Speaker 1: Warning.
Speaker 2: Today's episode Katay spoilers for The Penguin episode four Shintan,
Speaker 2: so watch that before you listen to this ah Shantani.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: My name is Jason Ecepcion and I'm Ersday Night and
Speaker 2: welcome back to X. Review of the podcast will be
Speaker 2: done dee bit to your favorite shows, movies, comics and
Speaker 2: pop culture coming to you from our podcast where we're
Speaker 2: bringing you three episode every Tuesday Thursday, with extras on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, we are talking about maybe my favorite
Speaker 3: episode of TV I've seen this year, Absolutely heartbreaking stuff
Speaker 3: in Penguin one O four. It's a Sophia Falcone episode
Speaker 3: and get ready to hear me absolutely take back anything
Speaker 3: nice I've said about Oz because I am fucking pissed off.
Speaker 4: But before.
Speaker 3: It's going to be fun, let's mention the success that
Speaker 3: HBO is having with this series.
Speaker 2: First, wonderful viewership numbers for The Penguin the premiere from
Speaker 2: September nineteenth through ten point four million viewers across platforms
Speaker 2: HBO Max and other streaming platforms and online and including
Speaker 2: cable platforms. I would assume this is nearly double the
Speaker 2: viewership from opening weekend, which saw five point three million viewers,
Speaker 2: and it's just great. That's great news.
Speaker 3: And I think it's got a wider viewership than ill
Speaker 3: usual superhero shows.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: My partner is watching it, despite the fact that she
Speaker 2: is not a comic book person. I think that there's
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, the dramatic weight and the
Speaker 2: fact that this is a very high quality, well written,
Speaker 2: well acted show is drawing people in. And the fact
Speaker 2: that there are the connections to the broader DC universe
Speaker 2: and Batman himself, that they're only that they're better if you.
Speaker 4: Want to find there, if you want them, but you
Speaker 4: don't need to not.
Speaker 2: That's right, and I think that has helped widen the
Speaker 2: audience for this. So let's get into the episode.
Speaker 3: Okay, Episode four, Tantani Tantani.
Speaker 2: We open with the final moments from episode three. From
Speaker 2: Sophia's perspective. Oz is pleading with Nadia Falcone as the
Speaker 2: mafia boss's wife, airs.
Speaker 4: Out all of his dirty and she's taughting him up.
Speaker 4: She's telling him everything.
Speaker 1: All the laundry.
Speaker 2: Sophia learns that Oz pitched murdering Alberto to the Falcones,
Speaker 2: with him taking over as the new boss. She learns
Speaker 2: that you know, Oz has been working with the Falcones.
Speaker 2: Oz says that he was getting the new drug for
Speaker 2: the Falcones and that Sophia was just his dupie. Says
Speaker 2: this with her right there, and then Vic comes crashing
Speaker 2: in as we saw at the end of the episode,
Speaker 2: and we understand why Oz says, just leave Sophia, just go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because she's onto him now.
Speaker 2: And as this is occurring, Sophia has like a psychological break.
Speaker 2: She's crashing out. She calls doctor Rush and we flash
Speaker 2: back to over ten years earlier, before her stay at Arkham.
Speaker 2: Sofia is giving a speech in front of the mental
Speaker 2: Health Foundation that she founded with her father, Carmine Falcone,
Speaker 2: boss of the Falcon family. As her driver, Oz looks
Speaker 2: on and it's very clear at this point in time
Speaker 2: that their relationship is very different. She is very much
Speaker 2: the power player. He is very much just a guy
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just the little guy bought. She's kind to him,
Speaker 3: that's what we learn. She's kind to him.
Speaker 4: She's kind kind of is like she's kind of everyone and.
Speaker 2: Then everybody else.
Speaker 3: Certainly she'll tell she'll correct people say don't call him that,
Speaker 3: don't call him the penguin. Yeah you know, and uh yeah,
Speaker 3: we get. This is a very interesting episode because, as always,
Speaker 3: very feels very disconnected from the wider world, but is
Speaker 3: actually our most connected episode, not only to the Batman.
