Those who have seen DC’s The Long Halloween may already know that Matt Reeves’ The Batman borrows the crux of its narrative from the aforementioned animated series. The Penguin, which is an extension of Matt Reeves’ created universe, follows similar plot lines, with some tweaks here and there, which I would like to point out in reference to the fifth episode of The Penguin. [Spoiler Alert] In The Long Halloween, a mysterious killer on the loose had been attacking and killing the associates of Carmine “Roman” Falcone on holidays. No one really knew the identity or the motivation of this killer, but it did make Roman’s enemies happy, including his arch-rival Salvatore “Sal” Maroni, as someone was doing the dirty work on their behalf. In The Penguin series as well, Sal, too, joined hands with a conman, Oz Cobb, who had killed Roman’s son, Alberto Falcone, and was now planning a great betrayal against the Falcone family. Sal believed that Oz could turn out to be a great asset for his gang and therefore decided to help him with a few favors.
The opening of The Long Halloween laid out the fact that District Attorney Harvey Dent had been trying to gather evidence against the mob boss Carmine Falcone but had only met dead ends. Dent’s obsession with Roman made everyone believe that the mysterious Holiday Killer was none other than DA Dent, who might have turned to the other side of the law to wipe out the scum from Gotham City. However, later on Father’s Day, when the Holiday Killer broke the pattern and shot Sal’s father on his estate, Sal decided to make a truce with his sworn enemy, Roman Falcone, to take revenge from Dent, whom he believed to be his father’s killer. Both in the comics and the animated series, Sal was having an affair with Sofia Falcone, but both knew that their families would never accept their relationship and therefore decided to keep it a secret. The animated series implied that it was Sofia who turned Sal against Dent, whom she believed had not only killed his father’s men but also her brother, Alberto Falcone.
The fifth episode The Penguin followed a similar storyline where we saw after Sal’s wife, Nadia, seized Oz’s new drug, Oz turned against the Maronis and burned Nadia and her son, Taj, alive in an act of revenge. He also paid a corrupt Mikey to kill Sal inside the prison, but Sal managed to escape, and as soon as he came out, he let Oz know to watch his back that he was coming for him.
From the very beginning of The Penguin series, Sofia was certain that it was Oz who killed her brother, but she didn’t have any solid evidence to support her claims, and her uncle Luca and Johnny Vitti didn’t have an ounce of interest in investigating her brother’s death. But when Nadia Maroni confirmed Sofia’s doubts, she decided to take charge of the family so she could take revenge for her brother’s death without anyone holding her back. And as soon as she got rid of her “extended” family, she quickly arrived at Sal’s hideout to offer an alliance to hunt down the penguin so he could do any more damage to the families. And even though Sofia had an affair with Sal in the The Long Halloween comic book, I don’t think we will see a similar equation between the two due to a huge age gap between the two characters. Or maybe they can have a fling of sorts.
In The Long Halloween, Sal’s father, before dying, had suggested to Sal that the only way to end the war between the two families was to make peace. After his father’s death, Sal acted on his old man’s advice and decided to turn himself in to mislead Dent and later throw acid on Dent’s face to avenge his father’s murder. Both Falcones and Maronis tried their best to kill Dent, but instead of killing him, they only turned him into a monster whose wrath and fury destroyed their entire families. I feel The Penguin would take the same course where Sal or Sofia might accidentally kill Oz’s mother, whom he had been trying to protect since the beginning of the series. Oz, being a person driven by his emotions, wouldn’t be able to bear such a tragic loss and turn the city upside down to wipe out the two families who separated a boy from his mother. In short, Oz is going to kill both Sal and Sofia at the end of the miniseries.
And before I forget, in the fifth episode, Oz also mentioned that he and his brothers grew up in the sewers, which could be a direct reference to Tim Burton’s 1992 film, Batman Returns, where Oswald Cobblepot, after being abandoned by his own parents in childhood, returned to Gotham City to find his family and prove his worth to the world. One could say that Oz in The Penguin had been seeking a similar validation. Being a deformed human being, everyone sees Oz as a mere party clown and has turned him into a laughingstock. Since the beginning, Oz has been trying to prove to his peers that he isn’t born to end up being a chauffeur or someone’s bodyguard but has the potential to rule the entire city. After a point, Oz came to a retaliation that the rich and affluent families of Gotham City would never let him rise above a certain rank, and it was the reason why he started a rebellion against the Falcones and Maronis in order to let everyone know that even a disabled person like him, from an impoverished background, can become a person of importance. However, it is to be noted that Oz is no crusader or a lawful person. One could say he is an anarchist or just another mercenary who wants to disrupt the established system to make a place for himself. And even though Oz sees himself as a hero, he isn’t. He is just another villain trying to fit in.
