In the season finale of The Penguin (you can read our full recap here), Oz Cobb brings an end to his feud with Sofia Gigante by exposing her role in the destruction of Crown Point and ensuring "The Hangman" is returned to Arkham.
It was his fault she ended up there the first time, of course, and actor Cristin Milioti has shared her take on why Oz decided against just killing Sofia in an interview with Cosmopolitan.
"That's what makes them good adversaries. They both know how to sentence the other one to a fate worse than death. He really nails it, which is terrible," she explains. "I'm just continually blown away by Lauren's brilliance. There's this phrase, shocking yet inevitable, and that is kind of what their dynamic feels like."
"They're so familial in a way that they know exactly how to get to each other and it's what would have made them such great partners. But, instead, they ruin each other's lives."
Despite being trapped in Arkham, Sofia still has one ally in the twisted Dr. Julian Rush. For Milioti, that's far from a happy ending for Carmine Falcone's daughter.
"Here we f***ing go again," the actor says. "They're sort of partners and he's also the only physical contact she has too. He's the only person who understands the environment she came from. That dynamic is so weird, but she's in such a broken place at the end, so I don't even know if she's computing it."
"I'm sure she's devastated that it's back to what it was, because that's what fuels the relationship. She's powerless in that cell," she adds.
However, there's a glimmer of hope when Sofia receives a letter from her half-sister, Selina Kyle, The Batman's Catwoman. "It's like a pin prick of life at the end of an extremely long tunnel that she didn't have before," notes Milioti. "And it's family, which she doesn't have. I'm completely and utterly jazzed, as you can imagine. I hope we get to see that play out."
As for what this could mean for Sofia moving forward, showrunner Lauren LeFranc tells the site:
"That was something that I talked to Matt Reeves about. I wanted to see if he would be okay with that. I know they're half sisters—everybody who's watched The Batman technically knows that—we just never acknowledged it on our show. Most important, I think, was to give Sophia that inkling of hope, because the whole season she's lost and she has no family. Alberto dies so quickly. He's the only one who believed in her work. She gasses her whole family, and then she, one by one, just obliterates the rest of them."
"Oz puts her in this version of hell, which is Arkham, and she's left alone, and it's such a tragic, sad ending for her. That letter signifies that she does have family. Not one she necessarily knew existed, but she does have a half sister out there, and therefore has a little bit of hope. I think they would have a lot in common if they ever met. I can't speak to if there's any future for that, but that was really essential to me for Sophia. I love Sophia too much to give her just a purely tragic end."
Deirdre O'Connell also broke her silence on how Francis Cobb's story ends in The Penguin. When we last see her, she's in a vegetative state and being kept in Oz's penthouse with the view he always promised her.
He'd promised to kill his mother should her health decline but clearly can't or won't do it. As the episode ends, Oz leaves Francis in her bed and shares a dance with Eve, a prostitute now roleplaying as his mother.
"He knew what his job was and she made it very clear," O'Connell recalls when asked about the tear we see roll down Francis' cheek. "I mean, he does give her a penthouse view. I should have been more specific that I'd like to be awake to experience it. But she did give him very careful instructions for what to do when things got worse for her and he does not do that."
She adds, "I think that there's a way in which she objectively hates him and then there's a way in which she objectively loves him. When she sees him thrive, sees him gain in power, and when she sees him become a more and more effective person, she can't help but feel waves of pride like, He is me out in the world. But I also think that she feels like she has unleashed the devil..."
All episodes of The Penguin are now streaming on Max.