The Penguin wasted no time in shaking up the status quo, and that one event goes on to define a huge part of the season for both Oz and the rest of the criminal underworld. The first episode is titled After Hours, and though it begins with the immediate fallout and devastation from Riddler’s grand plan in The Batman, the show then shifts to Oz, and pretty soon after a major DC villain is taken completely off the board. Spoilers are incoming for The Penguin’s first episode, so if you haven’t watched it yet you’ve been warned. Alright, with that said, let’s dive in.
An Unexpected Twist
After the Riddler’s actions are given some spotlight, Oz is back in the driver’s seat and heads to Carmine Falcone’s house to break into a vault behind the wall. He takes a folder of blackmail documents but then is confronted by Carmine’s son Alberto Falcone, who just pretty much caught Oz red-handed trying to steal from his dead father.
Oz attempts to weasel his way out of it and successfully brings Alberto around enough to talk him off the ledge and get him to a point where they start drinking and talking. The conversation is going fine until Oz shares a story about a gangster in his neighborhood when he was young, a gangster that he and the rest of the people in the neighborhood looked up to. He even reveals that they threw him a parade in honor of him after his death.
Alberto is at first angry at the insinuation that he should aim to be like this person, but then he sees that this isn’t what Oz is trying to get him to do, but more what Oz would want for himself. Alberto starts to laugh at Oz and insult him, but he pushes things too far, as Oz then pulls out his gun and shoots him multiple times right there. Alberto falls dead and at first Oz chuckles at shutting him up, though he then realizes exactly what he’s done, charting the course for the rest of the series.
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Why It Matters
There are two big reasons that this development matters, both in terms of the show itself and how it changes a few theories fans had thanks to the comics. Regarding the show, the impact is pretty obvious and incredibly substantial. With Carmine dead, Alberto was the new head of the Falcone crime family, and now Oz has just shot and killed the new head of organized crime in Gotham City. That’s pretty big, and if the wrong people find out Oz killed him, Oz will soon follow him to his grave.
The Long Halloween and Dark Victory
As for the comics, Alberto is tied to an all-time Batman classic, which is Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween and its sequel Dark Victory. In that story, Carmine is very much alive, and it’s actually Alberto who does most of the killing, as he continues to assassinate members of the Falcone and Maroni crime families as the mysterious killer known as Holiday.
Alberto’s string of murders creates tension between the two families, which then leads Falcone to hire villains like Poison Ivy to help defend his organization. Eventually, Alberto kills Salvatore Maroni and is captured by Batman, ending his killing spree, but Alberto is back on the streets in Dark Victory after some time in Arkham.
Alberto is still dangerous in Dark Victory, but he’s actually at the center of other people’s grand plans, particularly Calendar Man and Scarecrow. Alberto is made to see and hear the ghost of his dead father, who was shot by Two-Face in the previous story. That continues to drive him further into insanity, but he is able to see through it eventually. That said, it doesn’t actually help in the long run, as he is eventually smothered by his Sofia after suffering wounds in a previous fight with Calendar Man. So, any theories of Alberto having a part to play that would tie into his role in Long Halloween or Dark Victory have pretty much been dashed.
What have you thought of The Penguin so far? You can talk all things The Penguin and DC with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb!
