The ‘Penguin’ Finale Deep Dive With Lauren LeFranc
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Hello, welcome back to House of R. I lobbied to have opera playing gently in the background for this entire podcast, but my co-host said no. She's Mallory Rubin. Hey, Mallory, how you doing? What is this shit? Talking about points? Points?

Oh, we're here to talk about the penguin, a bird of sorts. We're here to talk about the penguin finale. And the penguin finale, in my view, was so good. It retroactively makes me sad that we weren't covering this show week to week all season. Same.

So Mallory and I will be talking about the Penguin finale and all of our thoughts and feelings about that. And then at the end of this podcast, we have a conversation with the showrunner, Lauren LaFranc, to go over sort of some of our most burning questions. She was wonderful. She gave us a lot of really chewy insights into psychology, the characters and sort of what she thinks about psychology.

Gotham as a place or the kind of character that belongs in a Batman story. I just really loved that conversation with her. So stay tuned for that. Fantastic chat about a fantastic season of TV.

Here we go. Um, before we get into everything, so quick programming reminders, um, nothing much has changed since the last time I said this to you all. Arcane season two, part two recap from the mint boys, uh, this weekend on Saturday, next week, button mash will be here with something that a lot of people are excited about. And I don't quite understand, which is halo two and a half light to half life to turn 20. I've heard, I've heard the streets buzzing about this pod. Um,

And I'm excited. It's a big anniversary. I'm excited to understand why I should also be buzzing about it. But glad to hear coverage from both the Midnight Boys, pew, pew, and also from House of R next week. Mallory, Ruben, and I will be covering Dune next week. Yes. The new Dune show on HBO. Very excited. Dune Prophecy.

And also, later this week, Rob Mahoney will be joining me to talk about Silo, season two, the beginning of Silo. So sad to miss it. I can't wait to watch the premiere and listen to you and Rob talk about it. We'll talk about it eventually, I feel. I feel that in my bones, Molly Rubin. That's a lot. Yeah. It's thais o'clock. It's time to go back to Arrakis. It's video game anniversaries I don't understand. Molly Rubin, how can folks keep track of all of that stuff? Here it is. It's simple. Follow the pod.

Follow House of R and follow The Ringiverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And here's part of the reason you want to do that, in addition to all the reasons that you already know. Full video episodes of House of R and Midnight Boys are available to watch on Spotify. Incredible. Wow. Thrilling. In the app itself. Here we are. You're on a big television in front of me. I can see your beautiful face. It's delightful. It's divine. In the app itself. You can also...

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Thank you. We got some interesting psychology and psychiatry, I should say, insights from our listeners this week as we talk about the most important character on this show, Dr. Julian Rush, back up to his old tricks in this episode. Spoiler warning, we are going up through the end of the first season of The Penguin. Will it be the only season? We don't know. That's actually up in the air right now. It's kind of exciting. Yeah.

So everything that has happened on the penguin and also relatedly, anything that's happened in Batman comics ever, and also the Batman by, uh, directed by Matt Reeves, all of that's on the table. Any Batman movie, all the Batman stuff. I think that's pretty clear. Okay. Let's go now to our opening snapshot.

Episode 8, A Great or Little Thing, written by Lauren LaFranc, directed by Jennifer Getzinger. The episode title comes from Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Jail. Mallory Rubin, do you want to share with our listeners why this episode is titled after the Oscar Wilde poem, The Ballad of Reading Jail? It would be the honor of my life. Great. The answer is because Oscop himself, Colin Farrell,

sent this poem to Lauren, to the showrunner.

Yeah, we asked about that. We'll talk about that. I mean... But imagine your life if Colin Farrell were just sending you poetry. Oscar Wilde or no. You know what I mean? I am now imagining if that were my life. Hard not to. Hard not to. The Ballad of Reading Jail is about a man who has killed the woman he loves, the thing that he loves, essentially. And that the quote is...

The man had killed the thing he loved and so he had to die. And so applicable to this episode because of, I don't know, take your pick, the comatose status of Francis, the death of our beloved Victor, all of that at the hands of, of Oz Cobb, who is now ascended the ranks of, of Gotham by ripping his own heart out. Yeah.

You know, as far as work-life balance is not what I would decide to do, but, you know, people make their choices. Yeah, he's very goal-oriented, Oz Cobb. Yeah, we love that in someone, but, you know, there are ways and means to do it. Okay, so Mallory Rubin, we've already blown the surprise. We loved this episode, but why don't you take us into your, like, sort of overall impressions of the episode and then sort of the season as a whole?

I thought that this season was great. I loved it. I thought that the finale was exceptional, like one of the better finales in history.

the recent history of things we've gotten to cover together. Yes. This was just an astonishing hour of TV. And it was the kind of thing that, you know, when you think about the text, the complete nature of the text that we got, but also the possibility of exploring more in the future, like whether we get season two or not, and it certainly seems like that is now likely to happen. We know that Oz Cobb is going to be a figure in the Batman series.

Two, like this is not the end of this particular version of the character being present in our lives on screen. And yet it felt like such a fully realized story in a way that like I think when often, you know, again, I don't say this to diminish the nature of a comic book story. We spend a lot of our time talking about these stories because we love them and we love to be in these worlds. But it is, I think, irrefutable that often in the IP era and the streaming era, you

whatever door has to be left open to allow for what might be next, it can feel sometimes like that comes at the expense of the thing itself. And I am struggling to think of a better example of that not happening than this. Like, you could watch these eight episodes, whether you had seen the Batman or not, whether you plan to see the next Batman movie or not. Great film. I'm sure the next one will be dynamite. You definitely should see them and enjoy them. But this is like the definitive article about how this process

person became this monster. And I thought that the finale was not only like beautifully crafted, but astonishingly acted as the whole season has been. And such an emotional wallop. We talk about this a lot, like that incredibly satisfying thing as a viewer when you get to the moment, the payoff at the end, and you are simultaneously... Yeah.

bowled over either by surprise or devastation or euphoria, whatever the emotional response might be. Like it hits you like a truck, right?

And yet every single thing in hindsight feels like it led to that moment. And how could it have gone anywhere else? And there were so many with Oz and Victor, with Oz and Sophia, with Oz and Francis, with Oz and Eve even. Every single core relationship in the story. Yeah. It felt like that was true. And that's just a difficult thing to achieve. So I loved it. I thought that the...

Victor death scene was one of the saddest things I'd ever seen. It just crushed me, not only for Victor, but for what that means for Oz. The idea of Oz telling himself, like, this is what winning is. This is what it has to be. Telling other people in his life, like his mom, that he does it for them, and then having really, at the end of the day, nobody to share it with because he has destroyed every relationship in his life. Yeah. It was just... It was...

I thought this was excellent. So I loved the season. Finale was the best episode of the season by far, but it made the entire season richer. And I just loved it. How about you? Really well put. I loved everything you just said. And I really especially agree with that sort of, it feels, what it winds up feeling is sort of inevitable, even if something sort of hits you like a freight train. But it just really,

feels like of course this is where this was going even if we didn't predict it this is of course where things had to go to your point about handing off to another installment in the IP verse that is you know Matt Reeves Batman verse thinking about the bad examples of that that have to that we've encountered

I would say largely in Marvel properties where you can just feel the handoff and, and it's just standing in the way of you immersing yourself in the climax of a, of a story. I think visually this episode was, was incredibly shot as was the whole season, the style of the whole season, just really consistent and gorgeous throughout. But there are just some like really interesting shot choices in this episode. Like,

seeing Rex through the people or, you know, there's just like some interesting compositions where they just, they took their camera and just said, what if we did this instead? And that just elevates things that much more. And then I think kind of crucially to the promised experiment of the penguin, they, they wanted to play in the world of mafia crime fiction and,

And, um, there is a way to do that that just feels like sort of pastiche or just largely, um,

a faint echo of what you're reaching for. Not again to knock another Disney property, but I think like Book of Boba Fett in that it was going for something in that vein and we were reaching for these connections. Whereas the Penguin establishes itself as, yes, I can think of things like I'm thinking about Walter White when Oz says, I did it all for you, right? I was just like, it gave me Walter White PTSD or I'm thinking about

the various young men who get lost, uh, or taken out in the wire. Um, and I'm thinking about the Godfather and thinking about this, that, and the other thing, but this stands on its own as not just an homage to that, but its own really complicated, uh, story. Yeah. And I think also to your point about, um,

What this does sort of ripples back through the season for me. I went back and I didn't do a full rewatch, but I spot watched some scenes and it has so much more weight and resonance to it. And as much as we enjoyed individual installments, I would still put episode four maybe up against this or maybe like just below it, but like really close for me. The whole tapestry is,

Like the weave of the whole tapestry sort of like tightens up by the time you get to this finale, you understand what all those threads were for. Then you can see the whole picture. And then the whole thing just feels like really incredibly plotted and executed. So even though individual episodes sort of, as we were watching them, we were like, I like this one less. I like this one more in honor rewatch the whole journey just feels really masterfully balanced. And I think to your point about,

And we talked to Lauren about this a little bit. I don't, I don't want to spoil this, but I just think it's really key in these IP shared IP versus, I just wasn't sure how much or Matt Reeves is involved in this or not. It really can depend. And it sounds like, you know, this is Lauren's show, but it's still quite a collaborative process. So I kind of want to take us into this prompt that Matt Reeves says that he gave Lauren sort of going into the penguin show. He said, quote,

we talked about where all of this toxic masculinity comes from some vulnerability, some weakness, so deep with within that they're overcompensating for that. They're so protective of the wounds within them that they can become terrifying. Then it was for Lauren to go off and figure out. And she came up with a story about Francis. Um, so, and,

End quote. So I love that, that he's like, this is your prompt. Explain this character. And then Lauren crafts this incredible story about his mother and his brothers and this friendship that he forms with Victor. Like all that stuff comes from Lauren, but with a shared end goal shared with the person she's handing the baton back to, if that makes sense. What do you think about all that, Mallory?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a prompt that is a rich one from the start and certainly successfully executed here. I think we, I use the phrase character study maybe a little liberally, honestly. Like, I feel like I go to that often when I'm like, oh, yeah, well, this is like character study. It's like, this is a character study. You know, the mission of this story is...

this question of why would this exist, there was an answer to that beyond the obvious. And to be clear, that doesn't mean that the obvious ones wouldn't have merit, right? Like, to introduce in a deeper way beyond a few delightful scenes in the film, this version of the Penguin, Oz Cobb, as...

a figure of consequence in Gotham as the epic crime saga continues to unfurl would be useful regardless. But this gives us a depth of understanding about why this person behaves this way that I think is like, it's enviable. It's the kind of thing we spend so much of our time like seeking and responding to when it is present and even like a kernel. And I,

It's the only thing, if I'm being honest about it, as you know, I'm a glutton with this stuff. I kind of almost always want more of my base position when we end a show is, I wish we had had more episodes. I wish they had been longer. When will season two come out? And so, of course, the press this week and the indication that season two is seeming likely is,

Excites me. I want season two, but perhaps counterintuitively, the quality and the specific nature and focus of season one.

I wonder if it would be possible to match that in season two because the thing that they were exploring has been explored, it feels like, in full. Now, maybe there are other relationships in Oz's life, whatever happens next with Eve, this question, this looming question not answered ultimately about the father, et cetera. Like, it's not... But I don't think you would want to do the same thing again. And this was such a... The way that Oz's relationship with Frances explained his relationship

with Jack and Benny, explained his relationship with Vic, explained how he makes his recruitment pitch to anybody who ever felt like they were less than or outside or not the central focus of a thing, explained how even though he and Sophia are often mirroring each other and their desire, the way that they seek to bring other people into the fold right down to, as we've talked about this season, specific language sometimes, it was never going to work between them because the whole thing is, for both of them, I'm the one who's least understood.

Right. Right. I'm the one who's always on the outside. And so like,

I wonder if season two could possibly hope to achieve something similar, but then also it's like you have faith in the people who made it. You have faith in the performances and you have faith in the character continuing to be interesting in a new circumstance. So yeah, it's like an interesting thing to be able to say that like a season was so successful you wonder if they should ever make another one, but that is like kind of how I feel about it. Also, I can't wait for season two. I feel both of those things at once. I definitely know you're not saying you don't want a season two. We all know that, but like...

I think I might share some of your trepidation were it not for the incredible success of Sophia and Victor as like a whole cloth. I mean, Sophia is a character in the comics, but like theoretically a whole cloth invention for this show. And so I have faith in Lauren and her team that they could add into this universe in a way that would be really compelling. Keeping Oz as the focus. To your point about this idea of a character study, yeah.

