The theatrical sequel to The Batman may still be a ways off, but fans are getting a continuation of the so-called “The Batman Epic Crime Saga” in the form of HBO’s The Penguin series. Colin Farrell’s Oswald Cobb takes center stage as he and his fellow gangsters jockey for power in the chaotic aftermath of The Batman.
Oz’s biggest rival in the new series is Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone, the daughter of the late Carmine Falcone and a woman with as much blood on her hands as anyone in Gotham City. But who is Sofia Falcone, and why is she often referred to as The Hangman? Why is she such an important player in The Penguin? Let’s break down what you need to know about this terrifying crime lord.
In Batman’s early days on the job, Gotham City is still under the clutches of old-school mobsters like Carmine Falcone and Salvatore Maroni. Inevitably, Falcone’s reign comes to an end, leaving his heirs and underlings to battle it out for control of the family empire. Carmine’s daughter Sofia is one of those seeking to make a name for herself in a dangerous criminal underworld.
In the comics, Sofia’s story is mainly chronicled in the pages of Batman: The Long Halloween and its sequel, Batman: Dark Victory. The Long Halloween also served as the inspiration for a two-part animated movie adaptation in 2021. The character plays a major role in the TV series Gotham (played by Crystal Reed) as well, manipulating cops and costumed criminals alike in her bid for power. But whether in comics, animation, or live-action, Sofia’s story always ends in violent tragedy. Like so many gangsters before her, her reach ultimately exceeds her grasp.
Now Sofia Falcone is returning to live-action thanks to HBO’s The Penguin series, where she’ll be played by Cristin Milioti.
Sofia Falcone was created by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale and debuted in 1997’s Batman: The Long Halloween #6. The Long Halloween is set early in Bruce Wayne’s costumed career, after the events of Batman: Year One and at a time when most of his major villains like Joker, Scarecrow, Penguin, and Catwoman have begun to plague Gotham City. In this chaotic period, the traditional crime families that control Gotham are struggling to deal with the presence of costumed psychopaths upending the old order. That includes Carmine Falcone, arguably the most powerful man in the city.
As if dealing with the crusading trinity that is Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and Harvey Dent isn’t bad enough, the Falcone family faces a new threat when a mysterious murderer known only as the Holiday Killer begins leaving a trail of bodies across the city, with all killings happening on major holidays. Falcone believes Holiday is a member of a rival crime family, but doubt grows as the killer also targets members of Sal Maroni’s family.
Sofia herself enters the picture when her father arranges her early release from prison. Sofia is tasked with hunting down the elusive Holiday Killer, but she fails to turn up any leads. The killer strikes home when Sofia’s brother Alberto becomes one of their many victims.
The Long Halloween also serves as an origin story for two-Face, as Harvey Dent is horrifically scarred by a vengeful Sal Maroni. Maroni is then murdered by the Holiday Killer, who is finally revealed to be none other than Alberto Falcone himself (having faked his death earlier in the year). But even though Alberto is imprisoned in Arkham, the bloodshed continues as Two-Face takes revenge on the Falcones. Two-Face kills Carmine, and Sofia is left scarred and paralyzed following a tussle with Catwoman.
Batman is haunted by the discovery that there were actually two Holiday Killers all along. But though he believes Dent was the second killer, the truth is that Harvey’s wife Gilda secretly took up the mantle, hoping to punish the men threatening her husband’s life and career.
The fall of the Falone empire continues in the sequel comic Batman: Dark Victory. There, Sofia attempts to take control of the family despite her serious injuries. Gotham is soon plagued by a second serial killer. This killer targets cops connected to Harvey Dent and leaves behind a noose and cryptic clues in the form of Hangman puzzles. Naturally, the killer quickly became known as The Hangman.
Though all signs point to Two-Face being The Hangman, Sofia herself is eventually outed as the killer, with her apparent paralysis being a clever disguise. Sofia even kills her brother Alberto for being weak. In a final confrontation with Two-Face and Batman, Sofia nearly succeeds in earning vengeance for her father’s murder, but Two-Face shoots and kills her instead. With Sofia’s death, the Falcone family’s stranglehold on Gotham finally comes to an end, and a new age of costumed criminals truly begins.
Sofia Falcone has a major part to play in HBO’s The Penguin series, a show that looks to draw more than a little inspiration from The Long Halloween.
The Penguin is set shortly after the events of 2022’s The Batman. In that film, Robert Pattinson’s Dark Knight is tasked with hunting down Paul Dano’s Riddler and unraveling a vast conspiracy that links various Gotham City officials and crime boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). Guided by Riddler’s clues, Batman ultimately discovers that Falcone was a GCPD informant who sold out his rival Sal Maroni and used Maroni’s imprisonment to consolidate his grip on the city underworld. Batman also learns his own father Thomas had a history with Falcone, having saved the mobster’s life many years before and turned to him for help in burying an embarrassing family secret.
