The Penguin Star Explains Their Finale Fate (Exclusive)

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Penguin episode 8, “A Great or Little Thing.”] “The world wasn’t built for guys like us,” Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) told Vic (Rhenzy Feliz) after taking the teenager under his wing in the first episode of The Penguin. “That’s why we gotta take whatever we decide is ours. ‘Cause no one’s gonna give it to us. Not without a fight.” In the end, Oz and Vic did just that: together, they took what was left of the Falcone and Maroni crime families from Sofia Gigante (Cristin Milioti) and performed a coup against the remaining gangs by convincing the deputies to turn on their bosses.

After consolidating power with control of the Triads, the Burnley Town Massive, LoBoys, the Sullivans, and the Odessa Mob, Oz ended the gang war by pinning it all on Sofia and having her recommitted in Arkham State Hospital. He leveraged his position with corrupt Councilman Sebastian Hady (Rhys Coiro) to come out clean as a whistle, winning out over the woman who used his mother against him while seeking revenge for the murder of her brother Alberto (Michael Zegen).

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In the end, it was a Pyrrhic victory for Oz: his beloved mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell), suffered a stroke that left her in a vegetative state and unable to tell him she’s proud of her last-surviving son for becoming the kingpin of Gotham City. “Thanks for taking a chance on me. For taking me in,” Victor told Oz. “You’re family to me.”

Calling their chance encounter kismet, Oz put his arms around Vic and told him, “I can’t take you with me this time. That’s the thing about family… it’s your strength. It drives you.” But family “makes you weak, too,” Oz said as he viciously strangled Vic to death. “I can’t have that no more. It’s too much.” In-between gasps for air and apologies, Vic died as Oz snuffed out the only family he had left. “It wasn’t for nothing.”

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“I think it’s what he says while he’s committing the act,” Feliz exclusively told ComicBook. “It’s that he knows that he’s vulnerable in this way now. He’s just experienced what it’s like to lose his mother, to have his mother taken from him.”

Because Sofia was able to use Oz’s mother against him, ultimately causing the stroke that left her catatonic and nearly costing Oz his life, Vic had to die.

“When you view someone as family, it’s a strength, like he says,” Feliz continued. “And so I think he wants to become something almost impenetrable. And the way he thinks he can do that is [killing his weakness]. Everyone else, I think, sees it as, ‘You don’t have to do this.’ He sees it as, ‘The only way that I can be invulnerable is to snuff out this flame here.’”

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In his final moments, Vic begged Oz not to kill him. As for what was going through Vic’s mind as Oz’s embrace turned into a chokehold, it was “shock.”

“Shock is what I was going for,” Feliz pointed out. “You’re getting choked to death. You know, everything you’re doing is survival at that point. It’s instinct. You’re kicking, you’re grabbing, you’re pleading. You don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know why it’s going on. You don’t really understand what’s happening.”

Ultimately, Oz betrayed both members of his remaining family. He promised his mother he wouldn’t let her live if her condition worsened, only to put her up in his penthouse while he molded Eve Karlo (Carmen Ejogo) in his mother’s image. And he betrayed Vic, choosing to kill the kid who saw Oz as family rather than a monster.

“You put so much love and trust in this person, for him to be betraying you like that,” Feliz said. “I think it’s just like, ‘What? Oh my God. No, please. Please don’t. Please stop.’” As for whether Oz was always going to kill Vic or if he gave into his darker impulses when he admitted his victory “don’t feel like it should,” Feliz turned the question toward Farrell.

“That’s a great question. I want to know what what would Colin would say about it,” Feliz said. “When was the decision made [by Oz]? I really have no idea. I’m in the debates with everybody else.”

“I really don’t know, to be honest,” the actor continued. “I go back and forth and I think, in that moment, sometimes I think he knew it from the moment when he takes me out to the river bank [that] he knows what he’s going to do. Then I really go back and forth.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. All episodes of HBO’s The Penguin are now streaming on Max.