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ill post chibis here too, i havent logged in here in a really long time 😓

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bro can't comprehend

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Colin Farrell as Oswald 'Oz' Cobb

THE PENGUIN (2024) Bliss

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One yo mama joke and oz would have snapped much sooner

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when u first posted oswald i jnstinctively went "gyat"

I come back from grieving about the final episode and, unfortunately, I still love this guy

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:p

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Oz looking at anyone else versus his mother

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bestie you're the only person i agree with about the finale of the penguin

everyone seems so surprised that os is a villain and im ????? did everyone miss that time he set a guy on fire in front of his mother??????? did everyone miss him leaving sofia for dead after she found out he was manipulating her????? he's been a monster all along, that doesn't make him any less of a layered character

i really wish vic hadn't died but his death didn't feel like a revelation of how evil oswald is to me. i think this episode was more about the lies that os tells himself to feel better about his life than it was about "he was evil all along and you too fell for his manipulation". why else would he say all that as he strangled him? vic was dying. if it was about getting rid of him because he didn't need him anymore, why would he bother saying anything?

also that last scene with os pretending to dance with his mom was fucked up but it also seems to me like another way of showing how he's choosing to live in a world of his own lies. he can't deal with the truth, so he doesn't. it's easier that way. and this doesn't make him any less of a monster; it just makes him a complex one.

anyway your analysis is on point and i can't believe they killed off vic to progress os's character

HI! YES i totally agree; please don’t mind my lengthy yapping— i have sooooo much to say about this show

one thing I noticed predominantly throughout the show is the level and intricacies of complexity the characters were given, which you typically don’t see in the average shows pumped out these days, where good and bad is black and white and behavior will always be ‘straightforward’ with the character, unlike in real life where a person’s true nature will more than often contradict their actions, whether that be in acts of denial, or repressing something. whether large or grand, we all do it—so I kind of disagree with people only seeing this finale at surface level.

I really do think Sofia kind of ‘cracked the egg’ with dismantling or at least shaking loose oz’s denials through aggravating the unhealed wound of his brothers and the unspoken wounds between him and his mother; i saw that scene as sofia trying to force out feelings of remorse from oz, which I believe he repressed x100 after his brothers’ deaths, as seeing his expression struggle to remain stoic and continuously denying the truth even if it cost his mother her finger (if he did lack any true guilt, he would’ve admitted it much sooner with indifference ; and if he didn’t feel guilt but never admitted the truth to solely benefit his mother, he would not have hesitated to admit the truth with that priority over his mother. But he doesnt) . But by ‘dismantling’ oz himself, she unleashes this newer version of himself—she showed an opportunist what happens when he slips up with his greed and pauses to care for someone other than himself/guard. before sal and sofia find his mother, sal angrily comments that oz has no one—no one they could weaponize. family is weaponry, a step above simpler loyalty. someone can have as many allies as they want, but it doesn’t mean anything if they’re expendable. oz has viewed all of his allies as expendable, like sal, sofia, and the rest of the gang leaders. victor was an ally initially expendable and a failsafe for alberto’s murder, but upon becoming his protégé, an emotional tie was thrown in.

So in order to fully prevent his guard from ever slipping up again (caring for his mother despite the endangerment), he cannot similarly care for anyone else again (caring about victor despite the endangerment). so vic has to be shut out completely now both for oz’s self-preservation and possibly vic’s ‘preservation’ in a more morbid sense, by knowing his life is now endangered by his own care for oz likewise. who knows what sofia could do to him and what she could wrench out to harm oz again. and when he ‘shuts’ vic out, he has to shut out any sympathies/empathies that follow.

when he steals the money from his wallet, I saw it more as a not-wasting-resources gesture (sewers blown up + crown point hideout raided) rather than genuinely-indifferent disrespect, which goes in hand with that ever-prevalent opportunistic characteristic. “it wasn’t for nothing.” throwing away his ID also appeared disrespectful, but with how his expression froze, it was clear he was shutting out unwanted feelings of regret, perhaps a rogue emotion (seeing as he expresses nearly no remorse for his actions and lies his way around it to avoid it altogether), and threw it away briskly. He needed that reminder gone before the feeling could settle in. (a lack of expression does not always mean a lack of feeling)

If anything, killing victor could also symbolize oz killing his former self—tragically fitting for a finale and change of occupation/direction. it was obvious that he saw himself through vic, or at least began to until it reached a point of no return. That idea could also be applied through vic finding strength in family—oz realizes that was his own undoing, family, and that vic was officially non-expendable. It’d already been basic knowledge that non-expendable people are lethal tools of manipulation (using taj to also kill nadia, and their deaths against sal, alberto against sofia even if it was pinned on the maronis anyways).

