What happens in episode seven, ‘Top Hat’?
WARNING: Major spoilers for episode seven ahead.
In a throwback to Oz’s childhood, his Ma, Francis, is seen busy at work as an accountant, while his brothers, Jack and Benny, frantically play around her.
Sent out to play and run errands, the trio meet a gangster that immediately fascinates Oz, though her brother warns him he’s not a good guy.
During a game of hide and seek in an abandoned building, the brothers hide down a tunnel, but he struggles to get down because of his leg. In his rage, he leaves them down there and closes the door on them before going home alone.
That night, during the torrential rain, his Ma begins to worry about the brothers, but Oz lies and says they went to the movies, so they stay in and watch Top Hat. Unbeknown to them, the tunnel the boys are trapped in is quickly filling with water, causing them to drown.
Back in present day, Oz goes to his Ma’s house to find it trashed, with Victor passed out on the floor. He tells Oz Sofia has taken her, but they’re cut short when Sal’s men arrive. Sending Victor out the fire escape, Oz gets a brutal beating from Sal.
Sofia is tending to Francis at her mansion, offering her breakfast and saying Oz needs to return the drugs. The pair antagonise each other, but Sofia hits a nerve when she brings up Jack and Benny.
Julian warns her that Gia, her cousin’s daughter she saved from the gassing, is asking to talk to the police. She enlists his help as a doctor to find out what’s going on with Francis.
Sal forces Oz to take him to the drugs plant, and he announces he’s taking over the place. But Oz and his cronies gain the upper hand and a fight breaks out. When Oz and Sal go head-to-head, Sal has a heart attack and dies.
Oz is furious that a once-proud enemy would die in that way, and he shoots his body on the ground, before stealing his ring.
Sofia goes to visit Gia to find out what she saw, and she admits seeing a mask in her bag, asking if she killed them. Sofia lies and denies doing it, and tells her the Falcones were bad people, and that she deserved better than to be part of that family. When she leaves, she breaks down in tears.
Oz calls Sofia off Sal’s phone, and brokers a deal. Everything to do with the drugs trade, in exchange for his mother unharmed.
Returning to the mansion, Sofia admits she just wants to be free, and feels like she’s walked out of one institution to another as a mobster. But she also wants Oz to suffer for what he did to her.
At the drugs plant, the team are arming up with guns and weapons, ready for an attack. As Sofia’s car arrives at the plant, she calls him, and he believes something is wrong. The car was self-driven, and when she tells him about a ‘present’, he fears that she’s killed Francis.
But when he pulls back the rug shielding the body, it turns out it’s actually a bomb – and he barely makes it to a safe spot in a tunnel before the entire plant explodes, taking out all his cronies and an entire block of the area.
When he comes to, he stumbles out onto the wrecked streets in a daze, unsure where Victor or anyone is. He’s then approached by a man working for Sofia, who knocks him out.
The Cobb Family History
Frances Cobb is another character that was created specially for this iteration of The Penguin - bringing a new layer to the complicated mobster.
In the comic books, Oswald Cobblepott’s mother owned a bird shop, and was overprotective of her son as he was brutally bullied. His heel-turn into a life of crime came after his mother fell into debt and her shop was repossessed.
The vagueness of Oswald’s mother means it has been left open to interpretation. For example, in TV series Gotham, she is named Gertrude Kapelput, and is a Hungarian immigrant who worked for the rich Van Dahl family. She fell in love with the family’s son but the family forbade the relationship, and she left after secretly falling pregnant with his child (Oswald).
But The Penguin, Francis Cobb is a mother of three, although it’s not known if the boys are from different fathers or the same absent one. Growing up in a rough area of Gotham, Oz becomes attached to his protective mum from a young age, sharing a love of old movies and music.
Often spending time at home because of his ailments, Oz develops an attachment to his mother and a desire to stand out from his brothers, which he later takes into his own hand.
A now elderly Francis lewy body dementia, which affects the brain, memory and also the body in a similar way to Parkinson’s disease.