Speaker 3: And it also made me realize, wow, like they're doing
Speaker 3: such a good job separating these things that I never
Speaker 3: even put together.
Speaker 4: Who she was obviously the patsy for.
Speaker 3: And also we get some really deep cut connections here,
Speaker 3: like what basically what happens next is, Sofia gets approached
Speaker 3: by a woman called Summer Gleason with a reporter, and
Speaker 3: this is so great because this is a character who
Speaker 3: has only appeared in the New Adventures of Batman, the
Speaker 3: sequel series to Batman the animated series, and some like
Speaker 3: noncninical comics since then. But I thought this was a
Speaker 3: great example of how they pepper those little names and
Speaker 3: stuff in there for people, but they bang you over
Speaker 3: the head with it. So if you don't know this stuff,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: It's just a name.
Speaker 3: But if you do, you can kind of go, oh,
Speaker 3: I think I recognize that, and do your research. So
Speaker 3: I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 2: So from miss Gleeson, Sofia learns that there has been
Speaker 2: a recent death of a young woman at her father's
Speaker 2: club forty four below. She died apparently of a suicide
Speaker 2: by hanging, that's the official story, and that this death
Speaker 2: is quite similar to other deaths that have occurred at
Speaker 2: other places, namely the Iceberg Lounge owned by her father,
Speaker 2: deaths of young women who worked at these clubs who
Speaker 2: died by asphyxiation in some form of fashion and that
Speaker 2: have been ruled suicides. This makes Sophia think about her mother,
Speaker 2: her mother's apparent suicide and the day that she found
Speaker 2: her mother's body, she found her hanging in the master bedroom.
Speaker 2: After the foundation event, Sofia and her brother Alberto have dinner,
Speaker 2: family dinner with their father, Krma and Carmean Falcone, who
Speaker 2: always wears sunglasses.
Speaker 3: Also, I want to say great casting here because in
Speaker 3: the Batman movie that elder Falcone, Carmen Falcone, is played
Speaker 3: by John Taturo.
Speaker 4: But here they cast Mark Strong as young.
Speaker 2: These wonderful marks, and I just think.
Speaker 3: This is such good casting. I think I totally bought it.
Speaker 3: It really gives a similar vibe. And I had this moment,
Speaker 3: this just heart wrenching moment because earlier in our coverage
Speaker 3: of this, I had guessed that, unlike the comics where
Speaker 3: Sophia really is the Hangman, I had guessed she was
Speaker 3: probably a patsy, maybe for Alberto, because she loved him
Speaker 3: and she wanted to take But I.
Speaker 4: Completely forgot that.
Speaker 3: In the end of the Batman Movie by Matt Reeves,
Speaker 3: we learn that Carmi and Falcone has been killing women.
Speaker 4: He tries to kill catwomen. He killed her mother, And.
Speaker 3: I never even put the fact that those two things
Speaker 3: would be connected into this version of the Hangman, And
Speaker 3: just seeing him reappear here, I suddenly kind of started
Speaker 3: coming together, and I was just so impressed by how
Speaker 3: distinct this show has made itself.
Speaker 4: In three episodes. I literally had never even made that connection.
Speaker 2: So they're having dinner with Carmea and Falcone. The wonderful
Speaker 2: Mark Strong arsenal supporters is good in everything, even if
Speaker 2: the movie's bad, Mark Strong is good. Carmine wonders why
Speaker 2: Alberto is such a moron while Sophia always seems so
Speaker 2: squared away and Carmine, when Alberto leaves, Carmine tells Sophia, listen,
Speaker 2: why don't we break with years of mafia tradition? I
Speaker 2: will name you as my successor to the family, and
Speaker 2: we'll push Alberto, who is often an embarrassment to the side.
