Everyone who died in The Penguin (and how they lost their life)

The Penguin has finished and this wild ride has a HUGE body count. At least one person died in each episode and there were two mass death situations including the murder of the Falcone family as well as two counts of fratricide.

If you need a refresher and just who met their demise and how, we've got you covered! Below you'll find every significant death in the series along with which episode the character(s) died in. You may want to settle somewhere comfortable for this one, it's long.

Who dies in The Penguin?

Alberto Falcone

The Penguin was barely 10 minutes into its series premiere, "After Hours," when Alberto, the heir apparent to the Falcone crime family was killed. He and Oz had been sharing a drink, and the crown prince (at Oz's urging) decided to indulge in some drops. Alberto had no idea that Oz was manipulating him and getting him a bit sauced and high so that he wouldn't figure out the real reason Oz was in Carmine's abandoned apartment at the Iceberg Lounge.

Moments before Alberto had walked in on him, Oz had been clearing out Carmine's safe where he'd found jewels and blackmail material that would later be revealed to be photos of Johnny Viti tangled up with Luca Falcone's wife. Oz passed over the stones, but he'd already pocketed the file so he didn't have to explain anything.

Had Alberto kept their talk pleasant as they drank, he likely would have kept his life. But instead he mocked Oz for the admiration he held for the gangster who ran Crown Point when he was a kid. Rex Calibrisi was on the wrong side of the law but he took care of his community and it was obvious that's the kind of man Oz aspires to be.

Coming from a family like the Falcones that sounded like small potatoes to Alberto and he made sure Oz knew it. He denigrated the story Oz had told him and laughed which lit the villain's fire. He shot Alberto multiples time in a fit of rage that he immediately regretted once he calmed down and realized the mess he just got himself in.

Ervad

Poor Ervad was the victim of a double crossing in "Inside Man." As the Maronis' capo, it was Ervad's job to assist Oz in stealing the Falcones' drops as planned. However, said plan went awry and the capo got shot for his trouble. In the aftermath of the shootout, Ervard was taken to the hospital but was later busted out by Marcus Wise, the detective Sofia was paying off to help her. They handcuffed him in the basement to wait out the morphine he'd been given so that they could ask him who he'd been working for as Sofia knew they had a mole.

Oz had been charged with getting Ervad out of the basement by Nadia Maroni, and he intended to do that and keep Ervad from ratting him out. He told the capo he'd help him as long as he told the Falcones that it was Viti who was working for the Maronis. Ervard agreed but when Victor didn't succeed in planting the jewels from the Iceberg Lounge in Viti's car, Oz had to change his plan. He killed Ervad to cover his tracks. He did so by stabbing him.

Castillo

Oz's third victim in The Penguin was Castillo, Sofia's right hand man. He'd plotted for Castillo to die when the Maronis swooped in for the Falcones' drugs but when that plan went belly up, Oz seized on the opportunity after he killed Ervad. Murdering the Maronis' capo in "Inside Man" wasn't going to be enough to get heat off of him. He had to find a patsy, and he chose Castillo because Sofia's man tortured him at her behest in the season premiere.

When the Falcones rounded up everyone who was a part of the botched drops transport to find out who killed Ervad, Oz feigned not knowing why they were there. He picked a fight with Viti so he could mask his disposal of the knife he'd used on the capo. But instead of planting it on Viti, he dropped it into Castillo's pocket. When the man was searched, he was, of course, shocked. He tried to get Sofia and her uncle Luca, who took over as the don of the Falcones after Alberto's death, to believe him but they wouldn't.

Sofia demanded a gun but no one would give it to her so she could kill Castillo herself. Luca did it instead. With Castillo gone, Oz was clear (for the time being) of anyone learning that he was the one who murdered Ervad and Alberto as well. See, Oz had successfully framed the Maronis for Alberto's death, and they accepted it because Oz was supposed to deliver the Falcones' drops operation to them. Sofia rightfully deduced that Alberto's death and the play for the drugs were tied together and whoever was the mole killed her brother. What she didn't know is that Oz, who she agreed to work with by the end of "Inside Man," is the one who took Alberto from her and not Castillo.

The Aguilar family

In "Bliss" we get a heartbreaking flashback to the day The Riddler blew up the sea wall around Gotham. Victor been up on the rooftop of a building in Crown Point with his girlfriend Graciela and their friends waiting to watch the fireworks set to go off in honor of Election Night in the city. From the rooftop he had a horrifying vantage point that allowed him to see the tidal wave of water that swept through the streets and crashed into his apartment building.

The water crested so high that it smashed through the windows of his place where his mother, father, and sister were. Victor had tried warning his family before the wave struck. He'd called his mom, but it was too late. We didn't see it on-screen, but his loved ones drowned. Victor had trauma from the event and his desire to make something of himself and have someone who looks out for him is why he'd grown close to Oz in the series.

