Welcome back to the blog readers. I did not in a million years think it possible for The Penguin to be as bloody delectable as it is. This show is fucking amazing, from the characters to the performances to the intrigue involving the power struggle between Oz Cobb and Sofia Falcone. It looks like from previews that we're about to be getting a Sofia backstory episode, so would it, titled "Cent'Anni," written by John McCutcheon, and directed by Helen Shaver, deliver the goods? Stick around to find out.
NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the episode.
Before I actually got to watch this episode, I had heard the online chatter about this possibly being the best episode of the series and one of the best television episodes of the year. I also heard the chatter that this is the episode that will get Cristin Milioti her Emmy nomination next year. Unfortunately after I actually watched the episode, I...fuck it, I agree with all of that. This is one of the best television episodes of the year and Cristin Milioti gives a powerhouse performance that will have her name being said come Emmy time.
We have to start with that performance from Cristin Milioti. I remember after this episode finished thinking to myself "She is definitely getting an Emmy nomination after this." And sure enough, chef's kiss, she definitely will be. I will go into details in a minute, but the story and the honest yet brutal performance from Milioti leaves you feeling sympathetic as hell for this character. She starts out by giving us a character that is loving and devoted to her father, but that love and devotion is shattered in the most heartbreaking way as Sofia is subject to both physical and emotional torture. Once we find out everything she has endured and all of the people who have wronged her, Sofia transforms into a vengeful person and the calm rage that Milioti embodies in the dinner scene is nothing short of fascinating to watch. Truly a tour-de-force performance that should be celebrated (but not tolerated).
The story in this episode is broken into two parts: the present and the past. I will start with the events that happen in the past because they inform the events we currently see. We start with a younger Sofia (still played by Milioti) with her father Carmine (played by Mark Strong in this series, John Turturro in The Batman (2022)) pondering about her place in the Falcone crime family and Carmine's wish that she be his successor due to her brother Alberto's lack of drive. She also asks her father about her mother who killed herself when Sofia was young. Carmine requests she not bring her mother up. We see her relationship with her brother and Oz Cobb (who is her driver) as she is approached by a member of the press asking about women who have hung themselves. She refuses to get involved but Oz sells her out to Carmine. Carmine then has his family write letters betraying her and framing her as the serial killer known as "The Hangman."
She is remanded to Arkham where she faces physical and emotional torture while being lambasted and humiliated by the other inmates. Her sentence is only supposed to be six months as she has to deal with a crooked doctor named Ventris that subjects her to electroshock therapy that numbs her mind. After her sentence is up, Alberto visits her and says Ventris convinced the judge she is unfit to stand trial and that she will be there indefinitely. That sentence of six months eventually turned into ten years, which as completely broken her and her mind, leading her to kill an inmate named Magpie. And it is really easy for us to sympathize with her character because she was framed for killing people that she never did, made to be insane with nobody believing her, and basically treated like complete dogshit by everyone because she questioned that her mother really committed suicide. What she does later in the episode feels justified in a way, and now we got to talk about it.
Now we discuss the events of the present. When Oz and Sofia are cornered by Nadia Maroni and her cronies, Nadia exposes Oz's duplicity and he claims he was only using Sofia to gain access to the drug Bliss. Victor arrives and Sofia is shot but is able to make it to safety as Dr. Rush is able to pick her up as she loses consciousness. She comes to in his house, and he reveals he quit Arkham because of their treatment of her. She later comes to realize that she is not broken, but the world is. He convinces her to take the flight to Sicily to get a new and better life. She decides to confront her uncle Luca and her family that had her locked up, claiming that the next day will be a fresh start for her. She escorts her cousin Carla's daughter to the greenhouse and the little girl, Gia, asks her why she did the things she did. Sofia rebukes her and says she had to fight monsters while assuring Gia she would ensure she never has to do the same. When they wake up, it is revealed that Sofia set off a gas in the house that killed everyone except Johnny Viti as she tells him they need to talk. Although we do not classify Sofia as a hero in any way, because she is not, it does feel nice seeing her take vengeance on the people who wronged her and becoming who they made her out to be. I hope we flesh this out more going into Sunday's episode.
The Penguin gives us an award-worthy performance by Cristin Milioti as we take a look at her tragic and heartbreaking backstory that makes her who we see her as today. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.
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