Speaker 2: Sophia's like, what will the family say that, and he says,
Speaker 2: they'll say they'll do whatever they I tell them to do,
Speaker 2: because I'm the boss. Sophia then takes this opportunity to
Speaker 2: kind of ask questions about her mom's death, noting, you know,
Speaker 2: she didn't seem depressed, and Carmin is like, yeah, she
Speaker 2: was great at hiding it.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And it's clear that Sophia has some niggling suspicions and
Speaker 2: that maybe those suspicions have been there for quite a while,
Speaker 2: but Carmine very strongly shuts down the questioning. Later, Sophia
Speaker 2: asks Alberto as they're driving off somewhere with Oz behind
Speaker 2: the wheel, if their dad was involved in any way
Speaker 2: with women at any of the clubs.
Speaker 4: His face is just like are you dumb?
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, are you dumb? What you why are you asking?
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 2: She says, you know, how much do we really know
Speaker 2: about him? You know, because he's the line of work
Speaker 2: that he's in. Alberto is like yeah, again, He's like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck are you? What don't ask this meanwhile
Speaker 2: Oz listening the entire time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sophia then meets with Summer Gleason secretly at night, late
Speaker 2: at night, and.
Speaker 4: She tries odds enough to have him drive. He's there,
Speaker 4: he is.
Speaker 2: He is not like in the meeting, but he's like
Speaker 2: across the street in the car watching and Gleason has
Speaker 2: the autopsy photos. She notes that the physical evidence does
Speaker 2: not match the official cause of death. There are there's
Speaker 2: evidence of defensive wounds, broken nails, et cetera. She says, like,
Speaker 2: how about you go into the forty four below wearing
Speaker 2: a wire? So if he's like you fucking crazy, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: She's like, okay, well, how about can you get the
Speaker 2: employment file so at least I can prove that they
Speaker 2: that they will work there. Again, Sophia flashes back to
Speaker 2: the day that she found her mom, and she notes
Speaker 2: that her mom had a broken nail, showing that that
Speaker 2: maybe there was some sort of struggle that happened. And
Speaker 2: you can tell that she's increasingly convinced that her father
Speaker 2: was involved. But our, she says, just to Gleason, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: You have no evidence. I don't believe any of this.
Speaker 2: You're this is really a reach goodbye, and that's it,
Speaker 2: and she goes back to the car. Maybe that was
Speaker 2: for Oz's public consumption, but that's what she does.
Speaker 3: I think she's like so in shock at the realization
Speaker 3: she's having, because we get to see that when she
Speaker 3: found her mom, she saw the broken nails, and then
Speaker 3: when her dad came and kind of swept her.
Speaker 4: Up and was like, no, no, you don't need to notice, like.
Speaker 3: She noticed that he has scratches on his face. So
Speaker 3: I think she's aware, but she's in that mid space
Speaker 3: between like should I be telling my dad?
Speaker 4: Should I like? What should I do?
Speaker 3: This is basically an unenviable situation, Pacivia.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 2: And we're about Oz tells Sophia when she gets back
Speaker 2: in the car, Hey, you gotta be careful meeting with reporter.
Speaker 2: People are gonna think a certain way, and she rebukes
Speaker 2: him quite sharply, saying, shut up, no one cares what
Speaker 2: he thinks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is like, this is like a fateful
Speaker 4: moment in that relation.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a feels like a very very faithful moment.
Speaker 2: Later at Falcone manor big party for Carmine. It's his birthday,
Speaker 2: all the important people are there. Oz comes up to her.
Speaker 2: He's inside wearing a nice jacket. She's like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck are you doing inside? You should be outside with Cark.
Speaker 2: But he tells her, hey, your dad wants to see her,
Speaker 2: and she it has a bad feeling, so she goes
Speaker 2: with a present to try and break the ice. But
Speaker 2: Carmine knows about the reporter. It's very clear that Oz
Speaker 2: rated her out. He's very mad. He says that reporter
Speaker 2: has been working with the cops investigating him for the
Speaker 2: murder of quote, some hookers at the club. Is the
Speaker 2: way he phrases.
