turn off the lights and all hell breaks loose. Then, Sal suffers from a heart attack and dies. “The fuck?!” Oz screams. “Fuck you!” The Penguin puts Sal’s ring on his finger and tricks himself into believing that he didn’t win by default.

Next Week, It’s Oz vs. SofiaIf you ask me, villains chew on their food too much. They grandstand—even when their adversaries are already helpless. Sal even mentions bringing the Penguin to a second location so that he and Sofia can decide how he dies. Just kill him already! Oz is only the strongest villain in Gotham because he knows when his gun should talk before his mouth does.

The same thing happens when Oz asks Sofia what she wants in exchange for his mother. Instead of helping Sal kill the Penguin, Sofia spends the entire episode performing weird mind games on Mrs. Cobb with Dr. Rush (Theo Rossi). She also realizes that killing a little girl’s entire family was probably not the best idea. “She’s creating another her,” Milioti tells Esquire. “The horror of that moment for her is realizing that she has become the person she rails against the most.” Just put a bullet in Oz’s brain, Ms. Gigante! You want freedom from all this? You want Oz to suffer? Just take it!

HBOSofia goes after Oz’s mother in episode 7. She’s just as hard to deal with as her son.

“For Sofia, the final step with Oz is: I’m gonna ruin you. I’m going to ruin your brain for life the way mine has been,” Miloti explains. “Death would be a relief for him. Which is what he did to me. He took the person I loved the most away. There’s a bottomless pit to her grief and anger.”

So, she devises a scheme to blow up Oz’s hideout with a ton of explosives. “Everyone expected me to die in Arkham,” she tells Oz over the phone. “No one expected me to earn something there.” I guess she learned how to act like a crazy Batman villain or something? The explosion levels an entire intersection. Oz still makes it out alive. He walks the damaged streets above in a haze until a cop finds him. “Sofia wants to see you,” he tells him. Then, he knocks the Penguin out cold. I though Sofia wanted to kill him in the explosion! She better figure out what she wants quickly. Next week’s the finale.