Again, this show had a lot of interest in Victor and it had a lot of interest in Sophia. It wasn't just... And a lot of interest in Frances. And it wasn't just focused on Oz. But when we get down to it, when we get to this finale...

I pulled the clips for this episode and then I went back through and realized like every single clip was just sort of like, here's who Oz is. That was accidental, but those were just the moments that stood out to me. And then I was like, oh, it's here's who Oz is told through the lens of Victor, Rex, Sophia and Oz himself. And that's sort of like what this is.

you know, concluding paragraph, this closing statement of this, this season is, is most interested in. So like there's stuff for Victor here, there's stuff for Sophia here, but this is the show, the penguin, and this is Oz's moment. And the, and the question, the thesis of the show is what makes a penguin, a penguin. And, and that's, that's where we are. And I, I really love this. I did not anticipate as much as I, I love Colin Farrell, my whole heart. And, um,

Even though he's never sent either of us a poem. Yet. Yet. And I really, and I love the Batman, as you know. Yes. And I still never imagined that I would care as much about Oz as

despite all the things that he does or because of all the things that he does as I do coming out of this, like I still care about him. He's still going to do worse and worse and worse things. And I'm still going to be able to see the vulnerable kid inside of him, which doesn't excuse his behavior, but it, it, the empathy that we are asked to have for the characters in this world where, you know, I mean,

Even Batman himself can be a hard character to fully wrap your arms around and root for, but you're asked to care. Yeah. We as the audience now have our version of what happened for Frances when she stabbed Oz in the gut and then looked down and saw that little boy despondent and in shambles. Yeah.

I find myself, you know, throughout... We've been talking about this throughout the season, when the show makes you complicit, how satisfying that is. I found myself at the end feeling so deeply for Oz and then feeling genuine, like, revulsion that I felt that way. And I think that's amazing. Yeah. I think that's great. Like, when a show can make you feel that way and question why you are...

What is the limit of our empathy when we have seen somebody do the things that Azkab has done? And I think the real brilliance of the character study here is that we didn't watch him become a different person. We watched him become a more unapologetic and full version of himself. And that's, I think, way more harrowing to confront. All right, let us go now to...

to our...

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Episode 8, Deep Dive. ♪

We're starting off with my favorite character in yours. We're on a one-on-one therapy sesh with Dr. Julian Rush. Oh, man.

As we suspected, we sort of anticipated that, you know, all the Dr. Jillian Rush stuff was leading up to this moment with taking Francis through her memories. But something that we had guessed was that he was going to sort of unlock something she didn't know she remembered or something like that. And the truth is, Francis knew the whole time. She's known the whole time that Oz killed Jack and Betty. And...

And that dovetails into something our listener Melinda wrote in, because I think I mischaracterized what EMDR therapy is, and that's my fault. And Melinda says, just a quick, well, actually, PSA for EMDR. I'm almost certain this would not be a technique to recover from.

Repressed memories, it may be that those lights were used for hypnosis as well. If this were in fact EMDR, it would be about helping a person desensitize to traumatic memories, not find them. Uncovering repressed memories is a pretty dubious practice. It's not actually much done in the last half century or so, despite what you see on TV. So I hope Melinda breathed a sigh of relief to know that that's not what the penguin was doing inside of this episode. Yeah.

when we get to this flashback, I know this because we've already talked about this. We haven't talked a lot about this episode, but we've talked about this. Mal and I both thought perhaps our Rex is the father theory was about to play out right before our eyes. When he's like, Oswald doesn't need a father. He's

He's about to say because he has one. Me, Rex, I'm right here. I'll pay for the funeral. Yeah, for my other children. We were so close. We were so close. Close, except instead what we get is Frances considering putting a hit out on her own child, which is the cheery note we start on here. So, okay, I thought this was an incredible way to open the episode. And in terms of, again, the...

we have the emotion and we have the theme for the characters, but then we have the craft of making the finale. And I really agree with what you said about now thinking back to other scenes from earlier in the season, how they simultaneously play a little bit differently for you, but also...

you understand them more fully. Like, that was always the intention for us to have this clarity and hindsight. And for that reason, the choice to put our Frances in this memory rather than it being young Frances, we get the one moment of, like, looking in the mirror. We have...

the red lights. We have Julian and Sophia bleeding in. We have enough to ensure that we have our bearings and understand and that we're not confused. But we are with the character that we have spent the most time with. And I just thought that that was brilliant. In terms of what we hear Frances then say and do, like, I got the devil in my house, like, gave me a chill. I mean, imagine saying that about your own child and then imagine...

saying you would do that for me, meaning kill my own son. And I thought this is very emblematic to me of the blanket point, the larger point we were making about why the finale worked. This is early in the episode, so we haven't yet seen Oz kill Victor. We haven't yet seen Oz condemn Sophia to a fate that she certainly would consider a fate worse than death by sending her back to Arkham. We have not yet seen him tell himself

That he's honoring a promise to his mother by getting her the penthouse and the view she always wanted while really breaking the last promise she ever asked him to make, which was don't let me live this way. Right. Don't let me be a vegetable who just stares out. Knowing just enough to know how miserable I am. We haven't yet seen any of that, but we know...

This is a person capable of horrible things. We saw him kill his own brothers last week. We're certainly poised to watch more horrors unfold. And yet I felt nothing but pity for him watching his mother say this thing. And there's the extra layer, too, not only of knowing this was a thing that she had considered doing,

But with the Rex element, the idea that he would then have to confront in the next scene when Sophia is forcing all this information to the surface. That he doesn't is the thing. I really expect the Rex revelation to like break him, but he's so deep in his delusion that it doesn't.

even shake him, you know? Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And everything that happens with Francis, he's just ready to be like, I'll sneak whiskey into the hospital room later and, like, tell her I did it. He never thinks that it's too late to work his way out of whatever circumstance he's in. Right. But even though it didn't hit for him as much, like, for me as a viewer, I'm like, man, his whole life has been lived in the image of this guy, and he has no idea this is the thing that happened. Like, it just made me pity him because...

I think the word you're using is the perfect one, delusion. It just really reinforces that this is a character whose entire existence is defined by delusion, right? Like, he has genuinely no sense of his own relationships, status, the way people feel and think about him, including the people who he idolizes or would consider the closest in the world to him. And, like, that's pretty devastating. I mean, yeah, it's devastating...

And also, I guess the thing that I was surprised by, in that this whole episode feels inevitable, in that we had all the clues, Mr. Policeman, about who Oz was...

I've never seen that movie, but I know it from the Twitter memes. You know the memes. Yeah. I was surprised by... This is skipping ahead a little bit, but I was surprised by him being in a room where everyone already knew the truth. And even then he couldn't admit it. That surprised me a bit. But let's go back to Rex. Let's hear from Rex. Because what I love... I loved this moment because it's not just...

I'll put a hit out on your son for you. It's Rex talking about Oz and also about Victor and also about everyone in Gotham. Can we play this clip, please? If Oz is what you say, guys like him, they can serve a purpose. Go on to do big fucking things, especially in my line of work. But you got to know how to control them. Most of the guys that come to me say they're looking to make money. That's fine. But greed don't buy loyalty.

I want loyalty. I bring in guys who are looking for a father. Guys like that got a void to fill. They'll do anything for me. The fact that my mind went immediately to Victor when he said this with like devastation before we see what happens to Victor was part of it. But then like, you know, when you, when you watch through the whole episode and

you think about the void inside of all of Gotham. You think about like the, everything that Gotham has lost recently, thanks to the Riddler, everything that Gotham felt it already didn't have that was full of the have nots versus the, the haves and all that sort of stuff like that. And then the way in which, yeah,

Given how everything goes down at the end with the second in command's killing all of the heads of the various gangs, you now have just like an army of people who have lost the quote unquote father figure, the leadership figure. Right. All now drafted into Oz's cause here. And so it's just like, it's chilling and fascinating. And like for Lauren and her writers to think about this,

what causes a void so deep inside of someone like Oz Cobb that, you know, every victory feels hollow. You know, like the victory that the victories that he wins in this episode and how he cannot get the approval he desperately needs from Francis thinking about him standing over Moroni and screaming like, I beat you, I beat you. And to like a corpse, you know, it's just sort of like, it's, um,

It's never going to fill up for Ozkov. Nothing will ever do it. And then I just think more broadly, in a Bat story, Bat stories...

In general, Batman is a story about... The first thing you learn about Batman is he's an orphan, right? He too has this void inside of him. And his various Robins are missing their families and he forms the Bat family, which, you know, coming soon to a James Gunn project near you, you know, like this idea of...

The fractured family, the lost children of Gotham is such a key element of Bat's storytelling that I just love that we're really drilling down on it inside of this story here. Yeah, I think that's a beautiful observation. And like it's there at the end, even with Selina penning her letter to Sophia, right? These are two people who had a very different relationship to their father, including his awareness of their existence. But at the end of the day felt

in some way by the family structure that anybody from the outside, for Sophia at least, would have looked at and said,

look at this mansion, look at your riches. We hear Oz say that to her, a version of that, in this very episode. And it's like, is that enough? And then for Oz, he's a character who's like, well, the fact that we came from nothing, that we had nothing, that's then the currency that I can use to make sure that the bond that we have feels more real. Like, look what we lived through and survived. But the fact that his mother was present in his life and he was present in hers didn't actually mean that he had feelings

Right. Like his mother calls him the devil and feels that way truly about him and then makes a bargain with herself that that's a thing that she's going to allow to be present in her life. I'm thinking, too, even of just like the you know, you mentioned the Riddler, but like now thinking back to the the Batman and the events of the Batman.

you know, one of the meaningful plot shifts in the film takes place at the orphanage. And right when we learn that he was also an orphan, and again, this sense of like, the city that was supposed to nurture and protect me failed me. But also the fact that I had that experience can, it leads to, to stick with our keyword of the episode, this delusion then from the Riddler that like, he and Batman might like work together, you know? It's just all...

It's all fascinating. I think that I loved about the Batman, the film. I love that sequence that you're talking about. And that all feeds into this question of Thomas Wayne and his legacy and what Bruce learns about his parents, who he has lost and who in...

Many versions of the story are just these like perfect loving people, but they are complicated people as they have been in the comics past and as they are in Matt Reeves movie. And like, I think that to your, the point you're making about that Sophia and Oz conversation, which we were going to hear some of, but I didn't clip this one line where he talks about,

his plate being empty and her plate being full. And I was just thinking about that, like thinking about our observation throughout the season of Sophia shoveling food in her face, which comes from like,

uh, often a place of food insecurity, which she had in Arkham, right? Like, you know, food was withheld and all this sort of stuff like that. And so like, that's often where that comes from, but this larger idea of her never feeling full, her always feeling empty and having this void inside of her. And from Oz, Oz, the outside looking in, and this is like one of your first points, this is like sort of the tragedy of Oz and Sophia is like from the outside looking in, all he sees is the food on her plate and all she feels is empty. Right. And so, um,

Yeah. And, and like, you know, Bruce Wayne, like the, the world's saddest little rich boy, like, you know, he's got all the money in the world, but I won't buy him what he needs. And in, uh, there's a scene that the midnight boys love to make fun of in, uh, Batman when Bruce is at Alfred's bedside in the hospital. And yes, we can all agree that that scene starts out a little rough, but where it goes, where Alfred's talking about, um,

raising Bruce, right? And he says, quote, I wasn't equipped to take care of you. You needed a father and all you had was me. Now we're at home screaming like you were a father. You're a father in every version of this story, Alfred. But, you know, that idea of like you grew up without the thing and sorry, we're going to move on for this in a second. But like

the idea of my favorite ideas about Gotham have to do with how the like institutions fail us. Why do you need vigilante justice? You need it because the justice system is broken and that's the courts and that's the government and that's the police and that's the orphanages and that's everything. It's just absolutely rotten and hollow. And, uh,

I love that bit. Sorry. Again, I mean, same. And again, that was part of what was so sinister about watching, now I'm jumping ahead, but like to watching Oz make his pitch and his play with Councilman Haiti was like, when we watch him recruit his own lieutenants or the five families or really anyone throughout the story, he's like, we're the same. We're the ones who are forgotten. We're the ones who have to eat shit. Let's become the ones who are in charge. Right.