Speaker 3: Nice, so you can guess like he definitely really respects
Speaker 3: these women's life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wants to know if Sophia thinks that he
Speaker 2: killed them, and she says, no, what I never doubted you.
Speaker 2: And she says again, faithfully, there must be some explanation,
Speaker 2: explanation for what he says for the scratches on you
Speaker 2: in the and Mom's nail when she died, those the
Speaker 2: scratches weren't from Mom, right, And Carmi now gets very spooking,
Speaker 2: very scary. And this is where I'm like, whoa this?
Speaker 2: I feel very bad.
Speaker 4: Bad, bad, bad stuff. This was the moment very bad vibes.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, dear, I shall say, I gotta say.
Speaker 3: I want to call myself out here because in the
Speaker 3: previous coverage of the Penguin on HBO and Max, I
Speaker 3: had been an Oswald supporter.
Speaker 4: I had said, I love this little guy. He's just
Speaker 4: doing things.
Speaker 2: He's just you know, he's a bad guy, but he's
Speaker 2: just trying his best to like climb up the ladder
Speaker 2: of Gotham.
Speaker 4: I take you back. I am now Oswald hater. I
Speaker 4: am an Oscarp hater. I understand his mentality.
Speaker 3: But the point of this episode is to show how like,
Speaker 3: whether it's some aglesum, whether it is Sofia, whether it's Oz,
Speaker 3: these tiny moments that people act almost like impulsively on.
Speaker 3: Whether it was Sophia, you know, snapping at Oz when
Speaker 3: she's usually patient with him, whether it's Oz deciding to
Speaker 3: you know, snitch on her to her dad. These moments
Speaker 3: have like massive implications that are going to be going
Speaker 3: on in Gotham for like decades.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to defend ours, but I will, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll talk about my view on this after we do
Speaker 2: the recap, after we go through the recap. So on
Speaker 2: the ride home, Oz is like, hey, I'm sorry, you know,
Speaker 2: what do you expect me to do? It's Carmen's the boss.
Speaker 2: He pays my salary. I'm doing my job, she warns him.
Speaker 2: Then again, it feels like a very faithful moment that
Speaker 2: you're on his radar now and your family his radar,
Speaker 2: which everyone you lie. Probably why Oz moved his mom,
Speaker 2: faked her death and moved her out to the suburbs.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, great, cool. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 4: That's obviously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that moment they get pulled over, the cops want
Speaker 2: Sophia and they arrest her for the murder of Summer
Speaker 2: Gleason and all the women who died at her dad's clubs.
Speaker 4: And obviously, I will say Oz did not know about this.
Speaker 2: I do need not know that that was going.
Speaker 3: He didn't know that she was that fucked like he
Speaker 3: thought he would just scare her a little bit, be
Speaker 3: able to be there for her as a driver.
Speaker 4: He definitely in that moment you see the connection between
Speaker 4: them because he is in the cops.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he's like, what are you doing? Yeah, So
Speaker 2: her dad and other family members including uncle Luca. They
Speaker 2: write sworn declarations that Sophia has been mentally ill for
Speaker 2: a long time. They get her put into Arkham for
Speaker 2: what appears at first to be just an observation period
Speaker 2: of six months to see if she can stand trial,
Speaker 2: but obviously ends up being much much longer. Alberto is
Speaker 2: the only one who visits her during this time and
Speaker 2: really tries to tell her that she can do this.
Speaker 2: She's a Falcone, she's strong, she can do this. And
Speaker 2: Arkham is as excruciating as you expect it is. She's
Speaker 2: stripped shirt, she's examined, she's chained in manacle. This is
Speaker 2: where she meets doctor Rush. She also meets doctor Ventris,
Speaker 2: who runs the place, and they lead her, you know,
Speaker 2: through the haunted halls, past hollow eyed patients, to her
Speaker 2: isolation cell. In her cell, she hears a voice from
Speaker 2: the neighboring room. It is a patient that apparently is Magpie,
Speaker 2: the Claw.
