Can you really make a character irredeemable? penguin takes us way back and asks us to answer this question. spoiler Follow for The penguin Season 1, Episode 7, “Top Hat.”

“Cylinder”

Oz Cobb is charming. He's so charming that it makes some people suspicious, and even then those people are still fascinated by him. He betrayed Sofia and sent her to Arkham, and yet she allowed himself to get so close to him that she almost died from a Maroni gunshot. We know everything he has done since the beginning The Batmanand yet we are still fascinated by him.

This episode completely changes that. I'm totally serious about spoilers.

We left off last week with Sofia standing in Oz's doorway and watching Vic and Francis dance in the kitchen. This week begins with a flashback to Oswald Cobb as a child and we see how he interacts with his mother.

The first truly disturbing aspect of Child Oswald is the interaction between the two characters. They talk to each other more like husband and wife, even though he's maybe 12 at this point. At first this seems more like him, but the relationship takes on this mutually pseudo-incestuous tone where he dines and regales her as a child.

The truly haunting scene comes after Oz locks his brothers behind a door in a sewer and leaves them there. While it's pouring rain, he cuddles with his mother on the couch and watches a movie. She had been worried about the other two children, but Oz convinced her that they would be home any moment. As they watch the film, he looks out the window at the rain and feels a little secret joy at what he knows is happening.

Oswald Cobb is a monster and nothing should be able to redeem him.

Some credit goes to Ryder Allen, the young actor who plays Young Oswald (hey, HBO, please don't make a Young Oswald show). Colin Farrell gave Penguin all these little tics – the way he says “Ma,” certain ways he moves his head or raises his eyebrows, and Allen captures it all with incredible accuracy. He really feels like a young version of this character in a way they rarely do. Every time he looks out the window and smiles happily, it's sickening in the best possible way.

Another major player in this episode is Francis Cobb, both in the present (Dierdre O'Connell) and in these flashbacks (Emily Meade). I fully expected her to be dead in the first few moments of the episode, but Sofia is smart enough to know that if she killed Francis, Oz would be uncontrollable. Instead, Francis and Sofia have some really good scenes together. During her captivity (which means she is in a beautiful bedroom in the Falcone mansion), Francis is repeatedly lucid and is presumed to know that Oswald is responsible for the deaths of her other sons.

While she is lucid, Francis is cruelly aggressive towards Sofia, letting her know exactly what she thinks of her. Sofia is shaken and wonders if she's continuing to play the same game her father made the rules for, or if she's truly doing her own thing. Young Francis, meanwhile, perfectly captures the scared and weak but genuine love she feels for Oswald. She knows something is wrong but can't bring herself to admit it.

This is also an action-packed episode as Salvatore and his henchmen attack Oswald's operation. The two gang leaders engage in a knockout, drawn-out fist fight that doesn't go quite as I expected, but it's some of the best action in the series and one of the better fist fights I've seen on a show in a while. There are a few twists and turns here, but everything sets the stage for an exciting finale.

Disclaimer: HBO provided Batman News with early access to The Penguin episodes for review purposes.

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