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This article contains spoilers for The Penguin episode 5.
Oz Cobb is lighting a fire (quite literally) in Gotham City as The Penguin heads into its final furlong, and the mob wars come to a head. After episode 4 focused on the tragic backstory of Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), the murderous mobster got her chance to shine again in episode 5 “Homecoming.” While The Penguin’s Sofia is more sympathetic than her comic book counterpart, the latest episode gave fans a twist pulled straight from the pages of DC Comics.
Throughout The Penguin’s run, we’ve come to know Sofia as the unhinged daughter of Carmine Falcone. While John Turturro’s Carmine (recast with Mark Strong for The Penguin) was a big part of 2022’s The Batman, Sofia was MIA due to her wrongful incarceration in Arkham State Hospital. Although Sofia takes on the villainous persona of the Hangman in the comics, The Penguin theorists were correct that it was Carmine who was responsible for the murders and let his daughter take the fall.
Despite Milioti’s Sofia being a more petite version compared to the towering Falcone from the comics, The Penguin honored her history in the latest episode. Having gassed the majority of the Falcone family in episode 4, “Homecoming” saw Sofia try to cement herself as the new capomandamento. After realizing she was little more than a pawn in her father’s game, Sofia outlawed anyone saying Carmine’s name again and promptly changed the family’s name to Gigante. The Penguin reveals that Isabelle Gigante was Sofia’s mother, and after learning that her father killed his wife, Sofia took her mother’s maiden name: “My father’s legacy is dead. And we will never speak his name again. From this point on I am a Gigante, and this is a new family now.”
In addition to being inspired by the real-life story of Rosemary Kennedy and her institutionalization, Sofia’s new backstory is a play on her introduction in 1997’s Batman: The Long Halloween. Here, Sofia helped Carmine figure out the identity of the Holiday Killer, who turned out to be her own brother, Alberto. Michael Zegen briefly played Alberto in The Penguin, but considering he was killed by Oz (Colin Farrell), it doesn’t look like The Long Halloween will be directly adapted into the series. Elsewhere, The Long Halloween ends with Sofia being knocked out of a window by Catwoman, only to return for its Dark Victory sequel as a wheelchair-bound victim. Dark Victory then reveals that Sofia has faked her paralysis and is actually the Hangman.
The Penguin is doing things differently with Sofia, with people already thinking she’s the Hangman. As for the Gigante part, Sofia is introduced as Sofia Falcone Gigante after marrying a mobster called Rocco Gigante. Given Sofia’s massive stature in the comics, her Gigante surname has a double meaning, but speaking to IndieWire, The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc explained she never wanted Milioti’s version to have a husband. Instead, LeFranc says having Gigante as Sofia’s mother’s maiden name was a wink to the comics but let her do it on her own terms.
Even if Milioti’s Sofia doesn’t have the same physical dominance as she does in the comics (measuring at only 5′ 2″ in real life), LeFranc reiterates how her “Sofia Gigante” persona translated into The Penguin via the moment she found her mother’s fur coat with Isabelle Gigante stitched into it. “She wants to be able to embody who her mother was, her spirit, so she finds that mink and puts it on and becomes a Gigante,” said LeFranc. “It felt very empowering to me to give Sofia that, to say I’m not a Falcone, I just obliterated the Falcones. That’s not who I am, that’s never really who I was, and now I’m going to become a Gigante and this is how I’m going to run my own crime family.” Inspired by the Vanderbilt family and the Gilded Age, it very much feels like the Sofia Falcone of the past has died to make way for Sofia Gigante.
Having put a bullet in Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly) and forged an uneasy alliance with Sal Maroni (Clancy Brown) to cut ties with the Falcone family of old, Sofia now has Farrell’s Penguin in her sights. Comic book Sofia is actually Sal’s secret lover and is eventually murdered by Harvey Dent/Two-Face after Sal burned him with acid, but we don’t see things playing out this way in The Penguin. Although it’s possible that Sofia will end up paralyzed following a finale tussle with Oz, eagle-eyed fans have noticed there’s still a space for Sofia next to her father, mother, and brother in the family crypt. With Farrell confirmed to be returning for The Batman Part II, Milioti’s time in the Reevesverse could be unfortunately short-lived.
The Penguin airs on HBO and Max at 9 p.m. ET on Sundays.
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