And you’re right about him killing vic differently. In the beginning of the show, if he’d done what was expected and had shot vic while his back was turned—it’d be quick and easy, indifferent like everyone else. Same with the second time he nearly killed vic, Oz gives in and spares him, giving him yet another chance even when it didn’t benefit Oz at the moment. Oz centers those around him with how they benefit him, so choosing to spare victor despite the potential burden is an obvious sign of care. Although it makes it much more twisted, oz killing victor the way he did was the furthest thing from indifferent. He could’ve lifted his hand at any moment, but didn’t until the end, further exposing his need to snuff out his own weakness, his care for victor. its the ultimate and worst father-son moment— oz recognizing his care for victor as his protégé to be non-expendable, and the recognition that he couldn’t let himself genuinely care for another person again. i see a lot of people saying that there was no reason for oz to kill victor after everything he did for him—but that’s the exact reason why he needed to. Vic did all of that because he was just that close to Oz, not even taking that exit when given, his loyalty had become familial which could become just as dangerous as Oz’s love for his mother. I also think Oz’s care for vic was similar to the nature of his lies regarding his brothers—not it being a lie itself but rather getting caught up in the short term benefits and attention while blocking out the long term consequences waiting—perhaps distracted by becoming this fatherly figure as a fatherless son himself to a fatherless boy, and avoiding the inevitable pain at the end of the road (their criminal circumstances/predicament) until it’s too late and boils over from his mother’s incident. its also important to note the unique situation this is and how heavily survival and preservation is involved here. Oz can’t care about anyone, it’s dangerous and just as dangerous for everyone else involved in crime (alberto to sofia, nadia + taj to sal). its why he was untouchable when his mother was still hidden, he had nothing to lose—but after sofia, oz learned his lesson the hard way about exceptions, urging him to turn his attention towards vic for the last time.

It could also be similar to how he never returned his brothers despite having time and even staring out the window (slowly killing victor with time to change his mind). It could be that in the moment as a child he was accepting the situation for what it was, he’d killed his brothers and needed to assess what to do, but us the viewer have to keep in mind his opportunistic personality (hinted by oz’s admiration of rex despite his older brother’s moral aversion) and the possibility of shock feigning as indifference (i say this because of the severity of oz’s denial reminds me of a trauma response). as many children do, he sought the short term benefit—the short term benefit was keeping his mother’s affection over disrupting that current peace and causing long term harm. (i don’t really believe the real reason was to have it solely for himself, mostly because it was only from his mother’s bias/pov and then by sofia who was only out to hurt him—but i think he just wanted to sustain it). by seeking the short term benefit of saying nothing and sharing a nice moment with his mother, it also further highlights, as you said, his inability to deal with the truth and the lies he upholds to keep his own peace (something his mother also did by constantly lying to oz that she didn’t know what he’d done and actually loathed him for it instead)—a ticking time bomb which sofia uses and demolishes completely, or at least enough for the viewers to realize the severity of oz’s delusions, which as you said, had been prevalent since the beginning, but never quite the full depth or scope of.

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Daisuke Page 🌺

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I hate him. Evan Dorkin has the rights to kill me

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Colin Farrell as Oswald 'Oz' Cobb

THE PENGUIN (2024) Inside Man

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Question for you from the finale actually. Do you think Oz actually doesn't remember that what happened to his brothers was his fault? Or was he trying to play some sort of game?

Like, his behavior to me makes me think he's buried that day under layers of lies and delusion (him carrying Francis out after she stabbed him doesn't really fit with 'I will let them cut her finger off rather than tell the truth' in my mind) but maybe I'm being overly charitable to Oz?

Yes and Yes.

I don't think carrying Francis to safety after she stabbed him seconds earlier, after being willing to let her be mutilated rather than telling the truth, is at all at odds with everything he's been and done in the rest of the show, that's just the perpetual motion bullshit generator that Oz has instead of a soul hard at work. It wasn't her fault she stabbed him and said all those things, it was her disease acting up, it was that psycho Sofia doing things to her mind, I love my Ma and my Ma loves me and I gotta get Ma to safety cause taking care of her is what I live for, and that's that. If that seems contradictory and hypocritical and weird, it is, and you're thinking like all the other chumps who lost to him because they had use for like, an inner monologue or a conscience or some shit.

Oz can never betray himself, everything he is and does is already built on an infinite procession of lies and delusions to be adapted and rebuilt ad-nauseum (hence the real threat Sofia posed to him in that scene- there was no going back from admitting to what he did to his brothers, Oz cannot break character, not even if everyone knows he's playing one - if he breaks character, he collapses and dies), and in the occasion he does betray himself, he'll spin it as something he had to do or something that was good in the long-term, and then he'll forget he did it. He believes everything he says is true at the moment he says it, up until the moment it isn't.

Did Oswald convince himself that what happened to his brothers wasn't what actually happened and was he deep in denial about it? Yes. Does Oswald know exactly what actually happened and he's spinning lies on top of lies to avoid denying it as strongly as possible? Yes. He knows everything he's doing ("Lies...it's just your disease talking") up until he doesn't. He knows everything he's done ("Sh-She'll never look at me again, all right?...Not till I get this done") up until he doesn't. And so long as it's buried deep down enough, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. And so unless Sofia, who knows the entire sordid story, makes it out of Arkham, the truth of all he did will never actually matter, and so it might as well not exist. It's that simple for him.

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detail i liked about his character was how much he's always adjusting his hair before meeting "high society" people

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just aimlessly doodling without new eps to look forward too tbh

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boy quiet

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Late night doodlin

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