The penguin

Inside the human being

Season 1

Episode 2

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

***

Photo: Macall Polay/HBO

Our second episode of The penguin takes us through the first real phase of Oz Cobb’s plan to take over the Falcone empire. If you’re looking for a quality Sunday night HBO crime series, the process will prove efficient, if not inadequate. But where “Inside Man” comes across as thin gangster cosplay lip service The sopranos/Boardwalk Empire-attractive HBO time slot, The penguin continues to use inspired the comic IP flashlight it is designed to carry.

Still reeling from her brother’s death, Sofia Falcone finds herself in a waking nightmare made worse by the strange hypnotherapy administered by Julian Rush, her hip Arkham surrogate doctor. It’s unclear why she would willingly meet with a shrink from her Arkham days, unless of course there was some benefit to her future – a way to work on this guy. “You’re safe,” Rush admonishes, but Sofia knows there’s no safety when you’re the daughter of an imploding crime family.

Meanwhile, Oz slams a bottle of Pepto into the rain outside Blackgate, preparing his mind (and his quivering microbiome) for another tricky meeting with Salvatore Maroni. Sal is already in a meeting with his wife and current underboss Nadia (Shohreh Aghdashloo) when Oz comes along with his next proposal, and Sal isn’t too happy about his hand being forced to accept Alberto’s death. But Sal Is He wears his ring openly around the old cell block, and the merit of Alberto’s death fills the Maroni family with a “we’re back, we’re SO back” energy.

With the Maronis, the plan is simple: Oz acts as an insider and helps the Maronis boost the drops. The Falcones transport their drops to the new location in Robbinsville using a FEMA truck as cover (drops “sit pretty” in barrels of “emergency water”). The route to Robbinsville is a direct route; No highways, all parts of the city. The Maroni can “waste” everyone in the leading car and truck, but leave the following car alone. Oz is supposed to be safely housed there, except that on the night of the move, Johnny Viti asks the penguin – as he pointedly calls Oz in front of his entire crew – to ride in the truck with the product.

This is where some of this show’s seams start to become more apparent. On the other hand, this also applies to some of its strengths. On the one hand, the mini-action sequence in which the Maroni boys crash the drop transporter while Oz is talking And It shoots its way out of harm’s way and is full of the kind of bad editing and flat photography that so many IP-friendly, somewhat prestige cable shows seem to wallow like hell in. On the other hand, there is the staging, the humor and the crackers. The current characterizations show how well this series walks the line between grit, pulp and darkly comic buffoonery and does justice to even Batman’s campiest iterations.

After the Maronis’ heist fails, largely because Oz killed their men to protect his cover, the Falcones meet for a debrief and find out how the transport went wrong. Oz is also there and blames Viti’s route for the kidnapping. But Oz didn’t do anything to protect the drops, replies Viti. And then Sofie intervenes. Justice matters, and that’s what her brother deserves, she demands. Furthermore, there is clearly a rat in her outfit that is working with the Maronis from within.

Luca Falcone (Scott Cohen), Carmine’s brother and acting head of the family, handles the situation with moderation (or weakness, as almost everyone in the room takes it). He ends the meeting and gives Oz and Sofia the cold shoulder. After he’s released, Oz listens to Sofia and tells her in a barely hushed voice that he’s willing to put aside the whole tying him naked and almost killing him thing from last episode if she were. Sofia doesn’t believe it, but she doesn’t seem to suspect that Oz is the rat either. Finally, he points out that he owes her something for his role in her stay in Arkham, with just enough genuine remorse in his voice and eyes to leave a lasting impression on Sofia’s sympathy.

In the meantime, Sofia will take some steps on her own. She starts with Detective Wise – a particularly reliable informant for her father. Wise doesn’t understand at first, but a thick stack of bills and a bottle of drops get him to listen – Sofia quickly needs to know where the Maronis got the information about their Robbinsville transport.

The next day, at Alberto’s funeral, Oz finds Sofia and says one last “Ave Maria” to take her side. This is another chance for Farrell to monologue with his mouth and his eyes alike, cloaking a strategically placed lie in an emotional flow of truth.

“We didn’t have a service for my brothers. “My mother said she didn’t want to deal with the pity,” Oz reveals. Finally, after about a month, Oz’s mother got up and took her little Oswald to a jazz club on the East Side. “We danced all night long. That’s how we celebrated her,” Oz says. “I’d like to think it was me, I don’t know. She died a few years ago, I never asked.” Aside from making Sofia think Oz’s mother is dead, the point is that it’s “much more fun to dance” than to deal with it directly Dealing with the pain of loss. It’s better to go crazy with your emotions and launch into strategic, albeit animated, carnage.

