Did what Oz do to Vic in The Penguin finale something he did out of love or opportunity?
As Colin Farrell put it during a press conference for The Penguin, "...there was no amount of love [...] that he could receive [...] that would have ameliorated the pain that he didn't know how to manage within himself."
In the finale, "A Great or Little Thing," it was cemented for viewers that Oz is a repugnant monster that doesn't know how to nourish itself, whether it be with respect, power, or love.
Even as a child, the future Batman villain took his first hobbled steps as an abhorrent human being when Oz killed his brothers. All so that he could have the love and recognition of his mother to himself, which he felt was being hoarded by his non-disabled siblings.
After his family's death during Riddler's bombings, Rhenzy Feliz's Victor 'Vic' Aguilar essentially became Penguin's Robin. He soon developed an unhealthy attachment to the backstabbing gangster, treating him like family, which was his fatal mistake.
How Much Love From and For Vic Was Too Much?
In the finale, viewers learned that Deirdre O'Connell's Francis Cobb knew all along that her son had killed his brothers and how "[she] has the devil in [her] house." When speaking to Rex Calabrese, a notorious gangster in their neighborhood that Oswald Cobb idolized, she asked for a solution.
Rex gave her advice from experience "in his line of work" about how when he wants loyalty in his crew, he "[brings] in guys who are lookin' for a father. Guys like that have a void to fill." Not only does this perfectly fit Oz, but sadly, Vic, too, who, as we learned in the finale, saw his partner in crime as family.
Other than his mother, was Oswald ever capable of love? Possibly. He had a girlfriend in Carmen Ejogo's Eve Karlo, but he paid her to be, and she was essentially there to coddle him. When he was Sofia's driver, he attempted to strike up a friendship with her, which she rebuked, leading him to expose Sofia's activity to her father and her being sent to Arkham.
But, throughout the series, Oswald seemed to grow a genuine bond and love for Vic, especially after how many times he saved Oswald's ass, even in the finale when he helped organize a coup and helped Oz win Gotham. However, after his mother was kidnapped and used against him by Sofia, Oz seemed to realize this bond, too.
Even before Victor professed to Oz that he was like family to him, the man was always planning on killing the teenager — that admission only reaffirmed his intention. As he strangled Vic to death, he professed how family made one (and by extension himself) weak and he "can't have that no more:"
"I mean, that's the thing about family. It's your strength. It drives you. But fuck if it don't make ya weak, too. And I can't have that no more. I can't have that shit, I can't. It's too much. Too fuckin' much."
It's possible Oz could have killed Vic because he saw him as a threat or that Vic had witnessed him at his lowest at the hospital, but one glaring detail points to Oz having truly loved Vic: he left his mother alive.
No More Love for Ma in Penguin Finale
Despite acknowledging how family can "make ya weak" and how he "can't have that no more," we still see her alive in the final moments of the episode in Oz's penthouse at Crownpoint. He's even keeping her alive in her vegetative state despite Oswald explicitly knowing that it was a fate she didn't want.
Considering how he killed Victor for making Oz weak but not his mother, it could point to the new Kingpin of Gotham no longer having any love for her — if he ever had any at all. Even in the hospital, all Oz seemed to want from her wasn't so much her love but her validation of him and his accomplishments.
Something that is emphasized when he has his girlfriend Eve, who he also hasn't killed, dressed in his mother's clothes and asks her, as they dance, to tell him that she loves him, that she's proud of him. It wasn't love he craved, but affirmation.
He kept his mother alive, perhaps even as punishment for thinking of having him killed as a child by Rex, and he's still with Eve despite her having seen Oz at plenty of low moments like Victor. Eve even admitted to Sofia that she'd be useless as a bargaining chip with him.
But, Victor? He loved Victor, and the love that boy had for him was just something a monster like Oz couldn't swallow.
The Penguin will return to menace Gotham in The Batman Part II on October 2, 2026.
