The Penguin Reveals the Dark Backstory of Why Sofia Falcone Went to Arkham Asylum

We’re officially halfway through the first season of The Penguin, HBO’s no-holds-barred spinoff to 2022’s The Batman. In addition to continuing the story of its titular character, Oz Cobb / The Penguin (Colin Farrell), The Penguin has folded in a wide array of DC characters as allies, adversaries, or something in between. One of the biggest fan favorites thus far has been Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), whose return to society after years of being kept in Arkham Asylum has provided an interesting foil to Oz. In the series’ most recent episode, The Penguin finally shed light on what forced Sofia to Arkham Asylum, and the answer was both unexpected and truly heartbreaking. Spoilers for Episode 4 of The Penguin, “Cent’anni”, lurk below! Only look if you want to know!

The majority of “Cent’anni” is set within a flashback prior to the events of the series, as well as The Batman. In this time period, we are able to see the early days of Oz and Sofia’s friendship, as she galavants around Gotham as a spoiled heiress, and he accompanies her as her driver. Rumors of a serial killer known as “The Hangman”, who strangles a seemingly-random array of lonely women to death, begin to surface around Gotham City. A journalist named Summer Gleeson brings one theory directly to Sofia — that her father, Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong), is secretly operating as The Hangman. Carmine confronts Sofia about this investigation directly, but before anything else can happen, he arranges to have her arrested and framed for The Hangman’s murders… including his newest victim, Summer.

Despite Sofia’s insistence that she did not commit any of the murders, Gotham’s corrupt legal system continues to frame her, citing scattered testimony about violent tendencies she might have had as a child. She tries to maintain her innocence even as she is thrown into the brutality of Arkham Asylum, where she is mandated to spend at least six months prior to her trial. The conditions at the asylum, as well as mental and physical abuse at the hands of its corrupt doctors, eventually pushes Sofia towards a violent tendency anyway. She is repeatedly given electroshock therapy and, when her trial is thrown out by a judge, the prospect of staying in Arkham permanently leads her to snap. She brutally kills her next door cellmate, Magpie, and fully embraces the label that Gotham has publicly given her.

How Does The Penguin‘s Sofia Falcone Origin Story Differ From the Comics?

This is a major subversion from Sofia’s standing in the pages of DC’s comics, particularly in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s 1999 limited series Batman: Dark Victory. In it, Sofia is revealed to legitimately be The Hangman, who deliberately kills members of the Gotham City Police Department with connections to Harvey Dent / Two-Face. Sofia was able to keep up this ruse by faking paralysis in a wheelchair and a neck brace, but is eventually found out and shot to death by Two-Face anyway.

Despite these differences, The Penguin‘s take on Sofia’s backstory is unbelievably effective and poignant. Being framed by Carmine for the murders that he really committed adds a tragic layer, both to her arc with the Falcone family (as evident by the ending of “Cent’anni”), and in the overall corruption that her father had in the events of The Batman. The fact that she was mistreated enough to go down a violent path anyway is doubly heartbreaking — and sets her up as a major force to be reckoned with in the remaining episodes of The Penguin.

What Is The Penguin About?

The Penguin is the next chapter in The Batman saga from Matt Reeves.The series stars Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb, Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, Rhenzy Feliz as Victor Aguilar, Michael Kelly as Johnny Viti, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Nadia Maroni, Deirdre O’Connell as Francis Cobb, Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni, James Madio as Milos Grapa, Scott Cohen as Luca Falcone, Michael Zegen as Alberto Falcone, Carmen Ejogo as Eve Karlo, and Theo Rossi as Dr. Julian Rush.

New episodes of The Penguin premiere on both HBO and Max every Sunday night.