The Penguin Episode 3 recap: Oz and Sofia become friends & foes
HBOAfter revealing Victor Aguilar’s traumatic backstory, The Penguin Episode 3 focuses on the energetic, productive bond between Oz Cobb and Sofia Falcone. If only it lasted.
In Oz’s words, he had to do “a lot of work” in The Penguin Episode 2. He conceived a simple plan: since the Falcones were moving their drops operation out of Gotham, the Maronis could swoop in, attack the convoy, and high-tail it with the drugs.
It didn’t go to plan, and with the family trying to sniff out a rat, he tried to offset the blame to Johnny Viti. That didn’t work either, with some poor Maroni footsoldier stabbed to death and Sofia’s guard murdered for having the offending knife in his pocket.
Yet, it all appeared to work out. Oz finally earned Sofia’s trust, and in the closing seconds, they agreed to “dance.”
Victor loses his family to the flood
HBOWe open with a flashback in Crown Point, with Victor getting ready to go to a roof party with his girlfriend Graciela. He stops by his apartment to drop off some stuff for his mom, dad, and sister.
He tells his dad he should be paid more for his extra effort. “You act like wanting more is a bad thing, don’t you want a better life than this?” he asks, but his father says they have “more than enough.”
As he leaves for the party, his dad grills him about whether or not Squid is there. From context, it’s clear he’s a bad egg; a drug dealer, hoodlum, and gang member – the works.
Vic stands at the ledge with Graciela, but their intimate moment is cut short by explosions all around Gotham. It’s the Riddler’s bombs from The Batman, with water crashing through the streets and wiping out Victor’s home… with his family still inside.
The episode cuts to the present, with Oz getting ready to launch this mysterious, “revolutionary” new drug with Sofia. Oz tells Vic they’re “temporarily” allied, predicting that Luca and the family will “take care of her” in due course, leaving him at the top of the table.
Oz and Sofia hit the town
HBOHe asks Vic to drive him and Sofia around, but then Oz realizes he’s still not given him any money for his work. He starts him on $1,000 per week and tells him to ask for something when he wants it. “How’s anyone supposed to know your worth unless you tell them, huh?” he says, but he laughs when Vic asks for $2,000.
Oz takes a call from Salvatore, leaving Vic to deal with Sofia. He’s nervous, understandably, as she lightly probes him about how he met Oz. He spins her a vague, bumbling lie about Oz liking his work on his car. “Oz used to be my driver, did he tell you that? I didn’t think so,” she reveals, peeling back the tension in their relationship.
Sofia tells Vic to stay behind because it’ll be a long night (plus she probably wants to keep the new drug on a need-to-know basis) so while Oz drives her, Vic invites Graciela to the apartment.
Oz and Sofia arrive at the warehouse where the drug is being stored. They’re mushrooms, which (as Oz crassly points out) aren’t exactly revolutionary. But it’s not the mushroom itself that’s the drug: it’s the “basidiospores” it produces (the red secretion on top).
It creates a “potent, euphoric stimulant” unlike any drug on the market, and it’s implied it’s used on the inmates at Arkham.
“Find me a distributor and we’ll paint the town red,” Sofia tells Oz.
Vic considers his future
HBOGraciela arrives at Oz’s place, stunned by how “bougie” it is and Vic’s seemingly cozy arrangement. She reveals she’s moving to California to get away from the poverty and grief of Gotham, especially in the wake of the Riddler’s attacks.
She asks if he wants to go with her, but Vic isn’t sure he’d even be allowed to. “He’s not just a club owner, he’s like a gangster. If I took off… he kind of likes having me around. He’s kind of lonely, and I’ve seen stuff I shouldn’t have. If I left, I don’t know what he would do,” he explains.
Graciela says that’s exactly why he should leave. Vic gives her money to stay in a hotel and get him a bus ticket to California while he figures out how to break the news to Oz.
Johnny Viti gives Sofia an ultimatum
HBOBack at the Falcone house, which is swarming with security after the incident at Alberto’s funeral, Johnny Viti gets candid with Sofia.
“This business ain’t your business. Take a f**kin’ hint. Luca, he’s the head of the family now. So when he tells you to go to Italy, you get on a f**king plane,” he says, before handing her a ticket to Rome.
“I know you’re not right in the head… but I’m not scared of you. All I see is a spoiled brat who got what she deserved,” he tells her, warning her she has two days to leave or he’ll have her killed.
Sofia and Oz try to sell Bliss
HBOThe next day, Oz and Sofia head to Chinatown to offer their new drug to the Triads; specifically Link Tsai, a deputy who runs their clubs. Feng Zhao is the head of the Triads and the only one who can authorize a partnership, but as Oz says, they need to start somewhere – and this is it.
Link and Oz aren’t exactly on good terms. We don’t get many details, but it appears Link trafficked cigarettes for Oz and he didn’t get his cut. However, Oz knows he’d be dead if the Triads wanted revenge. “I got a real opportunity for you here,” he teases.
After seeing the drug, which Oz names “Bliss”, Link is worried he’s being asked to join a coup. Oz says it’s more of a “corporate restructure” and they have support from within the family.
And then Oz sticks them in some deep sh*t: he claims Johnny Viti is backing Sofia over Luca, which absolutely isn’t the case. Sofia goes along with the lie, but Link says Zhao will need a phone call from Johnny. They agree, with the condition they get a meeting with Zhao as soon as possible.
“I always knew it was a matter of time before you made a move Oz. Didn’t think it would come like this,” Link tells him.
Outside, Victor practices his speech to Oz when a police officer pulls up behind him. The cop asks him to step out the car, explaining that he’s “idling in a loading zone.”
