Sofia's New Identity in 'The Penguin' Is a Giant Nod to the Comics (2024)

Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for The Penguin Episode 5.

It's always nice to see someone getting a fresh start, but Sofia Falcone's (Cristin Milioti) in The Penguin doesn't mean anything good for Gotham. She's even changing her identity somewhat, ditching her father's last name and taking over the crime family while now boasting her late mother's maiden name, Gigante. This is the decision that puts her effectively in control of what's left of the Falcone crime family in this week's episode, "Homecoming," letting both friends and foes know that she is not her father and will not do business the way he did. Sofia Gigante's new identity is nothing new, though, and has been around since her earlier appearances in Batman comics.

Sofia Breaks With Her Past by Adopting Her Mother’s Name in 'The Penguin'

In Episode 4, "Cent'Anni," we learn about Sofia's past both before and during her confinement at Arkham Asylum. She is sent there by her own father, crime lord Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong), after she questions some of his own past actions. After reporter Summer Gleeson (Nadine Malouf) tells her about waitresses dying by hanging at Carmine's club, 44 Below, Sofia connects the dots and remembers that her own mother, Isabella Gigante (Jenny Heaton), died the same way, but it was framed as a suicide, and Isabella was later deemed mentally ill. Sofia herself is then framed by Carmine as the Hangman, and is thrown into Arkham for ten long years, where her mind withers away.

At the end of "Cent'Anni," Sofia crashes a Falcone dinner to say she is leaving the family, and, in the following scene, suffocates every Falcone with carbon monoxide poisoning. She spares her cousin, Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly), who still has some use for her. Now, in "Homecoming," we learn that Sofia needs Johnny to find out where Carmine stashed his untraceable money. Johnny tries to bargain for his life by appealing to Sofia's memories of her mother and reveals that Isabella intended to leave Carmine, which led to Carmine killing her.

Johnny also reveals a lot more, including that Isabella had left Carmine once before, but came back because of their children. His thought is that, by doing so, he would appeal to Sofia's softer side, but that backfires, as she shoots him at the table when she rebrands the family as Gigante. What Johnny reveals is the last straw for Sofia and the Falcone name, given how Carmine, her own father, caused her, her mother, and her brother so much pain. Taking on her mother's last name, then, works as a way to officially break away from the Falcone legacy and pave the way for a brand new one.

In DC Comics, the Gigante Name Has a Different Origin

While The Penguin is a sequel to The Batman, it also uses the original Batman comics as the foundation for a lot of what it does, especially some major story beats. Sofia's rebranding of the Falcone family and new surname comes straight from the comics, where she is known as Sofia Gigante from the start. She is one of the main villains in Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory, two of the comics by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale that The Penguin draws from, and, although she is still the daughter of Carmine Falcone and sister to Alberto Falcone (Michael Zegen), she is referred to as Sofia Gigante all along.

That's because, in the comics, Sofia marries into the Gigante family, becoming the wife to fellow mobster Rocco Gigante. In The Long Halloween, she is released from Arkham on her father's orders to help him catch the Holiday Killer, a new serial killer who has been targeting Falcone family members, and, in the end, turns out to be Alberto. Sofia kills Alberto herself, deeming him a disappointment to the family. Although she is presumed dead after falling from a building at the end of that story, she returns in Dark Victory, now wearing a neck brace that serves as her alibi when a new killer, the Hangman, is on the loose targeting Gotham's cops. Of course, she has been the Hangman all along.

The name Gigante suits Sofia perfectly in the comics. Loeb and Sale conceived her character as a tall and muscular woman, taller even than most men in those stories. In Italian, "gigante" translates to "giant," and her last name becomes a play on her appearance, another one in the comics' vast list of quirky and larger-than-life names that make Batman's rogues gallery so iconic. In The Penguin, though, Cristin Milioti plays Sofia as a petite, but mighty woman and crime boss, someone who casts a giant shadow and is taking huge steps toward her revenge on Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) and becoming the ruler of Gotham's underworld.

Sofia's Mother’s Name Is the Last of the Scars She Carries From Her Past​

Sofia Gigante's whole arc in The Penguin is played as a tragedy. She has been betrayed by her family multiple times, and even before that, was often reduced to the little princess who is kept out of the loop of the family's real business. In Arkham, she is betrayed by her own doctors, who should have been her protectors all along, and is even sexually targeted by one of them, Julian Rush (Theo Rossi). The lobotomies she goes through completely wreck her mind and leave physical scars on her body, especially on her neck and shoulders.

In "Cent'Anni," she wears a dress that lays all those scars bare for her family to see, scars that they caused. Before, she used to wear clothes that hid them, clad from neck to toe to hide the markings. Now, in "Homecoming," once again, she bares her scars for her new family to see, but wears her mother's fur coat, too, as if protected by the Gigante name and identity. Given how Sofia and her mother were both betrayed by Carmine and the Falcones, the Gigante name becomes a new scar for Sofia to proudly display, distancing herself from the cannibalizing ways of the Falcone family and taking a new approach toward the crime business, based primarily on loyalty.

The Penguin is available to stream on Max in the U.S. New episodes air weekly on Sundays.

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The Penguin

TV-MA

Crime

Drama

It follows the transformation of Oswald Cobblepot from a disfigured nobody to a noted Gotham gangster.

Release Date

September 19, 2024

Cast

Colin Farrell , Cristin Milioti , Rhenzy Feliz , Michael Kelly , Shohreh Aghdashloo , Deirdre O'Connell , Clancy Brown , James Madio , Scott Cohen , Michael Zegen , Carmen Ejogo , Theo Rossi

Seasons

1

Prequel

The Batman (2022)

Story By

Bill Finger, Bob Kane

Writers

Lauren LeFranc

Streaming Service(s)

HBO Max

Franchise(s)

Batman , DC Elseworlds

Directors

Craig Zobel

Showrunner

Lauren LeFranc

Avg Episode Length

60 Mins

WATCH ON MAX