Speaker 4: Nail fun creation DC jewel thief who likes.
Speaker 3: To make like booby trapped versions of jewels to kill people.
Speaker 4: Again, very fun play on expectations.
Speaker 3: Here. The actress who plays Magpie does a very good
Speaker 3: Holly Quinn impression. You'll supposed to think that's who it is.
Speaker 3: And I think that there's just a lot here that
Speaker 3: for me personally, this is a very hard episode.
Speaker 4: To watch because like it is actually hard.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to watch because Kristin Malotti is obviously amazing,
Speaker 3: but also like, this is a very real thing that
Speaker 3: has been happening to women and continues to happen to women,
Speaker 3: where they will be institutionalized if they don't agree with
Speaker 3: a family member, or they get pregnant outside of marriage,
Speaker 3: or you know, many other reasons. In England, they were
Speaker 3: actually still women who had been institutionalized for becoming pregnant
Speaker 3: outside of marriage, who were only released in like the
Speaker 3: early nineties.
Speaker 4: So this is like a very real thing.
Speaker 3: And I think that they do a great job here
Speaker 3: showcasing just how horrific that is. And I think this
Speaker 3: is another really fantastic way that they ground the show,
Speaker 3: because you know, I've seen a lot of memes going
Speaker 3: around going ooh ooh, they grounded the show by calling
Speaker 3: him Oz Cobb, and everyone thinks that's really funny that
Speaker 3: his name's Oz Cob.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 3: But the reality is the grounding that they actually do
Speaker 3: is by putting real world situations, whether it is Vic
Speaker 3: and his startering and the way his family died in
Speaker 3: a climate crisis disaster added with terrorism and how he's
Speaker 3: had to now live on the streets and kind of
Speaker 3: deal with that, which feels extremely real right now, or
Speaker 3: whether it's Sophia being institutionalized by her father and having
Speaker 3: all of her family turn on her to back him
Speaker 3: up and kind of being stuck in this like nightmare
Speaker 3: prison system. It's great TV that really fits into the
Speaker 3: world of the best of what Matt Reeves Batman did,
Speaker 3: and I just this is such a hard episode to watch.
Speaker 2: So in the cafeteria later, Sophia sits with Magpie and
Speaker 2: this is where she first learns about the bliss pills.
Speaker 2: You only get them when you're good, Magpie says, and
Speaker 2: it immediately goes into a stupid her. Another patient comes in, unchained,
Speaker 2: wandering around, comes up to their table, Sofia tries to
Speaker 2: raise the alarm about this patient accuses Sophia of killing
Speaker 2: those girls and then beats Sophia pretty badly in her cell.
Speaker 2: Rush comes in and he's apologetic. He says, we'll look
Speaker 2: into why this, why was around, but Sophia is, like,
Speaker 2: I think, very rightly concerned that this was a coordinated
Speaker 2: attack by her father to silence her in a way
Speaker 2: that could not tie back to him. Yeah, and when
Speaker 2: she voices those things, Rush, because of the situation they're
Speaker 2: in the context, sees these as perhaps delusions and begins
Speaker 2: to wonder, like, you know, do you so you think
Speaker 2: that you know, are you being paranoid?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, all you being paranoid?
Speaker 3: Also, I just want to say I think that they
Speaker 3: did a really good job with this character who attacks
Speaker 3: Sophia because she gives big joke of vibes.
Speaker 4: It's like another thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, it's not the Joker, and then
Speaker 3: going to do a female version of the Joker, but
Speaker 3: she has red hair and she's kind of got this
Speaker 3: kind of scary grin, and she's very gone and tak
Speaker 3: They just they have a good understanding of how to
Speaker 3: tease feelings and evoke characters, even when they're not going
Speaker 3: to commit to that being the character.
Speaker 5: We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 5: right back, and we're back.
Speaker 2: So Rush starts to delve into Sophia's case, specifically her
Speaker 2: emotional reaction to the death of her mother, you know,
Speaker 2: wondering if this is the cause of these delusions she's having.
