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"The Penguin": The emancipating, entirely reasonable fury of Sofia Falcone

15 1
27.10.2024

Gauging Sofia Falcone’s situational anger at any moment in “The Penguin” isn’t tough. Just look at her eyes — not simply the emotions flickering across them, but how she paints them. When Sofia (Cristin Milioti) is first introduced, her makeup is barely visible, and demure, as one would expect of a proper Gotham heiress.

Her graceful subtle clothing, we assume, comes from the closet she was forced to leave behind before her decade-long stint in Arkham Asylum, and from an era when she was still Daddy’s Favorite. Ivanka Trump to Carmine Falcone’s Donald. Pre-Arkham Sofia twinkles brightly, knowing her father intends for her to take over the family business.

Then she makes the fatal mistake of figuring out Carmine murdered a string of women, including her mother Isabella, and badda-bing-badda-boom — Daddy pins his homicides on his little girl, allows the local media to brand her as The Hangman and locks her away with Gotham City’s worst.

Ten years later, after Carmine (Mark Strong) and her brother Alberto (Michael Zegen) are dead, Sofia returns home to find her uncles seizing her birthright. That’s when her portentous warpaint emerges, a crisp black border drawn from tear duct to wing crowning a frigid, distrustful gaze.

Those who know fashion recognize this as the cat's eye. Those who know history may see shades of Hatshepsut, the woman pharaoh, in that look. Either way, at the peak of the pivotal episode titled “Cent’anni,” it announces she has no intention of silently accepting her reputational stains.

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At a dinner celebrating her Uncle Luca’s improper ascension, she strides into the room, seats herself at the other end of the table, and interrupts his self-aggrandizing speech to address the family members who aided her father’s calumny.

“I was genuinely surprised to see how many of you wrote letters to the judges, telling him I was mentally ill. Like my mother,” she said. “. . . I trusted you. I loved you. And yet none of you tried to help me.” Admitting that she understands she no longer fits into the family anymore, she announces that the next day she’s starting a new life and offers a non-specific toast to new beginnings.

Cristin Milioti in "The Penguin" (Macall Polay/HBO)Hours later, Sofia wipes out all but two people at that table. Not long after that, she announces to the remaining muscle that she and the family have a new name: Gigante. Her mother’s.........

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