When he's making his pitch to Councilman Haiti, he separates himself from that and makes that whole reality of the city and what the city reflects about the people who inhabit it a thing that the politicians can leverage for their gain. Like, he's like, oh, they need someone to blame. Here, let me tell you exactly whose body you'll find and how you can use this, but also they need someone to love. The people who are

living in disrepair and have not had their community tended to, Oz would tell himself, would tell everyone, would tell Sophia in the car ride later when she's like, Oz Cobb, man of the people, like, you believe that? Right. And he's like, I do. But he goes into that room, into the Hall of Power, and says, like, the way that everybody is suffering can be your ladder to the top. Like, that is so insidious. Sinister. And, like, especially as that scene...

circles, Bella Real, who was this sort of like hopeful candidate, you

you know, this like candidate that we look to in the Batman as, as like someone who actually cared about the people and was like, sort of like a progressive, hopey changey kind of candidate for the mayorship. And she, she's in this episode, she has the job, but she's mayor elect and Oz has his eyes on her. And that just suddenly makes that feel so insecure. Uh, if he set his sights on her, whether her job or something else, it's just, uh, interesting. Okay. Yeah.

Let's go to a totally normal mother-son dance at the Monroe. It's definitely not the weirdest dance in this episode. Nope. Nope. Second place, right? Okay. So the dress might be the same. The song that's playing is Let's Face the Music and Dance. This is a cover by an artist called Sheena Steele, but this is an iconic Fred Astaire tune. And

Fred Astaire being such a key figure in the previous Francis Oz flashback. They're watching the film Top Hat while Jack and Benny are gurgling in the sewer. It's terrible. But I want to take you briefly to Fred Astaire quarter and just say, when I grew up as a totally cool and normal child, I loved Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger movies. Like they were among my favorites. Um,

You're the best. And my favorite... Swing Time is probably the best one, but my favorite one was Follow the Fleet, which is what this song is from. And, you know, will it hold up to a 2024 audience? I can't promise that. But this...

which you can watch on YouTube, is one of the most stunning things that you've ever seen on screen. Largely because, not just because of Fred Astaire, because Ginger Rogers is wearing this dress that is heavily, heavily beaded. So it like twirls around her in this really dramatic fashion every time she spins. In the take that made it into the final film, she spins about halfway through

The number she spins with her arms up and her sleeves. You can't really see it. They whacked Fred Astaire in the face. He got slightly concussed, danced the rest of the number.

danced it through anyway they finished and they're like well and he's like i feel like i got concussed let's take a breather let's try it again they did a bunch of other takes they watched it back the best take was the one where he was concussed so that's the one that made it into the final cut so if you watch on youtube it's beautiful watch for about halfway through when fred astaire gets hit in the face with a really heavy beaded sleeve and then the last thing i want to say about this and then we can move on fred astaire quarter for sure um

is uh knowing that her sleeve was enough to slightly concuss him i would like you to watch like the bottom of her skirt constantly whipping around her calves and i have to imagine that that she went home with like incredibly bruised calves anyway but it's art and it's beautiful

Let's face the music. This is like, not that I needed more convincing to just wear crew neck sweatshirts and pants with elastic waistbands. But if I did, I'd have it. We appreciate you not concussing us with your fits. We so appreciate that. What do you think of the pitch that Young Oz makes here? Which starts with like, no one else believes in you like me. No one else is going to give you what you deserve. What did you think of this whole moment? So, I think...

I don't know if this was the intention, but for me, I think just because we've heard things like this from Oz so routinely, I almost, like, didn't watch this as an Oz scene or an Oz moment. I just watched it through Frances's eyes and the decision that she was making. And we have Rex looming. Okay.

looming like the specter of non-paternal sad death. And, you know, Oz's excitement, that hit me that Oz is like, oh my God, Rex is here. Yeah, he's going to take you home. But in terms of actually the thing he was saying, I guess the one thing from Oz's perspective, which is that end note of if you don't believe me, well, you don't gotta because I'm going to prove it to you every damn day. Just don't give up on me. That feels so...

connected to everything that we've heard from him. The...

The doubt and the way that he responds to doubt anytime he's in the face of it, whether it's like an outright rejection, which will just lead to him shooting you in the chest in real time. We know that. Or a softer lack of belief in him and the thing that he stands for. We know that that is like the great insult, the thing he can't abide. And so, of course, it would be unthinkable to him that his mother could feel that way about him and he needs to ensure that that's not the case. But the thing that was most on my mind was just like,

the decision that Frances makes to not follow through on the arrangement that she and Rex have struck, what that tells her, what that tells us about her in that moment and then what it tells us about her every moment onward. Yeah. Because...

How much of it, and I think the answer ultimately is like it's all of these things in the stew, in the brew together, but how much of it is that she's looking at her little son, having lost two of her other children, and of course she knows because of a flashlight that he is responsible. Would not hold up in court. Let's just say...

The flashlight evidence is not, we wouldn't convict. No jury would convict. The flashlight probably not holding up in court. I agree. However, I wonder if she would be able to offer some compelling supporting evidence of like, well, and every third word out of his mouth is, I don't need Jack. I don't need Jack. I can do it on my own. But how much of it is the guilt, right? I can't actually do this to my child.

How much of it is I am sickened by this person and what he is capable of? We hear her say, I thought the most, maybe single most haunting thing in the episode was like when she said, like, I'm sick that I'm your mother. Well, we'll get to that, right? It makes me sick that I'm your mother. I mean, holy fuck. But how much of it is that despite the way that she feels about him and the fact that we will see quite clearly later that she never stopped feeling that way about him,

She wants what he's offering. Yeah. She does, you know? And she is opting in, not only, it's not a passive choice. She's not just like, oh, I can't say goodbye to him. She's saying, I will raise him. I will nurture him. This is why the like, talking about bullying thing, while hilarious, like,

was actually, I thought, quite interesting the way that Sophia really tried to lower the hammer with specifically the point about what does it mean that the mama bird went back and just kept raising that other bird? What does that tell us about survival instincts and the way you rationalize things to yourself? I thought that was just so interesting. And it goes back to as much as Sophia is able to offer people like Eve and Francis some gentleness and empathy, it goes back to what she said in the previous episode of Francis, which is like,

okay, he was born, you know, disadvantaged, you know, has this physical impediment, all this sort of stuff like that, but that doesn't make a monster. So what did you do, Francis? How were you involved in this particular brew? I think this idea that no one else believes in you, like me, intro as like a tactic to your point that we've seen Oz use on everyone that he's met.

The fact that he learned this so young, how effective this is, right? And it also reminds me of her willingness to make this deal with the devil.

The role, the corollary you have in mob movies, this is like the married to the mob moment, right? This is the sort of like, I understand who you are and what you're capable of, but can that capability to Rex's speech, to the tune of Rex's speech, protect me, advantage me, elevate me, right?

spoiler alert for every mob movie and TV show ever. Usually it doesn't work out, but you know, maybe this time. Okay. Beloved Victor tries to give a big speech, right? He shows up way too late with the arm, the promised army still bleeding heavily. It should be noted from his last encounter with Sophia and her team that

And Victor tries to do the Oz, Sophia rally around me. What the hell do you even stand for? What are you going to let the Maronis and the Gigantes do whatever they fucking want? Tries to do the Gold Summit thing and it does not work out for our guy, Victor. What do you think? I mean, other than watching Victor, because we'll hear the other speech he gives to an audience of one in a minute. But other than contrasting with that or thinking about

Victor is someone with a speech impediment who nonetheless tries to give a big speech. What do you think this moment is trying to tell us about Victor as a character or, you know, the various gang members around him who are listening to this? Shout out Link. Yeah. Link. Okay. Definitely a character that we were tracking before this episode. Let me say this about Link. He received a very nice bottle of Macallan.

scotch and people have made decisions for less they have also great beard game from like yeah big fan wonderful stuff big okay so i had once again like a couple different responses to this i i was thinking about victor and then i was thinking about the people around him and also the people who are not present in the scene at all and for victor for all the reasons you said i found this i mean we'll like you said we'll get to the um the hospital supply room scene which i thought was

exquisite and just is like so fucking devastating now to revisit. A rewatch. A tough rewatch. Really tough.

Pain. Pain. I thought this was, I felt so proud of Victor, even though he is wrapped up in this horror show that we wish he had escaped and now certainly wish he had escaped, wish he had gotten on that bus and just left this all behind. I felt proud of him, the courage that he's showing, the way that he is standing up for, like the way that he said, the pain in his voice when he said like, this is my neighborhood. Yeah.

You know, this isn't just like an area on the map that you guys are going to figure out how to push Bliss into. This is my home. This is where I lost people. This is where I'm trying to rebuild. And like, I thought that he was able to convey that also in terms of his relationship with Oz. Certainly,

we're just feeling that devotion. He has to know that shouting bunch of fucking cowards to the deputies of five mob leads is a risky thing to do, and yet he does it because he believes in fighting to protect Crown Point and he believes in fighting to try to get help to Oz. So it heightened our sense of his...

devotion and commitment on the brink of that meaning absolutely nothing to the person who it is meant for. Devastating. The other thing it showed me, though, and this is like, I concede before I say it, a really cynical thing to say, is that nobody is actually responding to anything authentic or genuine. That might be what everybody's telling themselves, right?

Whether it's Oz making his gold summit pitch or Sofia tossing out the unmarked cash into Johnny Vitti's blood on the table,

They want to believe we have wanted to believe watching it, and the people who are accepting what is being offered want to believe that they are fighting for something purer than just an improvement in circumstance. But they're not, and you really see the naked truth of that here. It doesn't benefit these people to go forward with Victor, at least not in this moment, at least not without being able to

account for some other level of certainty like Link will subsequently do. It's not actually about helping people. And again, like, I think that's that's

apparent, that's obvious, but because the story is propelled so fully by characters who, in a way that we have found riveting, are trying to say, I'm different, and if you side with me, you can be different too. We can do it a different way. You just see the farce of that right here in a way that I found very effective. I'm struggling not to make too much of this moment, this examination of this particular piece of art,

Like struggling not to make it all through the lens of the current political climate in America. Because I know a lot of people listen to this podcast to take a step away from that. But I find it somewhat impossible to a certain degree to watch this podcast.

Meditation on populism that promises to uplift people when really all it's pitching is self-interest. And really, at the end of the day, it's much more about the rich getting richer than the community coming together in common cause and rebuilding.

And I find that, you know, throughout this character study, this psychological study of what makes someone like that, what heightens these kinds of delusions, what feeds that kind of desperation, and the show's empathy for every person, whether you're snookered by this or you're the snookerer. Like, everyone is a human trying something. So I find... And I find...

My personal reaction to the time that we're living in right now is a desire for community, for local close connection. And I was just thinking about the world of, like, what kind of story is this if, like, Victor and Sophia find each other? Or, like, what possibility is there in this world for actual connection? Because even, like, even in the Batman...

You know, Selina and Bruce part ways at the end of the Batman. You've got, like, Bruce and... For now. But, like, Bruce and Gordon are in, like, you know, shaky alliance. But, like, this is year one Batman, so, like, everything is sort of fledgling and not really... We don't have...

you know, a community, uh, rallying around him. He's got Alfred, he's got, but all those things feel shaky and newfound and stuff like that. And Gotham itself is just unable or unwilling to come together. Yeah. Um,

Yeah. When Link says, watch what you say, you got to know your place. You're going to catch a bullet. Then you really don't matter. On a rewatch, the thing that came, like I just flashed to his ID sinking into the water and who's, who's going to mourn him. Graciela is gone. His family is gone. No one else really knew or cared about him. Francis is in a vegetative state. Like,

No one's going to ask, where's Victor? And that's so sad. You really don't matter. It's tragic. Okay. Time for a family therapy sesh with Dr. Julian Rush. Again, my favorite character in yours. Well... Well... It's just a test. This is just like of my lingering love for Theo Rossi in Sons of Anarchy. Shout out to the juice heads. Okay, so...

First and foremost, before we say anything else, we must press pause and talk about what Sophia is wearing in this scene. Please. Yeah.

her fits throughout have been amazing, right? This is a black sort of spaghetti strap, little black dress number with the red scarf tucked into the bodice and Louboutin. So like the red bottoms on her, on her black sort of high heels, stacked heels. Incredible with the power mullet in full effect. Incredible look. A couple of things come to mind. Not only is it just like an objectively wonderful look on a absolutely beautiful woman, but like,

The hangman imagery of the scarf, the noose imagery there is amazing. And then also, can you just see it drawn in comic book form? Like it looks like a drawing without looking too cartoonish for this world. And I just find that an incredible achievement. Anything you want to say? Absolutely. About this particular fit? I agree it was...

A sight to behold, as like you said, all of Sophia's fits have been fit lord truly. I like, too, to the point about the hangman imagery. You know, we've tracked across the season the way that she has embraced revealing her scars and like, you know, revealing more of her neck, revealing her shoulder and her arm, etc. And I thought this was like a...

compelling progression even further still of taking something that would once have been a cover, right? I'm hiding the scratch marks and the scars on my neck and just not removing it completely, but saying, I'm going to like make this my symbol. I'm going to wear like armor. I'm going to make it a sign of my strength. Fantastic stuff. Not her, not her last piece.