Falcone is no sooner arrested than he’s shot and killed by the Riddler. Riddler then executes his final master stroke, destroying Gotham’s sea wall and flooding part of the city. Though Batman ultimately saves the life of mayor-elect Bella Reál and countless others, becoming a newfound symbol of hope for his city, the damage has been done. Gotham is in terrible shape, and the death of Carmine Falcone leaves a power vacuum that various opportunistic criminals will rush to fill.
That’s where The Penguin starts. The series follows Farrell’s Oswald Cobblepott as he transitions from “loyal” soldier of the Falcone family to aspiring criminal kingpin. Based on the trailers for the series, it appears his chief rival in the series will be Milioti’s Sofia Falcone.
In The Penguin, Sofia is already a hardened killer who’s earned a reputation as “The Hangman.” As the series opens, she’s recently been released from Arkham Asylum and seeks to take control of her late father’s empire. The series will also introduce her younger brother Alberto (Michael Zegen), and we’d guess there will be some serious family squabbling over which sibling is better suited to take over the family business.
If The Penguin is anything like the comics, the series will end with Sofia and the Falcones losing their grip on power in favor of a new generation of super-criminal. We’ll see Oz battle his way to the top and become the new face of Gotham’s underworld. Only in this grim and gritty DC Universe, he’ll do so without any penguin sidekicks or trick umbrellas.
For more on The Penguin, check out IGN's spoiler-free review of the series and brush up on every DC movie and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Colin Farrell as Oswald “Oz” Cobb and Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone in “The Penguin.”HBO
The Riddler was supposed to be the big, bad villain of “The Batman.”
But the character we’re still talking about is that slippery scoundrel The Penguin.
An unrecognizable Colin Farrell, cloaked in ace prosthetics and makeup in Matt Reeves’ 2022 Caped Crusader film, turned what could’ve been a sideshow into a main event.
Now, the Gotham City mob associate is the star of his own spinoff show on HBO. And when the Oscar-nominated Farrell gets into Penguin mode, there’s no denying his transformation.
Gone are the actor’s hangdog expressions from “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “In Bruges.” In their place, a snarl and a laugh. A weathered face with deep scars that cut across his cheeks and lips like a tributary on a map. A foul guy with a fowl nickname he hates. A striver driven by a secret so dark you’d have to plumb the depths of a forgotten city to bring it to light.
Farrell’s Oswald “Oz” Cobb loses all traces of the Irish actor we know to summon another person entirely.
But if Farrell was the revelation of “The Batman,” Cristin Milioti is the revelation of “The Penguin,” premiering Thursday on HBO and Max.
Milioti, who grew up in Cherry Hill, stars alongside Farrell as Sofia Falcone, the daughter of the late Mafia kingpin Carmine Falcone.
Prosthetic makeup is magic on Farrell in both “The Penguin” and “The Batman.”HBO
Oz and Sofia have some history together through their shared association with the Falcone family. As that history is excavated across the eight-episode season, the results are sensational.
Both actors deliver Emmy-caliber performances, and they’re not the only ones in the cast to go there.
Milioti credits “The Penguin” showrunner Lauren LeFranc (“Agents of S.H.I.E.LD.,” “Impulse”) with creating a character she jumped at playing.
That, and an enduring love for all things Gotham.
LeFranc thought about her own childhood when developing the world of “The Penguin.”
“It’s been a pleasure to write Sofia Falcone,” she says. “You don’t often get to see women like that in crime dramas ...
Milioti jumped at the chance to fulfill a childhood dream by playing a Batman villain. HBO
This may be Milioti’s first Batman-universe character, but this isn’t her first time playing a Mafia daughter on HBO.
In one of her early TV roles, she was Catherine Sacrimoni, daughter of New York mobster John “Johnny Sack” Sacrimoni, in three episodes of “The Sopranos.”
Milioti is an actor known to be “saucer-eyed.” But that’s too cute a description for the way she stares right through Oz and various members of the Falcone family, as if she’s weighing the very content of their souls.
Sofia is not new to Gotham, but due to a nefarious chain of events, she’s new to the scene after years of being confined and locked away. So her stare is often tinged with sadness and plenty of fear.
Combined with trauma she relives every day, it’s a potent, incendiary recipe for some real fireworks.
Milioti at the Sept. 17 premiere of “The Penguin” in New York. Early in her career, she played another Mafia daughter on HBO.Theo Wargo | Getty Images
Carmine Falcone, played by John Turturro, was killed by the Riddler (Paul Dano) in “The Batman.” His death means a reshuffling of the rogues’ gallery in the city.
However, in this show, we don’t really need to shine a bat signal.
