For most of the latest episode of HBO’s The Penguin, Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) suffers at the hands of men. We learn how she was forced into Arkham Asylum by her father after she questioned how her mother died, and was then repeatedly violated by the male doctor there and stripped of her rights until she did, in fact, go mad, and, how ten years later, after her release, she is still questioned and maligned by the men in the Falone crime family. But, like a chartreuse phoenix rising from the patriarchal ashes, Sofia gets hers by the end of “Cent’anni,” and we get The Penguin’s true protagonist.
“For 10 years men have lied to me. And then I come home and it’s all the same. They think I’m broken. I’m not broken. I’m not the one who’s sick. And neither are you. The world is,” Sofia tells Dr. Julian Rush (Theo Rossi), the assistant to the Arkham doctor who repeatedly subjected her to shock treatment despite her protestations, and who declared her unfit for trial, forcing her to stay there for a decade.
Sofia is the victim of men who built their empires using violence and coercion—we learn in this episode that her father, Carmine Falcone, not only strangled her mother but several other women who he employed. When Sofia questioned him, he told her she was not herself and got her involuntarily committed to Akrham. These kinds of men are terrified of losing their power, and someone as capable as Sofia is a threat—but her womanhood makes her an easy target.
Sofia’s time in Arkham is painful and horrifying to watch. We see an innocent woman thrown into an asylum for daring to question a man and are forced to watch as that system breaks her down until she is no longer a person, but a feral thing. Her perfectly manicured nails become filthy, ragged claws. Her styled hair becomes wild and knotted, her pristine skin marred by redness and bruises from the electroshock therapy. By the time she takes her neighbor’s head and repeatedly smashes it onto a cafeteria table until she’s dead (RIP Magpie), we know that this place and the men who put her there effectively killed Sofia Falcone.
Milioti gives an award-worthy performance, deconstructing the character until she is as untrusting and sharp as an alley cat. You are angry for her, and in turn, for any woman who has been wrongfully accused or armchair psychoanalyzed. You want her to win.
And win she does. After the episode’s lengthy flashback, Sofia attends what is meant to be her last family dinner. After all, she’s been told by the men that she has to get on a flight to Sicily or else risk certain death, since she’s become, in their eyes, too much of a liability for la famiglia. Clad in a plunging chartreuse silk gown, she holds dominion over the family dinner for an excruciating speech, before toasting to new beginnings.
She leads her cousin’s young daughter to the greenhouse to spend the night, her beautiful gown trailing behind her as she walks. She awakens next to her in the morning, the orangey glow of the sunrise highlighting her profile as she sits up. Making her way back into the Falcone mansion, the young girl’s pink backpack in hand and no shoes on her feet, she pauses in the doorway to put on a gas mask. And then, like the silent killer gas can be, Sofia tiptoes, dances, and prances through the mansion, opening doors and windows with glee to let the sunlight in. Shining through her dress, it reveals the curves of her body as she moves like a jungle cat through the sprawling mansion, in which each and every Falcone family member is now dead.
In the last room, she takes a handgun off the end table and wakes up Johnny Vitti, the right hand man who she’s chosen to let live through the night. “Put your pants on Johnny, we have to talk,” she snaps with her New York Italian accent. Mamma mia, I’m in love. Talk about gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss, am I right?
The next episode of The Penguin airs on HBO Max on October 20 at 9 p.m. ET.
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