Yeah.

So, you know, I don't know exactly what to make of it, but it looks amazing and powerful and incredible. And it's too bad that they duct taped Oz to a wooden chair. I would just say this. Goons of Gotham. No wooden chairs ever. Okay? That's just my blanket. The surprise is not that he ends up breaking free. It's just simply that it took him that long. Like, obviously he's going to turn that into kindling and stab somebody with a sharp wooden thing.

I was going to say, you only need those wooden chairs in a vampire story because the stakes have to come from somewhere and they come from broken chair legs. But other than that, goons of Gotham are...

I'm going to need you to work with metal chairs. I'm going to need the hands to be bound more effectively than some mere duct tape. This is just not... And what quality is the wooden chair even in? This is an old dance club. The wood has been aging. Perhaps termite riddled. Flood damage. The entire Monroe establishment has been decimated by the Riddler's attack. I don't think the structural integrity...

even by the standards of a wooden chair, could have been particularly high. This was always going to turn into kindling. So I have some notes, certainly. I did love that. The after episode video on HBO on Max after this episode, um,

where you have Lauren talking about things. You've got some of the actors talking about things. You've got Matt Reeves talking about things. And then you have a production designer talking about the Monroe club. And I love that. Like we want it to look decimated by the Riddler's bombs. And she's also like, we want it to look like there's a lot of floral imagery because Gotham is a jungle. I was like, that's fascinating. Um, but the idea that like we are playing out this scene as we have throughout the whole season, but playing out the scene in the ruins of, um,

of Gotham and the ruins of the Riddlers. Uh, you know, I was about to say antics. That seems a little gentle for what they're all solid. Slightly mild terrorist attack. Let's say, uh,

again, just makes it all feel like a cohesive universe in a way that is really satisfying. Totally. And the perfect setting in the macro and the micro, once again, because you have the significance of this place and this memory for both of them. But as we now know in such different respects, for Oz, this was the turning of the corner. This is where, you know, we heard him at Al's funeral. He told Sophia, this is like when he started to understand what the power of music could be. This represented to him the beginning of a new life. And for Francis, this is...

like selling her soul and making a compromise that she would never ultimately recover from making, even though she continued to make it every day, which I do not think we should forget.

All right, we already actually kind of talked a lot about this. Is there anything you want to hit that we haven't gotten to? One thing. Yeah. I thought that when we go through the list, as we have already today, of the atrocities that Oswald Cobb has committed and inflicted specifically on people he would claim to love, top of my list is him saying, Ma, you're getting things confused. It's your disease talking. Oh, no! No!

trying to convince his mother that the thing, like, I just found this so haunting. And specifically, like, not even, like, gaslighting specifically with the thing that she fears the most, that this is her undoing, that this is, you know, we've heard, we heard Sophia describe Arkham in episode four, if I'm remembering correctly, as like the

the unraveling, right? The undoing. And like, this is for Frances, her version of that. This is what the disease has made her feel like. It's like unraveling her sense of self and who she is. And she weaponized that to avoid having to admit to the thing that she already knows. I just thought that was like sick and horrible. There are a lot of things that he does that are not, irredeemable, make him irredeemable. But that was like so foul. I almost couldn't believe.

And I thought, again, that was to the show's credit, the fact that they keep finding ways to surprise us with the depths of his depravity. The thing about Oz is he's that classic compulsive liar sort of personality where he's just constantly...

running from like alley to alley to alley of logic of like, how do I get out of, you know, this corner that I've been pinned into? And it's just sort of like without any sort of hesitancy or remorse, he's just sort of like barreling his way through this without even emotionally, you know, he, we don't even see him make the decision to do this despicable thing that he does. It's just part of him frantically digging himself out. So yeah, I think that, I think that's a really good call out. Um,

avoiding poisonal responsibility at every turn okay i really appreciated them giving us that little laugh in the middle of this absolutely grim sequence it made me like so hard which is like what you don't like my story you're right it wasn't a good story uh it's very good okay um

R.I.P. Marcus Wise, a corrupt cop that we didn't really care about, but I did think the visual of him putting the drop in his eye and then having that eye blown out in a way that the blood spatters the camera was just exquisite. Tough to be a drophead without a head. So good luck to you, the corpse of Marcus Wise. Oh man, poetry. You're the best. Okay. Oz and Sophia, look for allies is what we're headed to next.

And this is where Vic, very concerned, shows up at the hospital. Oz has taken Frances in. He has absconded to a supply closet and is busy stapling his own abdomen shut. Tough. You think he watched The Knick? Tough.

He's a big, he's a Clive Owen completist. He doesn't miss a single thing that Clive does. Okay. This is where we hear Victor give a bolstering speech to Oz and it is absolutely devastating on Rewash. I'm honestly not sure I can like bear to hear this. Let's do it anyway. God damn it, Oz. Listen to me. You gave people jobs in Crown Point. You got the power back on. Yeah. Nobody did that.

All right? Nobody else did that. Nobody even tried. You gave people dignity. Bliss. That's bigger than bliss. All right? So get the hell up. Let's go. Get your shit together. And, you know, be you. You practiced that, huh? He did it with barely a stutter, which is...

also devastating. The fact that he is trying to buoy Oz with the language that Oz has used to describe his hero Rex, who was ready to kill him as a child. Uh, but like, you know, he's talking about Rex is this sort of like hero of the community. And, and again, this is the language also Oz will steal language from the speech when he's talking to councilman Hattie later. Uh, so like it's, uh,

And that's a sinister thing to do, obviously. Incredibly sinister. It's incredibly devastating to watch Victor just really believe in Oz and really emotionally just invest everything he has in rousing Oz out of this it doesn't matter sort of stupor. It is...

tough. Vic mentions Link. Link, a character we definitely have been thinking about all season. Specifically, someone who's loyal to Oz. I will just say this.

Yeah. Skipping ahead. Actually, the link stuff plays really well for me in this episode. I'm teasing a little bit. I probably would have link, have link like deeper in my mind if we had been covering this week to week, but we didn't, we covered it in too many binges. So perhaps I would have been tracking him more this season, but like I, I fell for the link thing. Right. Vic is like, link is loyal to you. And then link calls them and is like, we got to do something. And I was like, link's about to fuck you over. Yeah.

And then he didn't. Link came through. So they got me on that one for sure. Yeah, go ahead. I found this so gut-wrenching. Like, even in just in real time, the first time, it's so moving and impactful. But obviously now with, like, the clarity of what awaits. Like you're saying, the fact that it's so apparent here and that Vic believes in Oz. And it made me think back to one of our favorite moments of the season, which was in episode three, where...

at the club in the bathroom when Oz puts his gun to Vic's head and says, like, this is what it feels like being with me. And for some, like, now we have the clarity that for his own mother,

That's true. Yeah. That actually is what it feels like for her to be with him. That's just like a flashlight instead of a gun. Bright yellow flashlight that can only mean one thing. And for Vic, that's no longer the case. And obviously we'll hear him on that bench later say, like, you're family to me. And it's that he has embraced Oz. I thought the specific word choice of be you was...

Could not hit harder because, like, that ultimately is what we're going to watch. We're going to watch Oz be himself in full unapologetically, and it's horrible. And then, like, the dignity idea, for that to be the heart of the pep talk and the thing that leads Oz to get up and go try again, when ultimately the thing he's doing, again, this is, like, now a theme of the conversation, is,

is robbing everybody of their dignity. He doesn't just take Victor's life. He leaves him as like a nameless corpse, like you said, right? He takes the fucking cash out of his wallet. What a perfect little detail to show us how despicable he is. He leaves his mother...

to waste away in that bed the things she begged him not to allow to happen. He could actually just have killed Sophia. He definitely could have done that. But he wants to ensure that she suffers, that she knows not just...

pain and despair, but shame. It's the opposite of dignity. Everything that he is dishing out. And so for him to be propped up on the idea that he is providing to people, the very thing that he is robbing them of, even I think back again to like the idea of being like the new Rex and you got power back in Crown Point and you give people jobs. Like I think back to now that scene where he was just like flood every borough, just put bliss out in the streets. He doesn't actually give a shit about what he's doing to people. He just cares about what it means for him.

Yep. That is true. Um, Oz says, uh, about Francis, uh, she'll never, she'll never look at me again. All right. Unless I get this done. Got a promise to keep. I don't, I hate to like spoil conversations. Lauren says something about Oz and his idea of love is transactional. That really unlocked a lot of stuff for me. Uh, so I'll let her talk about it, but I think that's just like a really, uh,

Key thing to think about as we watch everything that Oz does, he can't, he has to trade something for love. When he says, got a promise to keep, do you think he's quoting Robert Frost? And do you think that's something that Colin Farrell put in because he loves poetry? Yeah.

Love's poetry. Do you think someone sent him that poem or did he then send it to someone else? Maybe both? Always paying the poems forward? Maybe this is very American-centric, but I feel like we all learned that poem in school, but maybe not. Maybe in Ireland they didn't. Okay, maybe they're sending Oscar Wilde and Stool instead. Okay, so we're over to Sophia. Sophia is doing yet another pitch to yet another table full of people, trying to win them to her cause. But this time, and I really need to emphasize this, she has decided to do it

while drinking a deconstructed martini. And this is one of the wildest, coolest things I've seen someone do. I don't know if this is a thing. I don't think so. I don't think bringing the bottle of Hendrix and the jar of olives to the table and just sort of like tossing it back and munching on them is a usual thing. As someone who hates gin, actually, I love a martini and I kind of

It's tough for me because the vodka has to be like ice cold so that I can't taste it. And then you have to dump like half the jar of olive juice in there. And then I'm like. You want a briny. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah. You love it dirty. Can I tell you something? I've never had a martini.

You love an olive and you've never had a martini? Yeah, every time I see somebody, including Sophia in The Penguin and prior scenes, like more olives and the stick of olives at the lunch and everything. Yeah. I always think I would probably love a martini because I fucking love an olive. Love. Never had one. Let's get martinis. Let's do it. We got tattoos. Next up, martinis. Same level of commitment.

Basically, this is the one last job moment in this episode, right? Sophia's leaving. You can have the house, which I'm going to burn down, but you don't know that. You have the house. You can have all of the holdings. You can have the whole kingdom. I'm leaving Gotham.

one last thing I gotta do, which is you gotta bring me the penguin. It's fine. It's gonna be fine. Yeah, that's what I knew. Everything was gonna go to shit. So, really tough. Oh, man. This was sad. I just, even thinking back to like, you know, just as recently as last episode when she returned from,

to Julian and said, like, you put me in an institution. The second I got out, I walked right into another one. She's right. Francis is right. I thought I was doing something different. I thought I was different, but I'm still playing my father's game. I'm abiding by his rules. And then he asked her later, like, what do you want? I want to be free. I want to be free. Then she says, I want us to feel pain. So the fact that there were multiple desires there has a lot of bearing on what unfolds. But

It's like she took something like the threat that Johnny and Luca kept issuing earlier in the season. A plane ticket. Here's your ticket. You get on this flight, you leave. You say goodbye to whatever promise you think your father made you. We know he actually did. You say goodbye to your inheritance, to the thing that you think is yours, and you go. And she, of course, because of the way it was positioned, which was as an active death threat, resented it.

for her to have moved to the point of embrace, like, I could start over. This doesn't have to be my life. I don't have to walk around surrounded by ghosts who bring me nothing but misery and regret. Very, very sad. And for her not only to fail to get that, to have it ripped away from her, but then to be entombed and trapped in the one place that more than any other represents, like, that feeling of the absence of escape was just, like...

Absolutely devastating. Yes. Very, very flightless boy to her. No, like it's, it's thinking about Victor at the bus stop as well and how he almost got out. Thinking about Gia and her talking to Gia about like the fact that you can like have a different life and you don't have to have this life and how she felt walking out of that room.

And all the guilt she felt about sort of what she had done to Gia and the way that she was perpetuating a cycle. But also there's a part of like, can I have that too? Can I have a life outside of the cycle of being a gigante or a balcony or whatever? So, yeah. Also, I just need to shout out. Everyone's wearing gray around her and she's in another incredible plaid dress. Absolutely stunning. Yeah.