Speaker 2: Sophia's like, I'm here because my dad wants to keep
Speaker 2: me quiet.
Speaker 1: That's it. Period.
Speaker 2: And again Russia's acting like this is a psychosis, and
Speaker 2: he insists that he just wants her to get better.
Speaker 2: Later in the mess hall, Sophia is taken to men.
Speaker 2: She's given a fork. Her attacker is led in and chained,
Speaker 2: and the guards and the doctors just kind of all
Speaker 2: crowd around like a gladiator fight, which is a thing
Speaker 2: that happens in actual institutions. And it's I don't want
Speaker 2: to delve into that now, but like, and it's very
Speaker 2: clear that they're like, okay, you want to deal with
Speaker 2: it here, deal with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then so like and then you'll have killed someone,
Speaker 3: so then you're gonna be here whatever. So, Sofia is
Speaker 3: in this like and again just like an impossible position.
Speaker 1: It's just terrible.
Speaker 2: The patient, the unnamed patient, meanwhile, is the one who
Speaker 2: takes the aggressive action. She attacks. She grabs the fork
Speaker 2: and then stabs herself, begging Sophia to end it, to
Speaker 2: end it, the doctors rush in. They take Sofia to
Speaker 2: get electroshocked, and she's electro shocked numerous times.
Speaker 3: The implication here as well is like the version the
Speaker 3: alchemists telling people is that Sofia killed this other patient, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: because they take her to and the electroshock sessions horrific
Speaker 3: to watch, another real thing that people are put through
Speaker 3: in real life. And I thought they did a really
Speaker 3: beautiful and heartbreaking kind of rendition of the hallucinatory effects.
Speaker 3: When she's kind of peeling back the prison the prism
Speaker 3: paint and finding her home wallpaper under there, Kristin Malot
Speaker 3: is just like if they beg of her an Emmy
Speaker 3: for this episode, she's.
Speaker 2: So six months past, you know, of electroshocks. Alberto comes
Speaker 2: to visit. He says, I'm so sorry, but Ventres that
Speaker 2: says you have to stay in Arkham, you know, for
Speaker 2: an unknown period of time, like there's not going to
Speaker 2: be a trial. You've been deemed mentally unfit and so
Speaker 2: you have to stay here. Later at chow, Rush tries
Speaker 2: to apologize for this, and he says, like I tried
Speaker 2: to convince ventures otherwise. Magpie is happy though that her
Speaker 2: friend is staying, and Sophia begins to wonder maybe not unfairly,
Speaker 2: but it's never quite clear if Magpie has been informing
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 3: Say, yeah, I thought I had to, you know, when
Speaker 3: I was rewatching this, this was a moment that I
Speaker 3: kind of returned to a lot because it's just horribly vague,
Speaker 3: and you kind of think, well, if Magpie is, you know,
Speaker 3: informing on her, she needs something to get her through
Speaker 3: the day at this horrible place, and that's those bliss pills.
Speaker 3: But also she does seem very eager to have this
Speaker 3: connection with Sophia, so maybe she's not. And it's just
Speaker 3: this really heartbreaking, sad moment, and you know immediately what's
Speaker 3: going to happen.
Speaker 2: So Sophia kills Magpie. So now she has roots on
Speaker 2: and she comes to after this, and we snapped back
Speaker 2: to the present story. She's in Russia's office after making
Speaker 2: that phone call. He's holding her hand.
Speaker 4: Later and she's wearing his clothes.
Speaker 2: She's wearing his clothes of what has gone on in
Speaker 2: this period when she's been out of it. She's sitting
Speaker 2: at his desk, she's snooping around while Rush makes breakfast.
Speaker 2: He comes in and she n low on him about Oz.
Speaker 2: She should have killed Oz when she had the chance,
Speaker 2: and Rush's like, maybe you should just go to Sicily
Speaker 2: and get away from all of this fresh Sophia asks Rush.
