Well, I finally understand why Cristin Milioti's performance was not working for me. I was seeing her as the Hangman, a psychopathic serial killer, and Milioti didn't look like someone with a loose screw, someone unhinged. Episode 4 of The Penguin clarifies why the actor seems so...non-serial killer-ish. The Hangman is just a lousy name given to Sofia by the tabloids. Before the whole Arkham Asylum thing, she was just an ordinary, nervous human being. Notice how she moves her hands while giving a speech or blushes when her father assures her that she will take control of everything. We also get familiar with Oz and Sofia's relationship. She seems like the only person in the family who doesn't mock the Penguin. Like Sofia, Oz doesn't like to be called this P-word, and Sofia knows this, which is why she tells Alberto not to, well, refer to Oz as Penguin. And Oz reciprocates this respect by protecting Sofia from pushy journalists.
The episode informs us how Sofia ended up in Arkham Asylum and what role Oz played in this. We are aware of the latter point - he snitches on her to her father. But we learn what he snitches about and why. Sofia meets with a news reporter who shows her pictures of women who died due to asphyxiation (there are impressions around the neck), but their death was ruled as suicide by hanging. Sofia's mother, too, died similarly, and the journalist suspects that these girls, as well as Sofia's mother, were killed by the same person: Sofia's daddy, Carmine. Mark Strong is competent but also unexceptional as Carmine. He falls back on clichés to portray a tough-as-nails crime boss with a face that screams, "Take me seriously." The episode, too, is somewhat like Strong's acting: It's made competently, but you end up feeling that you have watched something undistinguished.
I liked seeing what actually pushes Oz to snitch on Sofia to Carmine (she, out of distress and frustration, tells Oz that no one cares about him), and the last couple of minutes are a bit exciting considering Sofia, the psychopath, is unleashed on the Falcone family. But in between these bits, we sit through scenes that move with mechanical efficiency. The Arkham Asylum is filled with generic 'crazy' types who smile widely and speak in cartoonishly loopy voices to convey their mental instability. We once again get that "strip and search the prisoner" scene that is placed to indicate how cruel the prison is (these shots have become a boring cliché - they no longer feel triggering). Episode 4 plants a thought in your head regarding Alberto: It makes you see him as the real traitor, leading you to suspect that he will be revealed as someone who betrayed Sofia to rule the family business. Then again, it might not be the show; it could just be me. My mind, tired of uninteresting and conventional scenes, could be coming up with conspiracy theories.
Final Score – [5/10]