I don't know why this hit me so hard. There's something about the way that Colin Farrell plays the vulnerability in this scene. But when Oz, who is wiping, actively wiping the blood off of his hands, has put on a gray button down and puts the coat over it and asks Vic how he looks. And Vic says,

Is a little bit lying, but like also very encouraging is like, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No blood. That's good. Right. You know, and he's like, yeah, well, you know, look in the parts only half the thing, you know, you know, but there's just something about the way he's like smoothing his hair back and just like the massive insecurity rolling off of him into the walking into the lion's den sort of thing that I just found heartbreaking and

The first time and then intolerable the second time. Because Vic is just offering him, bolstering him through this. It's just...

Yeah, there's this just generosity from Vic and all odds does Everest take. And like, you know, of course we build toward at the end, walking up to the penthouse in the, you know, comics, accurate, iconic talks, and also the nod then to the top hat and watching that as a, as a kid with, with Ma, but the pride with which like he greeted his own reflection and, and, you know, dusted himself off and looked at himself in the mirror. And yeah,

The thing about Oz that we understand, of course, after watching this, is that's the mask. And what we see here for just a second is true, which is like, I don't have confidence. I am insecure. I am going to be vulnerable. And the fact that he allowed himself to be that way with Victor was why we were so taken with the relationship. It's why, like, it's one of the two highlights of the show along with Sophia. And then that's the thing that he can't... Yeah. Keep Victor around. He can't allow. Yeah. Um...

We get the Link stuff. We're in with Councilman Hattie and all the other stuff we've talked about with Councilman Hattie. The thing that really made me ill is when he's giving his pitch about we can make this into a gang war between the Moronis and the Falcons. It's all set up perfectly to pin it all on them and to...

Nothing lands on me and your profile gets to rise. And then he says, quote, and this looks like an unhinged, angry broad got out of a loony bin and went on a fucking killing spree. And I just lost my mind at how upset that made me. Terrible. Yeah. Terrible. Yeah. Because again, he knows that's not true. It was a lie that he helped to perpetuate and, and,

He is weaponizing the great shame and insecurity of someone else's life for his own gain. And also just this like general, like hysterical woman thing. Yeah, of course. Like really on top of all the other sins. Just like one more. Okay. We get, so Hattie, we should say is sort of like comic book context. That character of Hattie in the comics has been a very corrupt mayor of Gotham.

So too has Oz Cobb. Just putting that out there. So what Hattie says, sort of wrapping up this scene, I'm curious if this is like an attempted pitch towards Penguin season two, even though that was not guaranteed when they made this season, or have something to do with Batman part two. Because Hattie says, quote, you're going to have some trouble, Oz. Raelle, she's forming a commission, anti-corruption, they're going after cops, city officials. Good. So.

says Oz. And they have a list of Carmine's associates. They're going to subpoena you. And basically you have to look clean as a whistle, clean ass, right? Um,

This is what Matt Reeves said in an interview this week, one of the postmortems that he gave after the Penguin finale. He said, we're leaving Oz and Gotham in a state where the city is still trying to heal itself from what happened. It's also a time, as you see with what goes on with Vic and Crown Point, where the city is deeply wounded. As we're entering the movie, all of that stuff is still broiling. The repercussions of what happened as a result of the last movie and what's happening, what's happened during this gang war are very much the table setter for the way we enter into the Batman part two.

And as you consider all of this, just enjoy this one last little morsel from Colin Farrell interview to THR where he says about Oz's story says, so how is that taken up in the second film? This is a Colin Farrell quote. I was told I have five or six scenes. I don't have any hopes or expectations.

5 and 6 scenes actually can add up to a lot. It's a lot. In a movie. Yeah. Though these movies tend to be very, very long. That's true. The Batman is like three and a half hours. It's about the length of a typical House of R podcast. But yeah, I'm curious if Oz is going to feel again like, I don't know, almost a tertiary character or even lower down the pole. We don't know in the Batman part two. That's all just something to think about.

As he walks out, he looks up at Bella and her cohort up the stairs in the city hall steps. And it was giving me Aaron Burr and Hamilton, the room where it happens, sort of, I want to be in the room where these decisions gets made. I have just about conquered the underworld, the criminal underworld of Gotham. Next step,

City Hall is sort of the vibe I was getting off of that moment. Do you have anything? Yeah. You want to add anything different there? No, I'm proud to tell you that's a musical reference I understood.

I love this about you. Um, Bella has a sling on her arm and Lauren said something in our interview about the truncated timeline they were working on between like the time between the two movies. And, uh, you know, so Bella injures her arm at the end of the Batman and she still has a sling on it in this episode. So like how much time do you think has passed?

Because there's certain montages, like Oz's time to build up the whole Bliss Empire before it is collapsed. I almost thought more time was happening in this show. Or there's time when characters greet each other and say, it's been a minute, even though we saw them together in the last episode, how much time is supposed to have passed. So are we saying just a couple months? Does that sound right to you? I think so. Yeah. I think...

I feel like it can't be too much more. On the one hand, obviously, part of, like, any part of the city crown point that's unattended, that's just baked into the plot. That, like, the lack of attention and care, no matter how long it had gone on, that would be part of the point. So that tracks and makes sense. I'm trying to... I think, ultimately, where I land with the Batman part of it is...

respect and admiration for, and this is something that you talk to Lauren about a lot, like respect and admiration for the show's confidence in making a story without Batman. But I would be lying if I said I did not keep thinking to myself throughout, like, where's Batman? Like, shouldn't Batman be checking in on this? It feels like this has really gotten to the point where Batman should become involved. And so for me, the closer this is actually to the

end of the prior movie, the better in terms of helping to explain that. Because I think he would be... Recuperating. Going through a lot and navigating a lot. If this is like a year and a half later, I'm like, where the fuck is Bruce? Yeah, no. He and Alfred are doing PT together, basically. Like, getting back on their feet. What do you want to say about what Sophia is wearing and what she's doing as she decides to burn down her family home? Um...

You know, listen, we recently covered another show that we loved, Agatha, all along, where a character I won't name to avoid spoiling something in case anybody listening to this has not seen that show, discusses in a way that absolutely delighted us property value and the impact of traumatic events on property value. Wow. And I will just say, I don't know if... The legend continues. Amazing. Always. For, you know, for Sophia and the cathartic nature of...

cleansing in this way, you know, burning down the, this, this

monument to Carmine's greed and putting his own achievements and ambition over his own family definitely makes sense to me that she would do this thing and that it would feel fucking great for her to do it. And then there was the, if I'm being, if I'm being frank with you and the bad babies, there was a part of me that was like, Ooh, Ooh, just what if we sold it? And, or at least like some of the stuff, the paintings, what if we, some of the objects, we have a new life to build in Europe. What if we burned it?

All of the clothes on the lawn.

What if we made the pile with the watch that we saw earlier this season and the painting? What if we piled that up on the lawn and lit that on fire? There has to be something in that manse that wasn't tainted by the memory of Carmine that we could have used to help build our future. The atrium looks quite nice. And I bet Carmine had nothing to do with the plants flourishing in the atrium. So, okay. Last needle drop, I think, that I have to mention here. Oh, no, no. Second to last, obviously, because we've got

opera later but um the sleigh bells cover of where did you sleep last night plays here this is a i wrote this in the notes so mali already knows this but this is so this is based on an old folk tune called in the pines which i actually sang in my like middle school um

different lyrics, very different lyrics. But it was most famous in the pies is most famously covered as where did you sleep last night by Nirvana and the MTV unplugged concert. That is like perhaps one of the most famous versions of it, or definitely the most famous version of it. And the decision that Kurt Cobain in that recording makes to scream the

At the end of that song, like screaming the last verse or two really takes that song to another level entirely. And hearing the sleigh bells, Alexis Krauss, the singer in the sleigh bells, like scream this just gives us a, like this female rage as Sophia in like scarlet red Marabou feathers torches the family home. Incredible stuff.

Musical corner. I love it. It's a triple cross, Mel. Yes, it is. At Goodwin International Airport. Hangar 5. Hangar 5. Yep. We talked a little bit about this conversation that Sophia and Oz have in the car. Anything you want to say before we get into the car with them and Oz slides back into the driver's seat? I think the only thing about the actual crossing and the Link-Victor-Oz move, obviously, like, the moment Sophia realizes, like, when she sees that Oz is scared

smiling. Yeah. That's, boy, that hit. But I think the, I really just do care so deeply about Victor. And so once again, I kind of watched the scene through a Victor lens a little bit. And like, I was just really struck by his readiness for violence. Yeah.

After everything that we had seen with Squid and, you know, it gets easier, hug and embrace from Oz after, which like we talked about at the time was, you know, made us feel like warm and kind of sick all at once. And you really are, you're in the sickness part of it here. But yeah, take us into the car. Back with the old driver, Oswald Copp.

Omiya Bambino Ocaro plays and I'm not going to go into that song. You can look it up on here and that's fine. It's a tremendous piece of opera, but let's listen to Oz and Sophia and mostly Oz talk in the car. You got no idea what it feels like born into nothing. You're going to smile at the person who's boots on your neck. I hope one day you'll look down, see you there and just let up. You know what people will do to push that down? They'll do fucking anything.

anything to push down that feeling you think i don't understand that um way can really hear the gurgling i almost throat slitting i was with the whole exchange because it's all so good and it was a lot of smash and gurgle uh in the background as all the uh heads of the gangs get uh offed in the background the very uh breaking bad uh godfather moment here um

to your point about the way that Sophia figures it out very quickly at the airport. Yeah. Then she's just kind of at peace and resigned because she thinks she knows she's going to her death and she's like, okay, I lost. I'm going to die. She does not know that she's going to Arkham. And if she were new, she were going to Arkham her. I, I feel very confident that her reaction would be like frantic and all these other things, but she's just sort of like, okay, death. All right. Okay. I'm ready. Yeah.

And that's, to your earlier point, in terms of dignity, that's the cruelty of what Oz does here. It's not just a personal vindictive thing, though, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, he has plenty of reasons to feel vindictive towards her, but he needs that narrative, I think, for the larger...

It's both. But it's not just. Because he needs, like, locking her back up in Arkham helps sell the whole story that Councilman Hattie has agreed to here. So it's all part of that. Yeah, which is interesting, too, in terms of how we think of Oz as a bullshitter and an improviser. And so this, like, a plan with layers and steps was kind of a notable thing at the end. Yeah.

to that point about Sophia, even just in the car before we get to the, God, the horror of what unfolds, um,

I loved like little details, the way she rolled her eyes as he was speaking. There's just such a quiet resignation from her. This is the bullshit that I've had to like observe or listen to her face directly throughout my entire life. And of course, here it is again at the end. And at least I don't have to deal with this anymore. Or pretend I care, you know, sort of thing. Yeah. And like the way that

the great trick of the episode I thought took place in this scene because when she, you know, he marches her out and we're like, okay, this is where he took Victor and like, we're going to look out at that bridge and are we going to get a let's watch the sun rise moment and we know that he then decided not to kill Victor so I'm like, okay, then what we're going to see here is the death that we were supposed to get at the premiere, right? That's like, everything is priming you for that outcome and Victor

The fact that Sophia says to Oz...

you were right. I didn't see you. But she did. She knew from the very beginning you've always been a monster. And then, you know, he builds to saying, like, you're going to hell. And she says, I'll save you a seat. She turns around. She takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes. She's looking out. The music is swelling. And I feel in that moment certain of two things, that Oz is about to pull the trigger and kill her and that she won, that she beat him.

Like, she said to him the thing at the end that he can't stand to hear and he will never, in real time in my head, assuming that he's going to kill her, he will never then get the chance to one-up her again. Like, it really felt like she won at the end, even though she had lost the ability to be free and go and start this new life, or certainly that he had lost. Maybe that's a better and more accurate way to put it. And then, like, the rush of light

into the scene and the sound of the choppers and the sirens and the look of abject horror on her face when she realizes what's happening. And whether she's going to prison or Arkham or wherever, you know that she is going back to confinement and a cell and a place where every day people are going to tell her that she's something that she knows she isn't. And whether she will ever have a chance again to try to...

prove that that's not true. Yeah. And that's why, like, the moment where she's reading Selena's letter was, like, such a little gift because both for her and for us, it's just this note of hope. I literally thanked Lauren for, like, thank you for that moment. It's just almost too, it's almost too sad otherwise. Like, truly almost too sad.

So this episode was like a step ahead of me on a lot of different turns. This is the one turn where they did a thing. There's like just a few, not like pet peeves, but just sort of like a thing I always notice. And this one, it was...

the camera staying on her while she was monologuing and not showing us Oz reactions. And I'm like, Oh, he's not there anymore. That's what always happens. If they're monologuing too long and you don't see the other person, they're gone or they're asleep. That's my least favorite one is someone's confessing something. And the person they're talking to is asleep. And I'm like, they're already asleep. I can tell because the camera's not showing them to me. Anyway, I only had like a mere split second to process before the chopper showed up, but I was just like, Oh no, um, terrible, terrible stuff.

