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the penguin - inside man review - sofia and oz
Television

The Penguin – Inside Man review S1 E2

Jeffrey Lyles , , , , , , , , , ,

Inside Man was a terrific showcase for one of The Penguin’s greatest strengths. This is a show that doesn’t need a bunch of crazy, outlandish scenarios. All it needs is Colin Farrell’s desperate Oz Cobb seeking any and every opportunity to carve out his own niche. And Cristin Milioti’s shrewd Sofia Falcone proving just as inevitable a force. That’s a good mix for some pretty compelling weekly TV.

With Alberto Falcone dead, there’s a new man in charge of the Falcone family — Alberto and Sofia’s uncle, Luca (Scott Cohen). Oz is moderately convinced he’s got Luca’s ear, but Oz is never suffering from a lack of confidence. For now, he’s still navigating both sides. He arranges for Sal Maroni’s men to hijack a Falcone truck. This doesn’t go as smoothly as Oz planned thanks to Johnny Vitti’s insistence that he ride in the main truck. Oz told Sal’s henchman the main truck was fair game to shoot up.

Oz manages to avoid getting shot, but narrowly avoids getting killed by one of Falcone’s guys who didn’t get killed in the initial attack. With the deal gone sideways, Oz runs off with Falcone’s men. This felt very much like a shootout sequence that would have worked just fine in the Christopher Nolan Batman universe.

Sofia is still adjusting to life outside of Arkham. Her nightmares and day terrors are so intense that she lashes out at anyone within her proximity from her psychologist Julian Rush (Luke Cage’s Theo Rossi) and even herself. The bloody marks around her neck symbolized her feelings of being closed in and isolated with Alberto now gone.

Luca knows Sofia is savvy enough to know something’s not right even if he doesn’t fully entertain her suspicion that there’s an inside man feeding intel to the Maronis. Fully recognizing that she’s the most formidable member of the family, Oz tells Sofia he’ll search for the rat. And chimes in that she should be the one leading the family, not Luca. Sofia is too smart to fall for Oz’s buddy, buddy buttering up.  She rightfully doesn’t trust him for various reasons. Sofia is the only one who can see through Oz’s bluster.

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While she doesn’t realize he’s the one that killed Alberto, Sofia hires a drugged-out detective formerly on her father’s payroll, Det. Marcus Wise (Craig Walker), to do some discrete digging around. Det. Wise is likely going to prove a major problem for Oz…provided he’s lucid enough.

Oz mentoring Vic and telling him stories of the old days has proven to be a real unexpected treat of The Penguin. To keep up appearances, Oz throws a house party and has Eve bring over a few of her girls. And he’s even got one for Vic. She happens to be a cam girl with a thing for cake. She mentions the area beyond the sea wall is like a No Man’s Land. Clearly an Easter Egg referencing the stellar NML comic book arc, which you can check out on Amazon.

Vic gets a text from “Graciela” asking where he is, suggesting that maybe he does still have some family members or friends around. It’s probably best for him to keep the information secret from Oz.

Eve knows Oz was the one who killed Alberto Falcone. The bigger question is whether that information is going to cost Eve?

Oz figures the best way to advance in the Falcone family is by getting Johnny out of the way. And he’s got the perfect way to do that courtesy of Alberto’s files, which have pics of Johnny hooking up with Luca’s wife. That’s some serious blackmail/valuable intel. Oz had a solid two-part plan to take care of Johnny, but Vic wasn’t able to plant some jewels in Johnny’s car while the Falcone crew was assembled for Alberto’s repass.

the penguin - inside man review - oz

That forces Oz to change up his plan. Sofia’s goons were interrogating the surviving Maroni member from the shootout. Worried that he would snitch instead of feeding them Johnny’s name, Oz stabs him. It was impressive that Oz managed to avoid getting any blood on his suit. Luca is not thrilled to discover the body and has everyone involved in the truck incident searched for a knife. While Johnny seems the likely pocket for Oz to stash the knife, he chooses Sofia’s right-hand man, Castillio (Berto Colon) instead.

Luca shoots him in a blatant show of his force. Then, he firmly suggests Sofia take some time away and head to Italy. Growing increasingly frustrated with being pushed to the curb again and again, Sofia is now ready to partner up with Oz, who pulled off a pretty sweet move of being the inside man Sofia was gunning for to now being her closest ally.

Inside Man proved to be a tremendous illustration of Oz’s true power and why he’s ultimately going to be Gotham’s true mover and shaker.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Max

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