REVIEW: The Penguin – Episode 5, “Homecoming”

Television Reviews

In a way, it’s unfortunate that “Homecoming” is following the outstanding “Cent’Anni,” as it was all but destined to suffer by comparison. But it’s another great episode of The Penguin, rocketing the story forward on multiple fronts, bringing all the major characters into the next leg of their journeys through the war for control of Gotham’s underworld, and once again surprising us with unexpected developments that, in retrospect, seem like the only logical choices.  

Oz finds a way to strike back at the Maronis and get the stockpile of Bliss back, but things don’t go according to plan. Victor is entrusted with protecting Oz’s mother while he makes his latest power play. Sofia positions herself to take control of the Falcone family.

“Homecoming” opens with the aftermath of “Cent’Anni.” Sofia watches as the police take away the bodies she made of her family, telling the police chief a concocted story of how she found them and shifting the blame to Johnny Vitti, the sole survivor who’s gone missing. Sofia plays it just right, crying at the right times while making sure the chief knows she isn’t naive and doesn’t expect the police will do much to investigate the massacre now that her family isn’t around to pay them off. It’s the perfect way to get them off her back, convincing them of her innocence while pointing out that they have no vested interest in solving the crime. This is Sofia’s first demonstration of her leadership abilities, and she’s already a force to be reckoned with, closing the case on her murder spree in a simple conversation. There’ll be more of this throughout “Homecoming,” but my favorite part of this scene is the sadness that permeates it after Sofia watches Child Protective Services take her now-orphaned second cousin away. She knows she’s spared this girl the life she’s been forced to live (albeit by killing her parents), and there’s a a wistfulness mixed with satisfaction in her stare; she’s glad to have saved the child, but a part of her regrets that no one was there to save her.

***SPOILERS***

“Homecoming” finds everyone moving around the chess board, some forward, some back. Sofia takes over the family, using a captured Johnny Vitti (whose torture at her hands is richly satisfying) to get hold of Carmine’s untraceable money. Johnny tells Sofia about his love for her mother, trying to convince her that he’s on her side and that she’ll need him to maintain control of the family. And she seems to relent, but she has different plans. Sofia reaches out to the Falcone soldiers not with demands but with an offer to make them the made men her father and uncle never did, to start a new family made of the forgotten men who did the family’s dirty work and got table scraps in return. She even rechristens it the Gigante family, using her mother’s maiden name as the final symbol of her victory (her Dark Victory, you might say if you were as shameless as I am) over her father, and to make her point about class warfare, she blows Johnny Vitti’s head off in front of the whole crew. This is the perfect payoff to their earlier scene. When she seemed to accept Johnny’s help, I thought she was crazy; this is the guy who told her he would gladly kill her if she didn’t leave the country, and she’s now going to buy that he loves her and has her best interests at heart? But, of course, Sofia is way too smart for that, and she makes an example of him instead. He is the last vestige of the old guard, the greedy Falcones who used their soldiers to fatten their own wallets. Now, he’s dead, and Sofia will build a new family with those he abused – like her.

In this way, Sofia and Oz are almost kindred spirits, something “Homecoming” examines. Oz is building a crew out of the unwashed masses as well, pointing the finger at the elite who spat upon them and organizing them around a hostile takeover and the production and sale of Bliss. With the Falcones out of the way, he sets his sights on the Maronis, and he uses his men to kidnap Sal and Nadia’s son, Taj, agreeing to return him to his parents in exchange for the Bliss they took from him. But this is all a setup; Oz douses Taj in gasoline and sets him and Nadia on fire during the exchange, and he pays off a prison guard to kill Sal in his cell. It’s a ruthless bit of subterfuge, and it seems to work… until Oz gets away with drugs and discovers almost the entire cache was ruined when his fire set off the sprinklers in the warehouse. Then, he learns that his assassin not only failed but allowed Sal Maroni to escape from Blackgate prison. Now, Oz is on the run, with fewer resources than he thought he’d have and two powerful enemies gunning for him. In fact, his standing has been lowered, as he’s forced to hide in the slums with his mother and Victor, with Victor deducing it’s the only place the gangsters won’t find them. This is another great inversion, with what seems like Oz’s grand victory blowing up in his face and forcing him underground like the rat he is.

And that’s what truly separates Oz and Sofia. While Sofia is clearly insane and perfectly willing to commit violence, there’s a nobility to her actions. She kills off the Falcones, but she spares her second cousin because she’s innocent. She brings the forgotten members of the family under her control, but she has something to offer them immediately, throwing them a ton of cash as a taste of things to come. And she’s honest with them, freely admitting that she killed the Faclones before shooting Johnny Vitti in the middle of a meeting rather than behind closed doors. She promises never to use them as “cannon fodder” in a senseless war, and to that end, she forms an alliance with Sal Maroni. That alliance is based partly on their mutual hatred of Oz but also because she knows Sal cares about his family the way her father never did. And, finally, she’s earned all of this; she was always supposed to take over the family, and Bliss was her and Alberto’s creation. Compare this to Oz, who lies to his men about organizing the Falcone massacre, happily kills the innocent Taj to get to his mother, steals the drug Sofia and her brother made, destroys the supply of Bliss before the men he enlisted can see a dime from it, and pits them against enemies they will almost surely die fighting. Sofia is what Oz thinks he is and what he pretends to be, but the reality is that he’s no different from Carmine Falcone; he’s just not rich.

“Homecoming” has now set the stage for the mob war, and the title applies to all the major players. Oz is now where he belongs, underground with the dregs and preparing for a street fight. Sofia has reclaimed her birthright and made it her own. Sal Maroni is out of prison and perhaps in an even more powerful position than he was before he was locked up, although it cost him everything he loves. Victor is back in the place he tried to escape, only he’s there with Oz now, melding the past that created him with the future he’s building. Even Dr. Rush, the lovelorn Arkham shrink, has forged a new path as part of Sofia’s new Gigante family, now where he wants to be (almost; he’s not exactly by her side so much as standing in awe of her, but at least he’s with her to some degree). This episode moves at a lightning pace, and it looks like things are only going to speed up from here.

Let us know what you think of “Homecoming” in the comments!

***

Get Your Geeks + Gamers merch here!