Oz goes to the hospital. You know, this is absolutely, again, devastating, right? Because as I mean, I come out of this episode hating Oz for a million different reasons. And yet, Ma, you can't do this to me. Please, you got to tell me. Just tell me you're proud of me. Ma, tell me you're proud of me. Please, come on. Just once. Colin Farrell, the genius that you are. I felt for Oz in that moment. You'll never get it again.

From Francis, anyway, you know? Yeah. And I was really struck, too, by even just... You know, we've sort of talked about this already, but just his decision to go there at all. Like, what that tells us about him, that he's not running from this huge, massive reveal that she knew he killed his brothers. Like, I think that we have to observe that he...

is in no way relieved, at least in this moment. Maybe it plays a little differently later in the penthouse, but here there's no like, oh, thank God. At least now I don't have to hear her say what I did again or hear her say that she's sick, that she's my mother or yell at me or reveal to other people what I did. He's just purely like,

purely panicked and despondent to see her in this state. So that felt like important as we just consider the totality of Oscob. And then like, you know, obviously again, this is what Frances feared that she would end up in this state. We heard her say this to him after the, in the bathtub scene in episode six, like knowing just enough to make it work. If I lose my dignity, there's that idea again, like what else, what else do I have? What else I got? Like,

But then, like, the way that as he was crying and saying, be proud of me, and, like, took her hand and put it on the back of his head because he, like, needed that kind of, like, pat from somebody who he thinks loves him. But then that next stroke of, like,

Victor actually does come over and place his hand on his back. And he could have that. He's looking for that touch to say, like, I love you and I'm proud of you and I will be here no matter what. And he actually does have that in that moment. And he's about to reject it in full. And that's just so upsetting. This is the alliance building that falls apart that always devastates me in stories like this. Similarly, when Oz and Sophia are working together earlier this season and then

He gets in the car with Victor and is just like, just leave her. I'm like, it's right here. You can have this. Tell me I did good. I did it for you, ma. I've already mentioned this, but that is like a real Walter White trigger for me. I did it for you, ma. Your son, I'm the fucking king. It's what you wanted, ma. It's what you wanted, ma. Please, just once, just once. Um...

I thought about, I mean, I think this is sort of obviously triggers, I think, Jimmy Cagney in one of the most famous gangster movies, White Heat, where he's like, I did it, Ma, top of the world, right before he blows up. But yeah, this like, I did it, Ma, top of the world. I'm the fucking king, Ma. I'm the fucking king. I did it. His world blows up, not literally, but just sort of like in its own way because he's never going to get this from Francis. And then he's just about to do...

terrible, awful, horrible thing with Victor. I want to, I want to, you know, hear everything you want to say about this. We've already talked about this scene quite a bit throughout this discussion, but I do want to just do one last sort of check in on Poetry Corner with Ballad of Reading Jail, because this, this is like the key. This is why Colin Farrell sends

this poem to Lauren LaFranca and why she names this episode after a line from the poem. "'Yet each man kills the thing he loves, by each let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword. Some strangle with the hands of lust, some with the hands of gold. The kindest use a knife, because the dead so soon grow cold.'"

So this idea that like what Oz does here before he kills Victor, he buoys him up. He's like, I couldn't have done it without you. You did good. You know, you're, you saw what we needed with link. Everyone's favorite character in the show. Like you really understood what was happening. You're the best, but I can't take you with me. Right. Um,

The coward does it with a kiss, right? Like this is the coward's way of doing this. Like, it's not quite evading he who passes the sentence must sing the sword. Like he is doing it himself at least. But like to wrap it in this sense of family, this emotionality is all the more despicable. Right.

here for poor Victor. Terrible. Nice Thrones call because Hands of Gold made me think of Thrones. Yeah, Hands of Gold also made me think of Thrones. Oh man, what a poem. Sheesh. It's very long. That's the best part of it. It's very long. Love a long poem. Okay, great.

You don't love a long poem? Love a long poem. It depends on the poem. What if Colin Farrell sent it to you? I would read every word. I would open it the way that, you know, that Sophia opens Selena's letter. And I would just like trace the words and just really absorb the whole thing. Oh, man. You think she forgives me. You think she forgives me. For what?

I don't know, all kinds of things. I found that like more simultaneously human and chilling than I can even properly express. On the brink of what Oz is about to do to Vic, he's seeking absolution.

I just thought that was so... Again, nothing that happens here is relatable, I would hope. But that part of it is like, you know you're about to do something terrible and you want to be forgiven, both for the thing that you've already done that led you here and for the thing that you're about to do. And the absolute...

Cruelty and greed of asking the person he's about to do it to to offer that to him was just so foul to me. Emotional disassociation. Just like lack of humanity ensconced in the delusion that this is not a horrific thing to do, what he's about to do. Yes. Yeah. And I thought like the... You know, on that front, it's interesting because I...

This is a rich episode for tracking that in Oz. Like, when is he disassociating and when can we see actually the...

real awareness of what he is thinking and considering. And, like, we move through all of that just in the span of this one conversation on this bench. And, you know, when he says, like, what kind of men they'd be if they had the chance, what they'd think of me now about his brothers, it's, like, very emblematic of what you're describing. That's ill, honestly. Oh, my God. Yeah. But then...

When Victor responds to that by saying, you know, his version of that, like, me too, I think about my family, and then saying, you're family to me, you know? Oz is nodding. Like...

not in a way that he looks touched by this at all, just like he's resolved, right, to what he has to do and frankly to the fact that what Victor is voicing is from his perspective just more proof of why. Right? We have allowed this relationship to form that I view as a weakness and a danger and a liability and not something that I can have in my life. What I have waiting for me back at the penthouse that I'm about to go acquire is a mother who...

called me the devil and... A woman I pay. Yeah, exactly. And a woman I pay. And, like, I guess there's a version of that where you could say there's something really honest about that, about the transactional nature of love. And like you said, like, there will be a lot of interesting things to hear in the interview from Lauren about that. But...

There is something pure in what Victor is offering, and also we have to recognize that even that, even the thing that they built very authentically together came from something transactional in the start. What Oz was offering him was a different life than the one he already had, and Victor decided to opt into that. And for it to have led here is such a betrayal of...

the enticement that Oz provided. It's just so sickening and awful. And I thought that like the filming and the way that Victor was, his cries of the, you know, the please, please, as he's barely able to choke out a word anymore. Watching his shoes. With what Oz was saying. Watching his shoes like scrape on the ground. Yeah.

To go back to the transactional nature thing or the honesty of it, it reminds me of this conversation I was trying to have with Bill and Sean when we were covering Succession, where I was just like, there's something about Connor and Willa that just feels so honest. It is transactional, but they are like... You give me the thing that I need from you and we both know what that is. Right. In a way that none of the other siblings, their relationships, I was just like...

I don't find it romantic, but I find it honest. And there's something sort of like stable about that, you know? Yeah. Okay. So Victor dies. And again, as we mentioned, the ID goes in the water. It feels horrible and inevitable at the same time. It is everything that Oz has done throughout. He starts the show impulsively killing Alberto. He spends the whole show betraying every single alliance that he makes and

of course it was going to end this way, even though I guess I thought it was a line that he wouldn't cross. Um, mail call for Sophia Falcom. Dr. Julian Rush has somehow regained employment at Arkham Asylum. I don't know how, uh, he is employed by anyone. Um, listen, Melinda, who wrote it about the MDR. I'm not gonna read this whole email that she sent, but it was like pretty fascinating about the idea that like,

We were kind of trying to put Julian Rush in this scarecrow mold or something like that. But her point is that he's much more Harley Quinn in terms of the trope of the psychiatrist who falls for their charismatic patient. The power imbalance...

especially now that we're back in Arkham is like very complicated to navigate. But this idea of like putting Sophia then in this kind of Joker role is, is interesting to contemplate at the very least. Um, Dr. Julian Rush, your favorite character in mind, um, then describes the Hobbits and dragons inbox when he says she's received quote, rants, poems, marriage proposals, um,

The bad babies. Thank you for all of your emails. Great stuff. I mean, we've already talked about how this is like a little ray of hope and a very bleak ending for Sophia. I just need to tell the world. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it's maybe it's unwise to want something too much. But I just need to tell you that if season two of The Penguin, because the genius of this ending for Sophia is not just that it's like a fate worse than death, a cruel twist of the knife.

It is a clever way in an IP world to put a character on ice and break her out again. So like if she is nowhere to be found in the Batman movie,

we're like, yeah, she's an Arkham. Like, what is she going to do? But then if you break her out in season two, then we can use her again. I mean, I would love for Kristen Milioti to be in the movie, but they don't have to put her in the movie. We know where she is, but she's such a wonderful character, as is Victor, but she's a wonderful character. We could use her again. Absolutely. And I hope we do. And I hope, this is my hope for the Penguin season two. Since season one has been

Such a hit, a hit for HBO, a hit with like comic book fans, like an unapologetic hit. They were doing like last of us numbers for the penguin. It's like incredible. Um, if it's glossy enough, could they get Zoe Kravitz to come do season two? And can we get Selena Kyle and Sophia Dugante, uh, join forces in season two of the penguin?

Talk about a glimmer of hope at the end. I mean, can you imagine? My God, would we survive? I don't know. Okay.

Then we get the end. I mean, we're, guess what? As per usual, running long. We've talked about this ending a lot. Again, it feels inevitable. It is something that was previewed in Eve talking about sort of the way in which Oz likes to see her, the various wigs that we saw in her apartment, the way that Sophia, in our shared favorite Sophia moment from the last chunk of episodes,

um or funniest at least um it underlines that people say yeah we'll say whatever uh it is that oz needs she uses the literal like very close right she says gotham's your sweetheart nothing is staying in your way uh francis in episode one says the city is meant to be your sweetheart right nothing is doing your way now god am right cut to the bad signal i thought that was like

Pretty wonderful. So good. So good. And horrifying. And here we are at the end of all things. This is how Oz continues to tell himself that he's doing this for other people and fulfilling his promise when he has trapped his own mother in the exact circumstance that she wanted to avoid and then is...

cosplaying their interactions one floor below. It's just such a selfish, monstrous thing. Is it disturbing? Are you disturbed by it? Boins! I am. I am disturbed. To see that tear and for him to be like, yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? We did it. The...

I didn't go back to double check, but there's a chandelier that's on like, it's not up, but it's on like scaffolding. And it almost looks like maybe he like pillaged that from the Monroe, like a chandelier from the actual club to sort of make his new balance. I mean, that would make sense because on, you know, I think we both agree that there's something honest about the transactional nature of a relationship, but also like the...

less charitable read, and there are many, of what's happening here is that for Oz, like, he's just filling his life with props, right? Oh, yes. I don't mean to say this is... I do not associate this, put this in the same bucket as Connor and Willa. Of course not. No. Of course not. Our icons, Connor and Willa, have nothing to do with Oz. This is twisted. This is twisted and upsetting. Yeah. This is introduced, this, like...

really deep vein of Oedipus complex that we already knew was there, but Oedipal complex, but it is just on display blinking like the neon sign outside of his new apartment. Yeah. As bright as the bat signal that, I mean, Jimmy, Jimmy boy, Jimmy Gordon, we're a little late. We're a little tardy. Aw.

on our urgency here. Yeah. This is Matt Reeves sort of last word on, on where we leave things, right? Quote, we're kind of flicking you at the end to say the story's not over the idea that Oz and these characters could be on a collision course at some point with Batman. That's of course out there. So we wanted to leave you with a sense of that without overshadowing, shadowing that this is really the completion of the story. And I just feel that way again, just to like reiterate what you said at the beginning, and then we can call it a day here. Um,

The fact that this feels genuinely standalone and part of a larger thing is such a hard thing to pull off. So, kudos to Lauren, kudos to Matt, kudos to everyone involved in this show. Anything else you want to say? Great finale. I wish we'd covered it every week. I look forward to doing so next time if there is, in fact, a season two. And, uh...