Speaker 3: Why say he's looking suspicious when he says that, I'm
Speaker 3: just stand agree.
Speaker 4: I'm just like, bro, like, don't say that shit because
Speaker 4: you'll go get a dinner. Trate to your head too,
Speaker 4: like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: So Sophia asked Rush why he's doing this. He says,
Speaker 2: my guilty conscience for everything that happened at Arkham, and
Speaker 2: she says, well, you miss the way it was there,
Speaker 2: right when I was completely under your power you could
Speaker 2: control me. And she says again, I think quite accurately
Speaker 2: that every doctor she has ever seen has lied and
Speaker 2: said she's sick. But she's not sick. It's the world
Speaker 2: that's sick. She notes that clearly rushes in love with her,
Speaker 2: and Sophia knows it, and she's twisted now she understands
Speaker 2: that he's in love with her or something, and so
Speaker 2: she has managed to twist it so that she can
Speaker 2: use that as leverage and power over him. She then
Speaker 2: goes home, has dinner with Luca and the family. She's
Speaker 2: she is such a good scene when she walks in.
Speaker 3: She just walks in, and you're just like, this is
Speaker 3: It's just everything she does Like The Bear. You remember
Speaker 3: the first season of The Bear where Kami goes to
Speaker 3: alan On and then at the end.
Speaker 4: He does a big monologue.
Speaker 3: I was really getting like vibes like that because she
Speaker 3: gives this huge monologue about how they all, you know,
Speaker 3: betrayed her, and she's standing at the head of the
Speaker 3: table in this gorgeous neon yellow dress with diamonds, and
Speaker 3: you there's great moments here too, where you kind of
Speaker 3: start to see the women in the room realizing what
Speaker 3: actually happened to Sofia. There's these great subtle moments.
Speaker 2: She brings up her father's birthday ten years ago that
Speaker 2: she was framed for the murder. She recites the names
Speaker 2: of the murdered women. She says she was surprised how
Speaker 2: many people in that very room have wrote down that
Speaker 2: she was mentally ill, sent that sworn declaration to the
Speaker 2: and says she's leaving the family, She's leaving town, and
Speaker 2: she toasts them. She later sneaks her cousin's daughter, who
Speaker 2: we met in the previous episode where that first the
Speaker 2: offerer to go to Sicily was first tendered and says,
Speaker 2: let's go to the greenhouse and have I'm gonna eat
Speaker 2: some cakes Monday night in the greenhouse and in the
Speaker 2: morning she goes back into the house wearing a gas
Speaker 2: mask and you realize she is carbon monoxide.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like cheering her on, I was like, except for Johnny,
Speaker 3: you except for Johnny b who, by the way, like
Speaker 3: how does this guy keep surviving?
Speaker 4: But you know what, he is a rat. So I
Speaker 4: just want to say, though I love I think something
Speaker 4: they do really.
Speaker 3: Really well here in this episode is understanding of how
Speaker 3: scary Sofia is, no matter what has happened to her
Speaker 3: or how terrible all the reasons behind it. And obviously
Speaker 3: I am a support of women's rights and women's wrongs,
Speaker 3: and in Sofia's case, I fully support these wrongs. But
Speaker 3: what I loved was I was like, legitimately on and
Speaker 3: it raises edge when she took that kid to the
Speaker 3: greenhouse and fed her that cake, because I was like,
Speaker 3: is she just going to leave this dead kid there?
Speaker 3: Like is that going to be the punishment to these
Speaker 3: people who did that? But obviously we get this inversion
Speaker 3: where she saves the kid goes back into the house
Speaker 3: and you will, and she walks through every single room,
Speaker 3: opening the windows, opening the doors. As you just see,
Speaker 3: the whole family just completely wiped out. Except as we said,
Speaker 3: Johnny V and she said, we need to talk, and
Speaker 3: you're about to be my bitch.
Speaker 4: He has been there.
Speaker 2: So now I will not defend Oz, but I will
Speaker 2: I think, add proper context to what's going on. First
Speaker 2: of all, I don't blame Oz. I blame the person
Speaker 2: who murdered seven women, plus Sophia's mother.
