The Penguin Episode 7 is a game-changing episode, which re-frames everything we thought we knew about Oswald “Oz” Cobb’s (Colin Farrell) family history. “Top Hat” opens with a flashback to when Oz was a youth, living in a Crown Point apartment with his “Ma” and brothers, Jack and Benny. However, even hardcore fans of The Batman Universe weren’t prepared for how deep and dark Oz’s story would get from there, as we learn – beyond all shadow of a doubt, that “Penguin” is a villain who is – and always has been – rotten to the core.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS!
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The Flashback portion of The Penguin Episode 7 looks back on the day that Oz and his brothers were sent out to play the day away by their mother, who was bookkeeping for the mob. Jack was given the big-boy task of delivering the tally to local gangster Rex Calabrese (Louis Cancelmi), before the three Cobb boys decided to play a game of hide-and-seek in their favorite place: the abandoned subway and sewer tunnels.
Earlier scenes in the Cobb home hinted at Oz being the odd man out amongst his brothers, with his crippled leg and heavier weight. More than that, though: Oz is seen almost coveting his mother’s attention – just as he will money and power as an adult – and there’s deep jealousy simmering inside him when his mom gives his brothers her attention, and her trust. Those feelings finally boil over when Jack and Benny decide to drop down a ladder and hide in a water overflow tunnel; when Oz physically struggles to get down the ladder, he gets frustrated with his brothers, screaming that they did it to embarrass him. To turn the tables, Oz shuts the door to the tunnel and leaves his brothers trapped in there.
The sickening turn comes next: Oz goes home and relishes in his mother’s undivided attention, watching a movie and snuggling with her. When it rains, Oz doesn’t bother to get his brothers – he lies to his mother, saying Jack and Benny are going to the movies to see Beetlejuice while plying her with liquor. The scene cuts back and forth between Oz’s utter delight at watching an old movie with his mom, and Jack and Benny desperately screaming for help and banging on the tunnel door, until the rainwater fills the chamber, and the boys’ screams bubble out into sounds of drowning, and then silence. Not only is Oz unbothered by the situation – he’s actually elated while watching the sequence of a top hat-wearing dancer pretending to use his cane to shoot up the rest of the cabaret troupe, re-enforcing Oz’s idealization of the gangster life.
The Penguin: Why Oz Cobb Killing His Brothers Changes Everything
This flashback reframes everything about Oz Cobb and his ethos. Oz’s deepest emotional connection (his mom) is revealed to really be a twisted psychological obsession, and the stories about his family and brothers he wields as weapons of emotional manipulation are just delusions: The Penguin is a sociopath in the truest sense of the word – and always has been.
It’s a masterful stroke for the penultimate episode of the series to make us totally re-examine who the central character is. “Top Hat” raises the emotional stakes of Penguin’s showdown with Sofia Falcone exponentially; with Sofia and Dr. Julian Rush (Theo Rossi) now messing with Francis Cobb’s fragile mind, Oz’s relationship with his mom suddenly feels like it’s under as much threat as her life may be
The Penguin airs new episodes Sunday nights on HBO and streams on Max.