Summer Gleeson

The first and last time we meet Summer is in "Cent'anni." She was the journalist who brought it to Sofia's attention that the deaths of Taylor Montgomery, Yolanda Jones, Nancy Hoffman, Susan Weekly, Devry Blake, and Trisha Becker were suspicious despite being ruled suicides. All six women worked at Carmine's club and their injuries were consistent with strangulation and not hanging.

Carmine killed Summer, too, after Oz told him that Sofia met with her. He framed his own daughter for the murder and those of the women he'd killed with his bare hands the same way he'd murdered his wife and Sofia's mom, Isabella. Carmine had Sofia committed to Arkam and the papers dubbed her The Hangman as she was forced to take the fall for her father.

Arkham inmate

Early on during Sofia's ten year bid in the asylum, she'd been insistent that she was innocent. But the sadistic doctors at Arkham have a way of breaking their patients. They used one inmate to intimidate Sofia, taking her out of her cuffs and restraints and watching as she beat the fallen Falcone in the cafeteria with everyone watching. Their ploy, however, didn't work.

Sofia refused to kill the women even after they were given their own private moment in the cafeteria with only the doctors and the guards present. But the woman wanted to die. She'd been put through too much while in Arkham and when Sofia wouldn't end her life, she ended it herself with the fork Sofia was meant to use.

Magpie

The first person to try befriend Sofia in Arkham was Magpie, not that Sofia wanted her friendship. Magpie thought they could be close but she also had an affinity for the drug that would later be fashioned into Bliss on The Penguin.

The day that Sofia learned that she wouldn't be getting a trial wasn't the best time for Magpie to chatter on about how Sofia didn't have to lie to the doctor about her innocence anymore. She also told her that now she could get the drugs, too, because she wouldn't be going anywhere.

Still in shock about the news Alberto delivered, Sofia clued back into what Magpie was saying and came to the conclusion that Magpie had been spying on her in exchange for drugs. Their cells were right next to each other and they could hear everything going on with the other. When Sofia put two and two together she snapped and wound up killing Magpie in her anger. She hit her with her food tray and then repeatedly slammed her face against the metal cafeteria table.

The Falcone family

"Cent'anni" had a high body count before its ending but once the Falcones set down for dinner, we were put on a path that would make that number skyrocket. Sofia had decided that she needed to start over and she let Viti and the rest of the family believe that their threats had worked, and she would be letting them ship her off to Italy. That was not at all the case.

She crashed their dinner party and allowed her uncle Luca to get a bit into his speech before she interrupted him to give her own. They'd all failed her, choosing to align themselves with her father and accepting that they were going to be complicit in her framing by signing affidavits confirming she'd always had mental problems which she didn't.

Though she'd loved them when she was young, her family's betrayal and the 10 years of her life that she lost on top of the trauma she suffered in Arkham was too much. Sofia was determined to get her fresh slate, so she led her young cousin Gia out to the greenhouse for a sleepover with her as all but Viti succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning from the boiler. She kept him alive, by leaving his window open, because she had other purposes for her mother's cousin.

Taj and Nadia Maroni

Once the cat was out of the bag that he'd killed Alberto, and the Maronis took the mushrooms that make Bliss, Oz had to go on the offensive in "Homecoming." The crime family had something he wanted so he took something precious to them, Nadia and Sal's son Taj. He planned to exchange the heir apparent for the mushrooms but only for enough time to lure Nadia into believing she had gotten one over on him.

Oz knew she was going to have her goons with her even though she was only supposed to bring one man for protection. Nadia thought she'd ambushed him, but Oz and his crew were better shots and what Nadia had failed to notice was that Taj was dripping wet not due to water but a flammable liquid. Once Taj had made his way over to her and sufficiently got her covered in the fluid, Oz dropped a lighter onto the trail Taj left behind him. Sal's wife and son went up in flames.

Johnny Viti

Despite thinking he would live to fight another day in "Homecoming," Viti did die at Sofia's hands after all. At first, she'd held him in the Falcone family mausoleum, torturing him with the cold until he'd spill where her father's secret stash of cash was located. During their conversation, Viti revealed that he had tried to help her mother, Isabella, leave Carmine.

She had gotten away once but couldn't stomach the thought of Alberto and Sofia being left with their father so she'd gone back. Her second, and final attempt to leave, was organized by Viti who'd called a car for her to take them far away from Carmine but she never showed up, and Viti learned the awful truth. However, it didn't stop him from working for his cousin's murderer of a husband as his underboss which Sofia pointed out.

Still, Sofia seemed to listen to Viti when he told her she was going to need help taking control of Gotham. He'd felt that he could help legitimize her and convince the people who worked for Carmine and Luca to work for her. But when he wouldn't stop interrupting her while she was speaking to the underlings who felt underappreciated and undervalued, she shot him in the head. Viti had wanted to hold onto the family name but Sofia didn't, hence why she now goes by Gigante.