Speaker 4: I blame very fair Carmine Falcone. He is to blame.
Speaker 2: And I will point out again that I as and
Speaker 2: I think we both agree on this that Oz did
Speaker 2: not understand what would happen, did not understand, No, he
Speaker 2: didn't what the what the fallout would be, and did
Speaker 2: not understand what Sophia was pursuing, did not understand that
Speaker 2: she was pursuing the truth.
Speaker 4: It was an impulsive it was an impulsive choice.
Speaker 2: Amia points out, in that world, that is a decision
Speaker 2: that makes sense. Yeah, boss's Carmine Falcone. It makes sense
Speaker 2: to inform him about the things that are going on. Okay. Secondarily,
Speaker 2: it appears to me that Sofia had no problem living
Speaker 2: in luxury, a luxury provided by the fruits of organized crime,
Speaker 2: violence trafficking, drug trafficking, sexual trafficking, etc. Until this moment
Speaker 2: when it appeared that it touched her personal. So while
Speaker 2: I have deep empathy for what Sofia went through, I
Speaker 2: also feel like we have to say.
Speaker 3: That I think that's very I think that's very sensible,
Speaker 3: rational and true. And I'm also just like I will
Speaker 3: kill every man who did this to Sofia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was obviously what happened to her was en
Speaker 2: kashmol was terrible and end it was Carmine style Cone's fault.
Speaker 4: It's Falcon not as fault really, although.
Speaker 2: It did snitch and I think it's absolutely fair to
Speaker 2: say that he's snitched.
Speaker 3: It was a it was like a domino effect that
Speaker 3: I was unintentionally set off. And I will say, I'm
Speaker 3: really this episode leaves me like deeply interested in where
Speaker 3: that relationship goes because I think they did such a
Speaker 3: good job Melotti Farrell, the creators of the show in
Speaker 3: this episode of like even through this like strife and
Speaker 3: grab handing kind of trying to work out where and
Speaker 3: when they can take power or strength I think that
Speaker 3: they did actually establish this really interesting connection between these
Speaker 3: two kind of outsiders in the show, and I'm interested
Speaker 3: to see where it goes next. And I can't believe
Speaker 3: there's only four more episodes of this show because this
Speaker 3: is just so fucking good and I'm gonna be so
Speaker 3: bummed when this ends, and we have like two years
Speaker 3: to wait till The Batman two and whatever other kind
Speaker 3: of spinoffs, and obviously we're definitely gonna get other spinoffs.
Speaker 3: I mean, the end of this episode, before we saw
Speaker 3: what her real plan was, when she was toasting the family,
Speaker 3: I was like, I would just actually love to see
Speaker 3: a spinoff where she goes to Italy and like tries
Speaker 3: to start a crime family in Italy and leaves Gotham behind,
Speaker 3: But obviously that's not gonna happen. So yeah, just another
Speaker 3: fantastic episode, but definitely big. Like, if you're listening to
Speaker 3: this recap because you're not sure if this is for you,
Speaker 3: take all of our warnings seriously, because this is like
Speaker 3: a rough watch.
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 2: There's nothing actually, I mean, there's one moment of there's
Speaker 2: one moment of violence, but it's the it's the subject
Speaker 2: matter and the ominous, very very heavy vibe of the
Speaker 2: episode that I think makes it a tough watch. It
Speaker 2: truly was tough to watch this episode. On the next
Speaker 2: couple episodes of xt ra Vision, We're diving into Agathol
Speaker 2: Long episode five on Tuesday, beginning our extras weir watch
Speaker 2: of ar Cane season one on Wednesday, and.
Speaker 1: Our Spooky Halloween.
Speaker 2: Coverage continues this Thursday. That's it for this episode. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening. Bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason N.
Speaker 2: Sepsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our
Speaker 2: supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen
Speaker 2: Lawn and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 3: and Heidi on Disco Moderata