The Cast and Creator of ‘The Penguin’ Open Up About the Show's Heartbreaking, Yet Hopeful Finale

*Major spoilers for The Penguin finale below!*

The Penguin was ultimately a show about survival, but not everyone can say that they made it through at the end. In one of the biggest shocks of all, Victor, who had been by Oz's side since the very beginning of the journey, was killed off by the very person who gave him a different kind of hope after the devastating loss of his family and loved ones.

Sofia Gigante/Falcone seems to have suffered a fate worse than death as she's back at Arkham Asylum. Only this time, not even her brother is around to visit her, leaving her more broken and alone. That is, until a special letter arrives with her name on it which reveals a major surprise.

And then there's Oz who should be celebrating his great victory like a king. Only now he's not only gotten rid of his closest friend and foe, but he has now lost his mom to a coma that left him more broken than ever before. He has Gotham now and has kept his promise to his mother...sort of...but the cost is certainly greater than anything he could've ever imagined.

The finale of The Penguin brought everything you could've ever wanted from a ending within The Batman-universe. And while the caped crusader never made an appearance in the series, it's clear that things at Gotham won't be the same with so many pieces in their final places. Which is exactly the kind of plan that series creator Lauren LeFranc had all along.

Cosmopolitan got to catch up with the cast and creator of The Penguin at New York Comic Con 2024 to talk about the show's emotional and gripping finale and while, despite it all, there's still a little bit of hope at the end for some characters.

"When I pitched the show, that was always the end," creator Lauren LeFranc said about Oz losing his mother and dancing with Eve at the end. "I felt like that showcased Oz's delusion. I knew based on where I needed to get Oz, and his trajectory for the end of the show to go into Matt's film, there was a rise to power story. He needed to achieve a level of power, but to me that meant he had to have a personal cost."

Francis Cobb's fate might not be too much of a surprise to fans, who have seen time and time again how women who have gotten close to the men of Gotham have fallen and often died in their hands, which Lauren also notes is just another part of the universe of The Batman.

"Batman, in the comics—like all of any character that lives in the Batman universe—has a level of trauma that they're like unpacking. Which is, I think, why people connect to The Batman and all the characters that exist in them," she continued. "I just wanted interesting, complicated women in this world, and so I made very specific decisions. I made sure that Oz respected his mother and therefore respected Sophia as a real force. I've seen a lot of crime dramas where the women were treated more like sex objects and didn't have much of a backstory. I always found that so unfortunate and women are more interesting and complicated than that."

"I just wanted to make sure that we dug deeper into them and then explored larger things about identity and about cycles of violence and about trauma and what it is to be hurt in this sort of grand way. It's not meant to make you think that what Sophia does, for instance, is okay. She's not a hero, but you understand what she's going through and you understand her plight."

Throughout the series, Sofia realizes that the real reason why she was placed in Arkham is not because of her father, but really because of Oz. And while she had plans to leave Gotham and everything behind for a new life outside of the city and the family name that made her who she was, she once again gets burned by the person who has betrayed her the most. She is sent back to Arkham and the tables have turned on her once again.

"That's what makes them good adversaries. They both know how to sentence the other one to a fate worse than death. He really nails it, which is terrible," Cristin Milioti said. "I'm just continually blown away by Lauren's brilliance. There's this phrase, shocking yet inevitable, and that is kind of what their dynamic feels like. They're so familial in a way that they know exactly how to get to each other and it's what would have made them such great partners. But, instead, they ruin each other's lives."

Just being a close ally to Oz is not enough as evident in Victor and his mother's ending: both at his own hands, but only one done purposefully.

"It wasn't a shock, because I already knew that was going to happen even before we started shooting," Rhenzy Feliz, who played Victor, admitted. "But I had hoped that we'd be able to find a little bit of this sensitive, vulnerable thing before. It was beyond what I could have hoped for."

