The Penguin finale ended on a horrific note with a shocking death - but fans have noticed one particularly upsetting detail from the show that you might have missed. Warning, spoilers ahead if you've not watched the season finale…
The show concluded with Oz finally managing to gain the upper hand among the crime gangs in Gotham, killing or imprisoning his enemies and getting that penthouse apartment that he'd always promised his mother. However, the bittersweet reality was that his mother was too ill to appreciate it - and had always hated him anyway after knowing that he had murdered his two brothers as a child.
However, the particularly heartbreaking moment of the show was when Oz decided to kill the one remaining person who mattered to him - his right hand man Victor - who had stuck by him throughout the series, sacrificing his opportunity for a better life for Oz and putting himself at risk countless times.
In the scene, Oz explains that he can't have any weaknesses, telling Vic: "Family: It’s your strength. It drives you. [Expletive] if it don’t make you weak too. And I can’t have that no more."
© HBOHe strangles Vic before disposing of his body (but not before he steals the money out of Vincent's wallet). While all of this was brutal to witness, one fan pointed out a detail that makes the scene even sadder.
Taking to X, they wrote: "The fact that Oz threw Vic's ID into the water, the thing that claimed his whole family, and the last we see of him is his face sinking into the dark. The writers were even symbolically cruel. #ThePenguin."
© HBOAnother person posted: "Oz's worst nightmare was dying to nobody. And that the exact thing he did to Vic," while a third added: "I knew this was going to be his destiny but in the end I let myself believe for a second that Oz would reward Vic's loyalty after he orchestrated everything for Oz to win but no... this is incredible writing, this is how you do a rotten villain."
Others pointed out his treatment of Sofia was also symbolically awful, writing: "The full circle closure of Oz and Sofia's chapter is so deeply evil and sinister, he stole the innocence of her youth and once again took her only chance of freedom and peace."
However, fans were loving the show's commitment to keeping the famous Batman villain as a classic bad guy, with one posting: "I was getting tired of sympathetic villains and villains we root for. The Penguin had the guts to bring back spineless villains who we absolutely hate. No tragic backstory. Just psychotic!"
© HBOSpeaking to CNN, Colin Farrell spoke about that moment, saying: "The crew were very invested in the story, genuinely – we’d spent a year on and off together – and the mood on the set that night was pretty dark.
"Everyone, the focus pullers, the camera operators, the boom operators, craft service … It really wasn’t pleasant. We all knew what had to happen; it was only fiction. But it was so dark and it was so ugly and so unjustifiable. We moved through it as quickly as we could. Everyone was very on point and we flew through it. But it was really, really ugly."