He searches him and finds the wad of cash in his pocket. “That’s a lot of money for a kid your age to be carrying around,” he says, and Vic realizes what’s going on: he needs to bribe him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t have any money,” he says, and the cop walks away.
Oz teaches Vic how to value himself
HBOLater, Oz takes Vic for some fine dining. They laugh about Vic having to bribe a police officer (that’s the “cost of doing business,” apparently).
As they order their food, Vic struggles to say steak frites with his stutter. The waiter preempts him, which angers Oz. Vic says he doesn’t need to defend him, but Oz tells him: “You should do it. F**k what they think. Let them wait. Take up space. You got fight in you, Vic, you gotta let it out.”
Vic tells Oz about his parents, and how his father wanted to be a chef instead of a mechanic. “I don’t think he ever got to eat in a lot of nice restaurants,” he says. “The world ain’t set up for the honest man to succeed,” Oz tells him, lamenting the myth of the American dream. They toast his father, and Oz says he “raised a good son… your dad would be proud of you.”
Oz and Sofia force Johnny Viti’s hand
Of course, they’re not just there to eat. Upstairs, Johnny Viti is having sex with Luca’s wife, so Oz and Sofia steal a key to his room and confront him.
Johnny can’t believe Oz is supporting a “psychopath”, but Oz lays it out for him: he’s going to call Zhao and tell him that he supports them. It doesn’t even need to be a lie – Johnny could help them and fly off to a sunny country with Luca’s wife.
He taunts Oz, telling him nobody respects “the Penguin.” Oz doesn’t like that. He shoves his phone in Johnny Viti’s mouth, stretching his jaw and cracking the glass against his teeth. “Make the f**king call,” he orders.
Gotham tries Bliss for the first time
HBOThat night, Oz arms Eve’s girls with Bliss and sets them loose on the Triad club, with Vic working as their bagman (the person who keeps the money safe and gives them more drugs to sell).
Sofia seems a little bit suspicious of Oz. “You say all the right things, don’t you?” she tells him, before asking: “Was it worth it, what you did to me? Did you get everything that you wanted? It seems like you want more.”
“Zhao is here to see me, not my former driver,” she says. Beneath their feet, club-goers start taking Bliss, and it’s going down a treat.
Sofia and Oz meet Zhao, who says there’s “a lot of potential” to their plan. However, the risk is still too great, given the Falcones’ history with the Triads. He doesn’t know if he can trust Sofia, especially considering she’s just out of Arkham.
She asks him to look at how Bliss is freeing people from the adversity of Gotham. “Nothing gives an escape better than Bliss. That’s why they gave it to us in Arkham. It made us content, submissive. Any pain that we had just flowed away, allowing us to forget where we were,” she explains.
“Whoever it controls it will control the future of the drug trade in Gotham. But if you are not interested, it’s fine. I can go to the Neon Dragons or the Odessa mob. I don’t care much who our sales reps are.”
Sofia leaves, telling Oz to “make the deal or don’t.”
Vic tries to leave Oz
HBOMeanwhile, the loud music and flashing lights give Vic a hallucinatory panic attack, imagining the night his parents died and water rushing through the city. He comes to after dropping all of the drugs on the floor and shuffles to the bathroom.
He gets a text from Graciela. She’s waiting at the bus station for him. Oz comes in: he made the deal, and he wants to celebrate. When he hears Vic’s phone vibrate, he demands to see who’s texting him.
Vic explains that it’s not “the piece of ass.” He’s having a crisis of morality. Oz tells him to go, and when Vic says he “can’t leave”, that just makes it worse.
“You think I’m holding you hostage or something? That what, you’re my f**king prisoner?” he says, holding him at gunpoint. “I gave you clothes, money, a place to crash. You got all the opportunity in the world right f**king here.”
“You chose to stay. How ’bout you ask yourself why? You stayed because you want something better. You want more than your father ever had… you wanna know what’s shameful? Working your whole goddamn life and having nothing to show for it.
“You still think there’s good and bad, right and wrong? There ain’t. There’s just this: survival, security, pleasure. They don’t give out awards for dying in the projects… you think you’re nothing, you are nothing ’til the day you die.”
Oz tells him to get out. As he storms out of the club, he realizes he still has the keys to Oz’s Maserati… so he steals it! He drives to the bus station and sees Graciela waiting for the bus, but he can’t bring himself to get on.
Sofia and Oz’s night goes haywire
HBOAfter stewing over a drink, Oz goes outside to tell Sofia the good news. She isn’t particularly excited.
“Jesus Christ, fine. I f**ked you over. I didn’t know what Carmine would do… f**king Arkham, his own flesh and blood? I swear I thought I was looking out for you,” he tells her.
Sofia points out that he’s not even a made man yet. “I still made out like a goddamn bandit… it was worth it. You asked, that’s my f**king answer. I got the club, the drops operation to run my own thing. A guy like me, getting all that? That don’t mean nothing to you maybe, but it does to me… I don’t regret what I got.”
Oz apologizes for everything that’s happened to Sofia. “You meant something to me, still do, and I f**ked up. That I ain’t ever gonna live down,” he says.
She says she doesn’t know how to trust him, and before he can show her how, they’re confronted by Salvatore’s Nadia. “We’ve been watching you, motherf**ker,” she tells him.
Elsewhere, Vic turns the car around to go back to Oz – and it’s just in time. He finds Oz and Sofia on their knees, so he rams the car into Nadia’s men and gives them a chance to escape. Oz gets in the car and tells Vic to drive and leave Sofia behind. “We’re in it now, Vic, we’re in it now,” he tells them as they flee.
Check out our recaps of The Penguin Episode 1 and Episode 2, and find out when you can watch Episode 4. You can also read our theory on why Dr Julian Rush may be a secret Batman villain, why Batman won’t appear in The Penguin, and what’s happening with The Batman 2.