I thought this was great. I loved every Sophia outfit. I'm curious to see how many you incorporate into future video pods that everyone can watch on Spotify. I'll wear my Louboutins to every recording, which I definitely own. You may not see them, but just imagine that I'm always wearing Louboutins as we record. Yes, this was a wonderful episode, wonderful television show. And just remember, if you're a goon out there in Gotham...

know what it shares. That's just my blanket recommendation. Let's go now to our interview with showrunner Lauren LaFrocque. I wanted to start with this. So you've mentioned from the start in many interviews that you think of the show as a tragedy. And one of the things that my co-host and I love tracking were the similarities between Oz and Sophia, almost down to some of the lines that they give in speeches are sort of mirrors of each other. And I think that's

And so there's some part of me, and I think it's the same part of me that always just wanted the Roy siblings on succession to hug each other. That wants Oz and Sophia and Victor to form a coalition of the downtrodden of the outsiders. And I'm just curious, how reflective do you think it is of human psychology that they wind up turning on each other instead?

Well, I do always think of Oz and Sophia as two sides of the same coin. And I feel like sometimes when people are so similar...

in certain ways, it's when there's the most friction. Obviously, we're dealing with Oz, who's a narcissist. And for him, I think a lot of the mentality there is if you serve me, then you can do no wrong. I'll make you feel great. You can live in my glow. And if you don't,

Or if you make me feel like a fool or if no longer does this benefit me in some way, then he's quick to turn. And with Sophia, I think she's someone who's struggling so much coming out of Arkham with her own identity and what is going on with her and what she wants now.

Yeah.

here's what happens when you trust someone you you can um instead we're like well you get smacked in the face and crushed uh so yeah but it was it was purposeful I always wanted um psychologically to have them feel similar in some ways and then obviously marketably different um you know in in many other ways too yeah I mean I think so much of what the show says about

the advantages and disadvantages of class and the advantages and disadvantages of gender. And again, once again, I just want everyone to band together. How are you thinking about characters who almost get out? We've got the moment early in the season for Victor when he's at the bus station, he's thinking of it. We've got this moment at Sophia at the airport, you know, where she almost makes it. And then there's Oz who has no thought about getting out. He just wants to go up, right? Higher in the city. And then there's Oz who has no thought about getting out.

And like a sort of nestled in that question. The question I have is when Oz is talking about what happened to his brothers, he says this city took him when he's lying about how his brothers, the city took him. And I was just wondering if you think of Oz as somehow like connect, how connected is he to the concept of Gotham as in general? Like if, when he says that the city took him, is it just a lie or does he think of himself as somehow Gotham in any way?

I mean, I think he's so deeply rooted in Gotham, you know, and he has a lot of strong opinions about how he was raised and where he was raised. You know, it's part of his identity that he's from the east side of Gotham, that he grew up as a poor kid. He obviously uses that to his advantage when it serves him again. But, I mean, I think...

He is a guy of the streets, you know, he does view himself as a man of the people. When Sophia says that to him in the finale, you know, sarcastically, he takes that as a yeah, you know, that's that's right. So I don't know if he is emblematic of Gotham. He's certain, you know, Gotham has always been this twisted place.

complicated place. But also what's important to me in the show is to show that Gotham as a character is more than just this dark place where there's so many villains. That's why I wanted to go home with Victor and show that Crown Point is not a place that

is filled with like criminals. I just think that's such a simplistic way to do it. And, and the fact that we get to do this in television, we have more time. It's so important, I think, to show like a poor community of working class people who are good people and are striving for something and wanting of something and a kid like Victor in that to humanize the city in that regard. And that's the benefit of getting eight hours to tell your story, but to really,

show what a real neighborhood is like and it's complicated you know I don't know if I answered your question about like getting out yeah sort of that idea of getting out I mean as you do I love Matt's Batman film and I love at the end this sort of tension between Selina who's just like

Let's just go. Right. And Bruce is like, we have to stay. And I'm just curious how that tracks against across all characters who feels like they just belong to Gotham and who feels like maybe they could leave if they had another chance, you know? Yeah. Well, like Victor on the rooftop with Graciela in the third episode,

He talks about how Gotham's wild and he doesn't see it as necessarily this terrible place like she does. You know, he sees there's some sort of opportunity there for himself. And, you know, he's 17.

And so that's also important to know, right? Yeah, yeah. How do you view your... Some people at 17 are like, I need to get the hell out of here, wherever they're from. And some people are like, I don't know. This is what I know. And there's a lot of things that I like about it. But what does that mean that I want? And so for Victor, there's just so much going on with...

you know, he's, it's a coming of age story for him in a lot of ways, a dark one, you know, certainly, but that's, I think in doing a lot of research and sort of the mob and just gangs in general and what it's, why people go into crime. A lot of it is, you know, you're searching for something better for yourself or for your life here. And certainly by where we find Victor, the fact that he lost his family, um,

Puts him in a place of like, what do I even know? Who am I and what do I want? And so I think when he sees Graciela at the bus station and he can go with this girl and go to California and it would be a new place and he could kind of start over. And then there's this guy Oz, like the devil on his shoulder. Yeah.

But like he speaks truths and he sees Victor differently than his parents ever did. And here's a guy who's like, your parents followed the rules. We'll look at what happened to them. Like I'm a rule breaker and the world isn't easy and it's not set up as he says for the honest man to succeed. And Victor's like, man, there's some truth in that. I just lost my family and no one seems to care about my family. For Sophia, I think when she's

driving and is nearly close to leaving Gotham, that's after obviously a deep realization for her of like, wait, am I just playing by the same game my father and Oz play? Why do I actually want this? If I had a choice and more freedom, and I do now, why am I still letting myself be locked in a cage and in this different institution that is the mob and still like

you know, Oz and her father know how to play that kind of game. And it's like, why is she choosing even to play it? But for her, you know, Oz is her crutch. And the fact that she really wants him to suffer prevents her from having that level of freedom. And so in that regard, it is quite tragic. And for Oz, it's like,

the idea of leaving Gotham isn't even on the table. He needs to own Gotham. Like this city deserves to be his. And like, this is his narrative he's created for himself. And this is his great desire. I love that. And I think, yeah, early in the episode when Sophia is sort of talking about parceling out her father's kingdom. And then she says, and I was like, Oh no, it's one last job. One last job. Never makes it. Oh,

Yeah, that one last job. I know. It always gets you. But so the ending for Victor, something I loved, I mean, obviously tremendously sad and upsetting. But something I love about it is one of those twists, if you want to call it, one of these turns of plot where

All the clues were there and it still feels like shocking and surprising. We saw, we saw Oz betray every single alliance he made sometimes within the span of a scene throughout the season. We saw him impulsively kill someone in episode one. And yet I, I would never have said that he would do it to Victor before the finale here. And so I'm just curious in terms of like impulsivity, like,

When do you think Oz decided to kill Victor? Was it before they go to the river or is it that utterance of family that sort of flips a switch for him? What do you think? I don't want to be super specific about that because I do think it's purposely left up a little bit for people to kind of get their own minds based on what we know about Oz and what you as an audience know about Oz. But I mean, I think there's a lot going on with Oz in that moment and what he's been through.

And the kind of sort of conclusions he's come to in that, you know, the fact that he loved his mother so deeply and she didn't give him what he wanted. And he can't really allow for that feeling to sit with him. And here's a kid, Victor, who's seen him at his most vulnerable and accepts him and loves him. And the thing is that I've always felt with Oz when I was starting to conceive of him and

his backstory and what he wants is that he views this idea. He's afraid that love is transactional. Like that might be his greatest fear, but he leads his life as if that is true. So, you know, he pays Eve, but there's a level of control he gets from something like that. He's always seeking his mother's acceptance and,

And he never can quite get it, right? So there's this transactional quality. If I can get you these nice things, will you love me? Will you accept me? And here's Victor who...

The truth is, is he doesn't need to pay him. You know, he pays Victor. He does that in the third episode to try to, I think, gain more control and make sure this kid's on board. That's how Oz sees it. But Victor believes, he just believes in Oz. Yeah. And sees something good in Oz. And for a character like Oz to be seen that way, I think it brings up a lot of feelings that might be uncomfortable for him.

And also, he wants power. And I think the fact that his mother was nearly taken from him by the hands of Sophia and used against him and that Oz potentially almost lost everything because he was vulnerable enough to love somebody, that's a weakness to him.

And that doesn't, you know, it's that's a twisted, distorted view of humanity and power and all of those things. But I do think that's very reflective of Oz. So I think there's a lot going on in that moment when he chooses to take Victor's life.

I love that concept of, you know, you kill the things you love. And you had mentioned in the sort of inside episode that aired after the finale on Sunday that Colin Farrell had sent you the Oscar Wilde poem, The Ballad of Reading Jail. And I was curious. That's such a fascinating thing to think about. And I was curious about

How often was Colin Farrell sending you poetry? No, like how often was he involved in the shaping of this season or did he send that to you because he's like, oh, it just reminded me of this? Or how much was this a dialogue between you and Colin as you shape the penguin in this show? Yeah.

I mean, my relationship with Colin is so collaborative. You know, it does feel very special in that way. He's such a soulful actor and he really digs into characters and certainly into Oz in such a deep, deep way. Right. There's this natural curiosity. And I find that with all of our cast, which is so great. You don't always get that. They're all so curious and want to just have conversations and dialogue and like

throw out ideas and like want to make sure that the scene is they understand it more deeply and so that was a lot of colin and my dynamic as we were shooting you know um i mean he felt like things were very clear but then it would be like you know you're sharing inspirations or this scene makes you think of something else you know whether that's just like a personal thing or like

I mean, I think Colin really does love poetry. And he and I bonded early on on Oscar Wilde. You know, we're all in the gutter. Some of us are looking at the stars. You know, that quote, which I had like on my wall in high school. And he brought up in terms of Oz being sort of in the gutter in his own version of what he's striving for. So when Colin sent that to me, and I had never read that,

I read it and I was like, oh, and I was in the middle of writing the finale. And so I was like, oh, I should title it a great or little thing. That seems correct because what Oz is seeking to do can be perceived as something great or very little compared to, you know, whose perspective you're taking that from, but also the meaning behind the poem, which is about killing, killing the things you love in so many ways.

Yeah, I think you've mentioned this idea that inside of this episode, killing Victor, having his mother go into this comatose space, that

Oz is ripping out his own heart to a certain degree in order to become the figure that he needs to be to continue inside of Reeves' universe, his conception of who the Penguin is. And so I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the conversations you and Matt had about where you want to land this season and how you're thinking about where, obviously with no detail, but how you're thinking about where Oz goes from here.

Yeah. I mean, you know, the main thing that I talked to Matt about is that Oz is someone who has a void he's looking to fill and that, you know, what he established in the movie is that Oz is considered a joke, that he's an underling to Carmine Falcone, that he's not the criminal mastermind is, you know, more commonly depicted that we are more familiar with, with the penguin. He's aching for more. He's searching for that. Um,

And then I knew by the end that it's a rise to power story, and I needed to get Oz to achieve a level of power. No, he's in a penthouse, as he promised his mom, but it's an abandoned hotel, and it's under construction. Oz is under construction, too. And it's certainly not the dream penthouse that Frances had in mind, and not the view that she was anticipating.

But this is as good as Oz can do in the moment. Yeah. You know, and he's overlooking Crown Point in the east side of Gotham and those are his roots. But it's not, he's not in Wayne Tower, you know, he doesn't have that level of power. Right.

And so that felt like appropriate to me to end him in that place emotionally. And Matt was really great in terms of just really giving me the freedom to dig into Oz psychologically, you know, knowing that he's this man who...

is clawing his way to the top. And, and we, you know, I knew he wanted power, but for me, it's like, so what, what does that mean for him? And that's where I started to conceive of like, he, he wants his mother's love and he wants people's affection. He wants to be revered. That was like the main thrust for me of like what defines power and,

For Oz, and then by the end, you realize that when he doesn't get those things, he doesn't get his mother's acceptance, he still gets it. He makes sure he gets it in that way. So Matt and I were always in constant conversation with that, but he really allowed me to kind of dig in psychologically into Oz. And this was my pitch from the get-go. So we knew always from day one that this is the trajectory that Oz would go on. And Matt was really supportive and amazing about that.

Sophia is one of my favorite onscreen characters this year, maybe the last five years. I think Christine Migliani is amazing. I think this character is amazing. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for giving her a little bit of hope at the end of this episode, even as she lands back in her version of hell. I also love Selina Kyle. I'm curious, as we leave her there in Arkham,

Dr. Jillian Rush is there and for all of his HIPAA violations, like he is at least something of an ally to her. And she's got this letter from Selena. Like, what do you, what are you thinking about where we leave her there? Well, I love Sophia very much. And I,

Again, as I've said, it is a tragedy. And so you can define certain things as more tragic than others, right? Like, is death for a character more tragic than actually being locked back away in some terrible hell? It really kind of depends on the character and what they're going through. But it was important for me to keep Sophia alive and to give her, as you said, some hope at the end. And I think for me, it was about...

a nice way to finish Sophia's arc in our show in that she, the whole, the whole season is about how her family has betrayed her and she doesn't know where she fits and she doesn't feel like she has people she can trust and,

And it's so sad. She loses Alberto, her one ally, out of the gate. She realizes Oz, who she didn't feel like she could trust but decided to let her guard down a little bit again, is the one who killed him. All this patriarchal mob family are truly just the worst and treat her like crap. And she takes it until she can't take it anymore and then starts to kind of feel more free. But she's still lonely.