Back at the Falcone mansion, where the rest of the memorial service is taking place, Detective Wise Sofia brings a captured Ervad, the Maronis’ capo and superior officer in the Robbinsville hijacking. He’s sedated, but he’ll talk soon. The only thing you can do now is move it to the basement for safe keeping. Meanwhile, Oz is called in by Nadia Maroni to answer for Ervad’s capture.

Nadia blames Oz for Ervad’s capture, exaggerating his position towards Luca, but Oz says this move must be because Sofia acted on her own initiative. Oz also manages to demonstrate added value with the photos in his jacket pocket that show Johnny Viti having sex with Luca’s wife. (“My JACKET BAG!” I don’t know why, but that delivery made me cry!) Nadia is happy enough, but she still wants the Maronis’ husband back.

So Oz hatches a new plan to portray Viti as a rat by tasking Victor with putting the stolen family jewels in Viti’s car while he finds Ervad in the basement and instructs him to drop Viti’s name. Unfortunately, Victor is caught trying to slip and flees when questioned by Viti’s guard. Oz quickly improvises and stabs Ervad right through the heart, leaving him dead when Sofia and Luca go to the basement to question him.

Oz now needs someone else to keep as a rat. Castillo (Berto Colon), Sofia’s right-hand man, is enough. As all the men gather to find out who killed Ervad, Oz instigates a scuffle with Viti and plants the knife and diamonds on Castillo when he tries to intervene. Sofia demands a gun to shoot Castillo immediately, but Luca asserts his dominance and shoots Castillo himself before leaving the room.

Oz’s improvised B-Plan works, jewels safely stored in Castillo’s apartment in time for the Falcones to find. Now Sofia doesn’t know who she can trust – except Oz. She’s ready to dance, team up with Oz and take over the family. The events that brought them here were entertaining, but again, from the perspective of a solid HBO crime series, flimsy and superficial. It’s an episode strung together with a number of mob story tropes – some flat, others executed with enough panache to at least be coherent. Ultimately, it’s hard to believe that Sofia would give up her distrust of Oz so easily. But since there’s a mixed sense of annoyance between Oz and Sofia, we’re primed for the classic Gotham City foil à deux. Next Week: The Penguin and the Executioner take on Gotham’s aging organized crime fathers!!

• “If my son is nothing, then what am I?” says Oz’s mother. I have been and think I will continue to be a defender The penguin’s Elements in the broadest sense, but above all because they serve the series’ most successful mix of pulp, grime and real camp, as they have always existed side by side in the series Batman oeuvre (in the context of the modern comics IP industrial complex, it’s even easier to forget that DC stands for Detective Comics). Oz’s Mother is one of those broad elements that has me a little worried heading into the rest of the series. Deirdre O’Connell delivers a well-calibrated performance that undoubtedly plays to Farrell’s strengths. But something about their scenes seems disconnected from the rest of the series, and they don’t add much to the A-story other than letting it be known that Oz is lying to Sofia about his mother. Still, I’m open to something more revealing between Oz and his mother later.

• While we’re on the subject of broad things not working, what’s up with the “FALCONS = FASCISTS” protest signs outside Alberto’s funeral? I understand that Sofia’s release from Arkham was a little “extrajudicial,” but why would anyone use the F-word like that? A small, yet strange and amusing detail.

• While Oz is no stranger to getting picked on by the bosses, he seems to take it out on Victor when his ego is hit the hardest. After missing the chance to frame Viti, he also suffers the indignity of Viti ordering him to clean up the mess. He forces Victor into the pit, horizontal and face to face with the fresh corpses of Castillo and Ervad. “Lie down where you belong. Do you want to survive? You have to adapt; You have to be quick. Whatever Carmine threw at me, I did it. Every damn time! Do you understand what I’m saying?” It looks like one of the ticking time bombs of this series will be how many of Oz’s trauma-reaction freakouts Victor will endure before his loyalty breaks in other ways.

• Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti continue to have fun with these characters. And while we’re on the subject of whether elements of this show are appropriate for Adam West’s Batman, can we all take a moment to admire Sofia’s red pantsuit and the look of her zebra-print jacket when she goes to the Falcone the next day -Family reunion going?