The HBO drama is about crime families vying for control of the city, and in such a frosty environment, this Penguin thrives.
But he’ll have to make room for Sofia Falcone.
Having just been released from Arkham State Hospital, her reputation precedes her. They call her “The Hangman” for her alleged murder of a series of women by hanging.
Of course, like any good Batman tale, there’s much more to the story.
Sofia Falcone spends years at Arkham State Hospital. HBO
Sofia has her own family secret just bubbling under the surface of her Mafia-chic style.
And as she attempts to reacclimate to life in Gotham, flashbacks from her years in Arkham haunt her. The reason for her being there hangs heavy in the air as she rejoins her family in the shadow of her late father.
“I’m not safe,” she says at one point. “I’m home.”
LeFranc says she was inspired by the real-life story of Rosemary Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy. Her father sent her to have a lobotomy when she was 23, leaving her incapacitated.
“Who are the types of people who often get to label a woman, who get to tell those women’s stories?” the show’s writer and producer asked. “And is that just, and is that fair? And why doesn’t a woman have the opportunity to tell her own story?”
Sofia’s freedom from life in a cell sends her back to the dismissive and misogynistic ways of the Falcones and their associates.
Milioti, right, at the premiere of “The Penguin” with showrunner Lauren LeFranc and Colin Farrell. Cindy Ord | WireImage
Milioti was nominated for a Tony in 2012 for originating the role of Girl in the Tony-winning musical “Once” on Broadway. She also shared in the show’s Grammy win for best musical theater album.
The actor’s films include “Palm Springs” (2020), “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), “Sleepwalk With Me” (2012) and “It Had to Be You” (2015). On TV, she’s starred in Max’s “Made for Love,” FX’s “Fargo,” Netflix’s “Black Mirror” (“USS Callister”), Apple TV+’s “Mythic Quest,” Fox and Hulu’s “The Mindy Project” and CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother.”
“Even though everybody who’s ever worked with her, and anyone who’s seen her in any project knows how talented and engaging and magnetic she is as an actor ... I still think she’s often underutilized and just an underestimated actor,” LeFranc says.
Tony winner Deirdre O’Connell is unmissable as Oz's mother, Francis Cobb.HBO
Besides Milioti and Farrell, Tony winner Deirdre O’Connell (“Dana H.”) is unmissable as Francis Cobb, Oz’s mother.
He craves her approval so badly that when she says things like, “Who am I if my son is nothing?” you can feel the burn.
Sometimes, Francis is like a void. Other times, a maelstrom of discontent. Or a pit of despair, impossible to please.
Sound familiar?
“The Sopranos” was famously seeded in Tony Soprano’s relationship with his mother, Livia (and, in turn, creator David Chase’s relationship with his mother). But Livia operated differently than Francis. For one, Francis sometimes cheers her son on, even if it’s his inclination toward murderous impulses. They occasionally dance together. Still, it’s fun to hear echoes of Livia saying, “It’s all a big nothing,” in Francis’ own withering commentary.
While LeFranc doesn’t mind her show being compared to an enduring series that changed the nature of TV, she wasn’t thinking much of “The Sopranos” when she was writing.
“Francis and Oz’s relationship is different in that it’s slightly oedipal,” she says. “It’s a little off-kilter and twisted that way. And Oz deeply loves her. He doesn’t disdain her. And she won’t give him that sort of affection.”
This is why he thirsts for power and domination in Gotham — to earn his mother’s love.
Milioti didn't want to draw on existing portrayals of Mafia characters in her performance as Sofia. HBO
Milioti may have been in “The Sopranos,” but she didn’t look to other Mafia characters for Sofia.
“I really tried to stay away so that I wouldn’t be influenced by anything,” she says, though she detects a slight parallel in Sofia to the trajectory of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather.”
Milioti didn’t pull Sofia from anyone in her life in Jersey or elsewhere. But she can see the character’s ever-transforming look — from polished ladies-who-lunch outfits to dramatic, stylized eyeliner and shag mullet hair — in people she’s known.
“I did grow up around women who expressed a lot through their hair and makeup and wardrobe and were sort of in these structures that they maybe weren’t able to be what they wanted to be, necessarily,” the actor says.
(Remember months back, when the “mob wife aesthetic” was the talk of TikTok?)
“Colin is in such communion with that character ... he is just him,” Milioti says of Farrell’s knack for disappearing into Oz. HBO
When Milioti appeared in scenes with Farrell, the Penguin was never not in the room.
A huge amount of credit goes to the wizardry of Oscar-nominated Englewood artist Mike Marino, who is responsible for the astounding prosthetic makeup design in the show, having also created the Penguin’s look for “The Batman.”