Squid

Victor's first ever kill was Squid, a low level drug dealer who's the cousin of his friend Calvin. Squid had seen him and Francis enter Calvin's apartment building. They were crashing in the teen's old place as they hid from Sofia and Sal. In "Gold Summit," Squid had been pushing for Victor to let him in on Oz's Bliss operation so he could get a piece of the come up, too.

Instead of doing that, Victor tried to buy him off but when that didn't work, and Squid threatened to rat out his hiding spot with Francis and Oz, Victor killed him. He did so by letting the drug dealer think his threat had worked and that he was being led to Oz, but Victor suddenly turned and shot him in the neck. It wasn't an instant death, blood gushed from the wound as Squid began to choke much to Victor's horror. He left him bleeding out in the alley.

Jack and Benny Cobb

From the start of The Penguin, we heard bits and pieces about Oz's brothers Jack and Benny, but it's not until "Top Hat" that their cause of death is shown. The crime drama flashes back to Gotham in the '80s at a time when Rex Calibrisi ran Crown Point and Francis did his books. The Cobb boys were sent out of the apartment with the crime boss' ledger so that their mother could continue to get work done without her children underfoot.

They were supposed to keep busy until night time and get their behinds back home as soon as the streetlights turned on. After handing off the ledger to Rex, they went to go play flashlight tag in the tunnels. Oz was "it" but his brothers didn't hide in the station like they were supposed to and instead went down a shaft that he couldn't get to easily.

Frustrated and unwilling to struggle his way down the ladder to reach them, Oz took his annoyance out on them by closing the door to the shaft. It, however, was raining at the time. At his age, it seemed unlikely he knew that not only would his brothers not be able to open the door but that the shaft would fill with water because of the storm. But Francis is convinced he did.

Oz had gone home to spend time with their mom by himself like he'd wanted all along. But his brothers never came home. They'd drowned in the shaft and Francis has carried the pain of that deliberate act by her son ever since.

Sal Maroni

Sal's death didn't go the way Oz had hoped in "Top Hat." He wanted a triumphant victory over the crime boss but it was a heart attack that took Sal out, not Oz. The moment happened when Sal made a play for Oz's Bliss operation after Sofia had taken Francis to use her as leverage. They knew Oz would do anything to keep his mother alive but they didn't account for him, and his crew, not willing to give up so easily.

When his crew launched an attack, which allowed Oz to slip free, he took Sal on one-on-one in a secluded area. But the adrenaline of what was going on was too much for Sal and he went into cardiac arrest. Pissed that he didn't do the job himself, Oz went on a rant about how he had got him and then he shot him several times in the chest for good measure. It gave him the appearance that he took down a well-respected and feared don establishing Oz as someone to revere and be wary of, too, even though that's not what happened.

Detective Marcus Wise

The corrupt detective that Sofia used near the start of the season is the same one who hauled Oz to Monroe's at the end of "Top Hat." Oz had still been trying to get his bearings after Sofia set the bomb off in his tunnels, so the detective was able to incapacitate him. Never one not to repay the favor, as Oz escaped from the abandoned jazz club with an unconscious Francis over his shoulder, Oz shot Det. Wise through the eye. The drops addict was in the middle of taking a dose when he was killed in the finale, "A Great or Little Thing."

Feng Zhao and the heads of Gotham's gangs

"A Great or Little Thing," was significantly twisty and among the surprises was the heads of Gotham's gangs being killed by their underlings. It happened after Link crossed Feng Zhao when they were supposed to be delivering Oz to Sofia in exchange for her estate and territories. He and Zhao's crew killed their boss and Sofia's men for the chance to rise up which is something Zhao never gave them.

What followed was a montage of the bosses being strangled, shot, and bludgeoned to death by their right hand people, all in service to Oz who is the only one who has given them the means to climb higher than they've been allowed.

Victor Aguilar

Fans of this crime drama called this death, but we hoped we'd be wrong. Unfortunately, Oz is who he is and no matter how much you've helped him, he's always going to help himself more. After he was told that his mother, Francis, had fallen into a vegetative state due to the massive stroke she suffered, Oz realized he couldn't have any weaknesses.

While he knows family is a strength, it's also a liability and Victor saw him as family. The teen said as much when they were drinking together near the end of the finale and he thanked Oz for giving him a chance. Oz strangled him in order to ensure that Victor could never be used against him like his mother was. Once the dirty deed was done, he took the money out of Victor's wallet and tossed his ID into the river.

As you can see The Penguin was bloody and ruthless throughout its run on HBO and Max. But could we really have expected anything else from this crime drama? After all, it's about the rise of the kingpin of Gotham. Stay tuned to Bam Smack Pow for more coverage!