"He knew what his job was and she made it very clear," Deirdre O'Connell, who brought to life Francis Cobb said. "I mean, he does give her a penthouse view. I should have been more specific that I'd like to be awake to experience it. But she did give him very careful instructions for what to do when things got worse for her and he does not do that."

At the end, the two adversaries and foes left each other in a must worse state when they started. But while Oz is slightly feeling the thrill of his victory, albeit, with a broken heart and mind, Sofia is back where she started only this time she has a new companion with her: Dr. Rush, who seemingly has turned the tables on her yet again as he re-joins Arkham to be with her.

"Here we fucking go again. They're sort of partners and he's also the only physical contact she has too. He's the only person who understands the environment she came from. That dynamic is so weird, but she's in such a broken place at the end, so I don't even know if she's computing it," Cristin said. "I'm sure she's devastated that it's back to what it was, because that's what fuels the relationship. She's powerless in that cell."

While Oz certainly did not overestimate Sofia, there is one person who he did: Francis.

"I think maybe the moment when she really breaks is when he says, You are misremembering it because you have a disease,'" Deirdre reveals. "Being underestimated is something the Cobb family does not like exactly. That's our least favorite thing."

It is also revealed that Francis had previously planned to get rid of her son after she discovered how her other two boys died, which kick-started this new dynamic for herself and Oz.

"They've been in this contract for their whole lives, so they have all these other layers of need and she needs him more and more as she gets more and more infirm. I think for moms, no matter how much you love your kid, there were moments when you just like, Get away from me."

"It goes back and forth all the time. I think that there's a way in which she objectively hates him and then there's a way in which she objectively loves him. When she sees him thrive, sees him gain in power, and when she sees him become a more and more effective person, she can't help but feel waves of pride like, He is me out in the world," Deirdre added. "But I also think that she feels like she has unleashed the devil. She did have a choice, and she couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear to hurt him after what had happened to her other boys. She could not do the revenge and she's living with that."

Which circles back to Victor's fate. A now broken Oz, who has lost almost everything that he loved, decides to take out the one thing he seemingly had left.

"I think he just realized what happens to him when he has someone that he cares about, and the power that they can have over him if they have someone like that. He doesn't want to be vulnerable again. He doesn't want to be weak," Rhenzy noted. "And the best way to do this before they can get to him is to just finish it now."

"They kind of have a moment between them, and without saying the words, Victor, in a way, kind of tells him, I love you. I think it'd be weird for both of them to say any of that. But he goes, You're like family to me. That means a lot to Victor having just lost his family. I understood what it was. I knew what we were doing. We're gonna be real. They're gonna have this moment between each othe, and then we're gonna rip out the heart of this thing."

And while Oz is dealing with such fatal loss, it's Sofia who is gaining someone new in her circle that might just be the answer that she's been looking for.

"It's like a pin prick of life at the end of an extremely long tunnel that she didn't have before," said Cristin. "And it's family, which she doesn't have."

"That was something that I talked to Matt Reeves about. I wanted to see if he would be okay with that. I know they're half sisters—everybody who's watched The Batman technically knows that—we just never acknowledged it on our show. Most important, I think, was to give Sophia that inkling of hope, because the whole season she's lost and she has no family. Alberto dies so quickly. He's the only one who believed in her work. She gasses her whole family, and then she, one by one, just obliterates the rest of them," Lauren added.

"Oz puts her in this version of hell, which is Arkham, and she's left alone, and it's such a tragic, sad ending for her. That letter signifies that she does have family. Not one she necessarily knew existed, but she does have a half sister out there, and therefore has a little bit of hope. I think they would have a lot in common if they ever met. I can't speak to if there's any future for that, but that was really essential to me for Sophia. I love Sophia too much to give her just a purely tragic end."

"I'm completely and utterly jazzed, as you can imagine," Cristin revealed. "I hope we get to see that play out."

The Penguin is now completely available to stream on Max.