“The makeup is completely real,” Milioti says. “Like, you’re right there with him, and it looks completely like a different person. You can’t tell it’s makeup. It moves. It’s incredible. And then Colin is in such communion with that character ... he is just him.”
Marino and Ferrell, a producer of the series alongside LeFranc, Reeves and director Craig Zobel, made Oz what he is, but the Penguin is not a made man in the Falcone family.
It’s something that those looking to check him are keen to mention.
Oz Cobb (whose name is a truncated version of traditional Batman villain Oswald Cobblepot, played by Danny DeVito in “Batman Returns”), isn’t so much trying to prove himself as play his cards so he can ascend to power, no matter the cost. In the process, he tangles with characters like Sofia’s brother Alberto Falcone, played by Michael Zegen (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Boardwalk Empire”), who grew up in Ridgewood.
Ridgewood's Michael Zegen plays Alberto Falcone, Sofia's brother. HBO
Oz’s waddling gait is responsible for the avian nickname he rejects. He is the ultimate survivor, a guy who’s always working a plan. When those plans blow up in his face, as they often do, he somehow always claws his way back into the game.
He will make alliances to serve his own ends, but as a ruthless killer with ice in his veins, he won’t hesitate to end a life if someone rubs him the wrong way.
He’s also funny, in the right light.
Cruising the city in his delightfully garish purple — OK, “plum” — car, he boasts about his air freshener. He espouses the joys of mixing slushy flavors at the corner store. He wonders how many pickles on a sandwich is normal.
“I’m an acquired taste,” Oz tells Johnny Viti, the unamused Falcone underboss played by Michael Kelly.
Rhenzy Feliz plays Victor Aguilar, a young Gotham local whose path changes when he meets Oz.HBO
In “The Batman,” Oz was Carmine Falcone’s man in charge of Gotham’s Iceberg Lounge nightclub.
Our way into Oz this time is through young Victor Aguilar, whose path collides with the mobster maverick. It’s through “Vic,” played by Rhenzy Feliz (“Marvel’s Runaways,” “Encanto”), that we see the many shades of the Penguin — scary, shocking, disarming, driven and brutal in any given moment.
The criminal operator seems to see something of himself in Vic — a kid from a humble background and a devastated part of the city who is willing to work hard.
Can Vic trust Oz? He may not have a choice.
What about Oz and Sofia?
Given their history, that’s an even more complicated question.
Hearing their stated beliefs, they would seem to have a lot in common as Gotham villains on the rise.
Sofia proclaims that it’s the world that’s sick, not her. Oz believes that it’s the world that’s bad, unfair and unforgiving — not him.
They both describe themselves as products of, or reactions to, their experiences.
“We’ve always talked in the writers room about this ... that they’re two sides of the same coin in a way,” LeFranc says.
Two sides of the same coin? Doesn't mean they're supposed to be friends. HBO
“They actually are so kindred,” Milioti says. “They’re completely overlooked and disregarded and stepped on, and they are so smart.”
That doesn’t necessarily make for a friendly connection.
“They just are both so power hungry,” she says.
Oz and Sofia both position themselves as champions of overlooked or mistreated people, saviors of all those cast aside.
Oz, being from the streets and a single-parent home — not a luxe Falcone mansion like Sofia — believes he’s the better leader: a man of the people. Given his tenure working for the Falcones, he knows how they treat underlings. LeFranc says that’s part of the “class and wealth disparity story” in the Gotham drama.
Ultimately, shifting away from Oz and into the perspectives of characters like Sofia and Victor was crucial to telling the story, LeFranc says.
Oz's perspective has to share the screen with other views, like those of Sofia and Victor, LeFranc says. Macall Polay | HBO
“If we’re only following him, it’s tainted because we’re only seeing his view of the world.”
While Sofia and Oz are the two main villains driving the series, some of the most interesting scenes are conversations between Sofia and the women of the show.
“I love to hear that, because I felt like that, too,” Milioti says.
Even when Sofia shows up as a threat or adversary, she listens to and considers what they have to say. She connects.
Acting powerhouses fully deliver, whether it’s O’Connell — “knockout after knockout,” Milioti says of her performance — or Carmen Ejogo (“Your Honor,” “I’m a Virgo,” “True Detective”), who plays Eve Karlow, a “friend” to Oz.
“I loved those scenes,” Milioti says. “I loved all the scenes with the women in Arkham ... The women of Gotham and the ways in which they’re suffering and trying to get through life feels profound.”
“I would love if people maybe outside of (those) who already love Batman ... people who may not like superhero things — or, you know, whatever preconceived notions they may have going into it — I would love for them to be surprised and connect to Sofia, especially women.”
“The Penguin” premieres Thursday, Sept. 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max. Subsequent episodes air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, starting with the second episode on Sept. 29.
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at [email protected] and followed at @AmyKup.
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