What happens in episode five, ‘Homecoming’?
WARNING: Major spoilers for episode five ahead.
Following their brush with the Maronis, Oz sets fire to his beloved purple car, but wastes no time in calling in some old cronies to even the score.
Kidnapping Taj Maroni, Oz blackmails Sal and Nadia Maroni to get back the mushrooms that Bliss is created from, but is distracted by a news report about the gas leak massacre on the Falcone estate.
As Sofia’s young niece Gia is taken away to a childrens’ home, the police start to question her, noting it’s suspicious the entire powerful family was killed in a gas leak, and that Johnny Vitti is missing. Unknown to them, she has him locked in a mausoleum in order to get him to bend to her will.
As Johnny refuses, she continues to torture him, and he tries to talk to her about her mother, revealing she was planning on leaving Carmine and even had the bags packed to go. He tells her she needs to earn respect, and offers to help him.
As Oz’s gang watch the report too, they’re left in shock at the development, but Oz tells them not to grieve someone who didn’t even know his name.
As the gang heads off for the next phase of the plan, Oz tells Victor to look after his mother as he’s the only person he trusts with her. When he visits, Francis temporarily confuses him for her son, Jack.
In prison, Sal Maroni is stabbed by a prison guard Oz paid off, while Oz makes the deal with Nadia to get back the mushrooms. Releasing Taj, Oz and his cronies are ambushed by Maroni men, but Oz was prepared and sets both him and Nadia on fire, having doused Taj in petrol before releasing him.
Getting away from the scene, he discovers that nearly the entire crop of mushrooms is destroyed – and his fury is only deepened when he gets a call from Sal, revealing not only is he alive, but he’s escaped from prison.
Sofia is visited by Dr Julian Rush, who tells her she was right to think he was curious about her, but not for the control, but because he was enamoured with her, wanting to be a part of her business.
With a newly reclaimed power, Sofia calls a meeting of her team and confesses to killing her family, and calls for an end to the Falcone family, reclaiming her mother’s maiden name, Gigante. When Johnny protests, she shoots him in the head in front of everyone. She promises those in the room they will be paid what they’re worth. Unloading a bag of money onto the table, they all willingly bend without question.
Worried Sal could track his Ma down, Oz instructs Victor to Francis elsewhere, and he moves her to an abandoned apartment in Crown Point. But even there, they have to lay low because he spots Squid, a local gangster who is looting the area.
Oz comes to get Eve to bring her to the safe space too, but she refuses to move, saying she is content where she is. As he lies low in Crown Point, Oz gets a brainwave to use the underground trolley ways as his new operation base to grow Bliss.
Sal receives a visit from Sofia, and calls for an alliance between them, ending the war between their families in order for a bigger purpose – taking down Oz.
Who is Dr Julian Rush?
In The Penguin, Dr Julian Rush is a devoted member of Team Sofia Falcone/Gigante, and one of the few who attempted to help her when she was trapped in Arkham for a crime that she didn’t commit.
At first joining the team as an assistant to Dr Ventriss, it doesn’t take him long to become disillusioned with his mentor’s methods, believing (correctly) that he was corrupt and doling out electro-shock therapy more as a form of punishment on Sofia.
He now specialises in a form EMDR – eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing – therapy, using a board of moving lights his patients need to focus on in order to bring up repressed memories that they can then process.
There is no direct counterpart for Dr Julian Rush in the DC comic-book lore, though his methods somewhat resemble that of Dr Hugo Strange, a Batman super-villain who used his position as a psychiatrist at Arkham to develop radical new experimental “methods” on his patients.
The History of the Maronis
The Maroni Family are heads of one of the biggest criminal organisations functioning within Gotham City Walls.
At one point, they were considered the most powerful, founded by the intimidating Luigi ‘Big Lou’ Maroni, before it was taken over by Sal.
But Falcones took over their top dog position after he was imprisoned for money laundering, having used a charity set up in memory of Thomas Wayne to filter their deals.
Before his arrest, the Maronis had the monopoly on the drugs trade, most specifically Drops, an addictive and deadly substance taken in the form of eye-drops.
Launching the drug in the late 80s, Maroni used this as a platform to elevate himself in the criminal underworld, as Drops proved highly addictive, despite its high mortality rate.
In order to usurp his position as the kingpin of Gotham City, Carmine Falcone helped the corrupt policemen and government officials within his control elevate their careers by telling them about Maronis operation.
Once Maroni was arrested, he took over as the city’s lead Drops seller, with Oz in charge of one of the outlets within the larger operation.