And like Julian Rush is the only person who she can even like feel like could be an ally, which is also its own sadness because he was a doctor in Arkham and he witnessed her demise, but also like her evolution in a way. It seems to be fascinated with it and feel, and is supportive of how empowered she becomes in that. But she doesn't have other friends that she can really turn to. So I wanted to make sure at the end that,

to me, Selena, um, telling her, you know, so many, like we know what we're saying, this is your half sister, uh, that Sophia realizes that she does actually maybe have family, um, still out there and that we as an audience can put our own feelings on that. Knowing what we know of Selena's depiction in the Batman, these two might have a lot that they could connect on. I mean, we don't know. So to me, the, um,

Leaving it in that place is exciting because it feels like allow people to put their own thoughts and feelings on that. And, you know, we'll see if anything's done with that in the future, you know, because now this is my handoff back to the Batman 2 and I'm not a part of that film. Yeah, that's it's such a tricky, complicated film.

level of ip storytelling because it sounds like you know you and matt are incredibly supportive of each other and collaborative and that's an ideal situation that's not always the case in these ip handoffs but it's still you know you're like this is yours to shepherd for a while and then you hand oz and the rest back over to matt um what does that what does that feel like to sort of be part of this chapter of the story and then sit back and and look at what happens next

Well, it's, I mean, I really feel honored to get to play in the sandbox that is Gotham City and the one that Matt created. I mean, it really is like childhood dreams level stuff for me, you know, and to know that I just think comic books have lived on as to the test of time. And there's so many different iterations and so many different stories, different depictions of these characters. And I'm just really thrilled that I get to be a part of that. And I get to

you know, I got to create a backstory for the penguin, you know, this depiction of the penguin. And I got to bring Sophia Falcone Gigante to life in a very different way than she was ever depicted previously. And, and I got to create Victor Aguilar, which is very personal to me and Francis, um,

as well and so like all these different characters you know like making them maronis like half iranian like you know i'm just like there's certain things and i'm like this is the kind of thing that if i'm like oh i i could can i do this this is what i would want to do with it um

So it's been so amazing to really have the opportunity to do that. And then it really is though, when you're telling stories and certainly in this universe, in the comic book space, it's like, they're not yours. You know, they start as yours and then you let them go into the world and then they,

take on a life of their own. And that's the whole point. You know, you want things to like evolve and change. And like, we couldn't have made this show and Matt couldn't have made his film, I think, without all these different earlier depictions of how the Batman started to change and evolve and how we looked at Gotham City in a different way. So in that regard, it's been just really exciting to be a part of like just such a grounded version, such a human story. But it's weird, you know, to then be like, okay, well,

here's Oz back, you know? Until next time. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm really grateful to have been able to be a part of it. You mentioned this sort of grounded aspect, which we loved about this season, but we also loved the occasional pop of wild color, be it the purple of the car, the yellow of the dress, the red of Sophia's final outfit, but also the scarf she wears with the black dress in this episode. How...

Tricky was it for you to balance this grounded crime story you wanted to tell with those sort of outsized, larger-than-life pops that come from a comic book kind of story.

It's funny, I was talking to Colin and Kristen earlier this morning kind of about this very thing in terms of tone. Tone was so important to me. It always is. And especially in a piece like this, because we're in Gotham City, right? It's a fictional city, but the thing about Gotham is it always has felt reflective of our own cities in America. And what Matt established in the film is such a grounded, gritty version of Gotham

But also, you know, for me, comedy is so important to me. And and so an Oz as a character allows you to have a little bit more fun. Right. Like we're in his perspective in the beginning. And then obviously we shift perspective to Sophia and Victor and Francis. But like the tone to me is important. I love mixing tones. And so I knew it would have a different tone than the Batman film.

In that way, because the Batman is following Bruce Wayne, Batman, and it's a bit of a bummer. Yeah. He's well, he's an emotional guy. I love him. I love him. But yeah. Yeah. And so, and it's, there's this moody, beautiful noir quality to that film, but it's,

In Oz's world, that's not the same. Our version of noir, if we hit that, is not the same. Because we're following this wild man who's very unpredictable and problematic and darkly funny. And I just wanted to make sure we infused that in our world. And so with that then comes more colorful moments, like when you let an actor play or go a little big. But that's such a tribute to our incredible cast because they all found...

this balance where it all always feels so real even though things are like slightly elevated and so i tried my best on the page to express that i would tone our directors and talk to our actors like endlessly we all wanted to make sure we were getting it right you know and i know they were talking about how like within scenes it's like you know they were always a little nervous or worried like how big do you go whatever but then with each other they would find

find it, you know, um, because you've got Oz and, uh, you know, Collins and a prosthetic and he has this wild accent, um, you know, that he established with Jessica Drake, his dialect coach is amazing. And it was all based and rooted in history. Um, but it is like a choice, right. That you made. And then DDR who plays Francis, who's so amazing came in and had to match that because his accent is rooted in her, right. That's she comes first. And, um,

making sure we could find that. So then the two of them, and when they're on screen together, they're so electric. I mean, again, they're just such good actors. It's crazy when that worked, you know, I'm like, Oh, great. You know? And so then you just start to, you play and you toggle and it's, it's really a credit to our actors, but our costume designer, Helen Wong is so amazing. And she found, you know, such an organic way to bring to life bigger, like

items you know like it was all rooted in in the emotion and the character i love that no matter what happened uh with last week's presidential election this episode is always going to air on the sunday after a like really tense presidential election so i'm just curious just from your point of view how did last week impact the way that you think about the story you told in this finale

Well, I found out when we got our air date and I did the math. Yeah. I found out we would air that later that week. And I was like, oh, man, because I feel like by the finale, you have such a distinct sense of who this type of person is. And, you know, it's not like in the seventh episode, you're like, what a hero Oz is. But, you know, it's tricky because Oz,

Part of the reason why I wanted to tell this story, because I asked myself when they first came to me with this, I was like, why would I want to write a problematic middle-aged white guy? Do we need more stories like that, really? Do we? And then for me, it was like, well, I think a good story holds up a mirror to its audience and forces you to...

Think about yourself, your own choices, what you accept, what you view as powerful, who you follow, why you love somebody, why you support them or why you don't. And it felt like instead of shying away from depicting a man like this, then we should go full bore and show you truly who he is. And my hope was not to...

make him a sympathetic figure. I mean, I wrote him with empathy. I think it's really important you empathize with him because he's a human. He's a person. He's very real, but also he's complicated and, um,

and vicious and dark. Um, but it's also rooted in love and a desire for love and acceptance and all these very human things. So I just wanted to make him as complicated as possible, but really make sure that you saw him through and through for who he was. And that, as you said earlier, like there are these markers of who he is or prior, you know, so that when he does something like what he does to Victor, it's, it's not shock.

in that you can't believe he would do that. You're not, I hope saying what they didn't earn that. That's so out of character. No, no, no. It's completely in character. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's devastating because you believed in this guy and, and you thought he wouldn't do that. You convinced yourself he would never do that because he cares for this kid. So I don't know it in broad terms in that way. And then what's happened with the election, um,

Yeah, it's tough. It's, it, you know, it's hard to write a dark show during dark times, for sure. And I don't really know what it says yet. I don't know what that mirror looks like for everybody, I guess. You know, it really depends on the person. But my hope is just to be able to say, you know, as a storyteller, we put this out here.

Think of him as you will. Like, it's up to you now. Like, do you accept him? Do you still believe in him? Do you not? Like, what do you think of this man? And maybe then what do you think of yourself? I have one last question for you, but I want to comment and just say that on the vulnerability or on the empathy front...

I found the vulnerability of Oz asking Victor how he looks before going into the council chamber just so affecting. There's something about the way that Colin played that scene, the way that Rezzy played that scene, that I was just like, really, he's so raw. But while trying to posture at the same time. Last question is...

I know you've talked about this a bit, but we were up until the end, not heavily, but slightly, like, are they going to get Batman in here? Are they going to get Commissioner Gordon in here? What level of cameo are we going to do? Watching the finale, I was like, is there ever a version of this where Zoe Kravitz does a voiceover on the letter at the end or something like that? So I was just wondering if you could talk about... I know why you didn't, but certainly not all of our listeners don't, but...

The thought process behind how much to include and how high to calibrate those crossovers, you know? Well, I think, you know, the idea of bringing Batman into the show, it was truly just like more complicated than I think some people might realize in terms of like what it would do and how it might detract from our characters. Because you have to always, at least for me, you have to ask why and does it make sense within the story?

And of course, big things happen in the show that merit his attention. But also our timeline is fairly truncated. And that was a discussion I had with Matt, you know, early on when I was conceiving of like what the story should be. You know, I need to know what my parameters are. And for him, he's like, it's a big city and Batman's in year two.

uh in the film he's trying to figure it out and he is just a man and he can't be everywhere at once and you know he doesn't respect oz he doesn't think much of him right as established in the film um

But I know also we're all used to, you know, in a Batman story, we're in the Batman world. He shows up all the time when big important things happen. You know, you're just used to Batman swinging in, in some form and like trying to take down the bad guys. Um, and that doesn't happen in our show. Uh, but I think with good reason, you know, um,

Because he, by the end, and why we put the bat signal in the end is to say, we're handing it off. You're going to get a lot of Batman in the Batman 2. He is in Gotham, but this isn't, Gotham City's not his. You know, he's figuring stuff out. So, you know, in that regard, I think when it comes to like Gordon or Selina,

There definitely are moments where I could imagine Gordon showing up in our show that would have made sense. And Selena, too. But we are in this IP world of a bigger universe. And for me, it was like, I never wanted to hold my breath or write towards something that then would not be able to happen and move our story forward.

in the direction of that with, and have it hurt our story. If that makes sense, you know? And so to a certain extent, it's like, I know I can do certain things and, and live in the strength of what our show is doing, but not feel dictated by like,

someone's availability or like how to figure that out. And that's just like a larger business thing outside of just the story. But I do feel strongly that I think our, our show and our characters stand on their own. And I'm glad that it remained intimate. Like, cause you can always say if Batman showed up, we'd probably always get like, Oh, well,

But why do you show up for one episode or one moment? And then it's like the narrative takes on a life of its own. But this was about Oz's world and these characters and their emotional trajectories and their emotional journeys. And if we deviated from that in some way to service some bigger story,

fan base or this idea for ourselves like myself as a fan like that would be cool if yeah but it didn't make sense for our story to follow that then like why are we doing it and that would be such a bummer to um let down our own characters and our own story

Well, I love that. And what I love is that now when we go watch the Batman part two, which I can't wait for, we get to carry all of this Oz information with us into it. And that's just enriching to the universe. So thank you for making this show. And I'm so glad it's such a huge hit. And I hope you're just basking in all of the, all of the positive feedback. No, thank, thank you. Thanks for watching it and being supportive of it. You know, I think I'm excited too. And that Oz, yeah,

you know, you get to spend like eight hours with this guy. Like we never gotten to do that. And then he's going to go be in the second film. And now, yeah, like you said, like you have so much information about this man. It's not just like one scene that you kind of like try to learn about a person really fast. Right. You know, what a like benefit, um, that, you know, we got to do in this and it feels really special and unique in that way. So yeah, it's been, it's been wild. It's been a fun ride. This is why I love television. Uh,

You'll have all that space. Thank you. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it was really nice chatting.

We did it. Another episode of House of R on the books. Mallory Rubin, you're the best. Thank you for being here. Love you always. See you next week. We'll be back later this week with Rob Mahoney doing some solid filling in for Mal on the silo episode later this week. We'd like to thank our coalition of willing and happy people that we do not pay to dress up like our mothers, like creepy weirdos. It is...

Arjun Arun Kapal for his production work across everything. Jomie and Dinneron on the socials. Steve Allman on the soundboard, also doing video work for us.

And thanks especially to Alea Zanaris and Felipe Gallimino for their video work. We are in studio and at home, as you can see. So it's a whole... Not an exaggeration to say Felipe and Steve saved the pod by being here in person at the total last moment. So thank you to everyone. Just really great stuff from everyone. Really appreciate it. We'll see you soon. Bye.