The winds of change were clearly blowing in The Penguin episode 6, "Gold Summit," as Oz Cobb and his crew worked to take over the drug trade in Gotham. The two buckets he salvaged of the mushrooms that make Bliss were enough for Oz to get his operation off the ground and have the gangs of the city looking to buy from him. That is, of course, before Sofia Gigante and Sal Maroni made their move.
They strung up three corner boys as a warning: work with Oz and your foot soldiers will be killed. It got the gangs to back off which would have set him back if he didn't pivot as he is prone to doing. Oz decided to give his product away for free for one night, telling his boys to run Bliss through all the boroughs and territories so people could get a taste. It was all about demand considering he's the one with the supply. The move forced the hand of the gangs. He got them all to meet up with him as he had a proposition they couldn't resist.
What is the Gold Summit on The Penguin?
Sure the name of Oz's meet up with Gotham's gangs has a name for the history books but it wasn't a fancy coming together of minds. Oz rolled up in a flatbed carrying a freezer full of beer which he tossed out to the heads of each gang who'd come to hear him out.
At first there were complaints about how Oz's decisions had blown back on them but he put an end to that with the truth. The reason they didn't retaliate is because they knew Sal and Sofia would squash it. But he proposed that they create an alliance, hence this Gold Summit. The fat cats of Gotham, in the hallowed halls of the government, hate one another but they work together to further their own interests and that's what Oz proposed that he and the gangs of the city do.
It's not like Sofia and Sal even know their names. They consider the rest of Gotham's crime world to be beneath them. But Oz, he's made a point of knowing people. He's aware of the movers and shakers, their underlings, and the communities they run. He knows how this world works from top to bottom. If they all align against the Gigantes and Maronis, then nothing can stop them.
Zhao, the leader of the Triad, was skeptical but as the rest of the leaders cracked their beers to acknowledge they were on board with Oz, so did he. This was a major move but little did Oz know, Sofia was also making her own game-changing play.
Sofia Falcone finds out about Oz's closest held secret
Well, Oz's chickens came home to roost in "Gold Summit." His decision to rat out Sofia to Carmine gave him the upward mobility he needed to start making a name for himself in Gotham's underbelly but it's now come back to haunt him big time.
Eve, his former lady love, gave him up to Sofia when the newly minted head of the Gigante family paid her a visit. All Eve wanted was the crime boss' word that she'd leave her girls alone but the two got to talking and that conversation held a revelation that tipped the situation in Sofia's favor. Eve, like everyone else in the city, thought Sofia really was the Hangman, but she explained to her that she wasn't.
It was her father Carmine who'd killed all of those women, two of which had been Eve's friends. Oz knew this and he'd kept Eve in the dark. The man she'd had a complicated, quid quo pro relationship with had knew all along who really murdered her friends and he let Sofia take the fall all so he could climb the ladder. When Sofia decided she wasn't going to kill her, Eve chose to share that Oz has been staying in Crown Point near the zoo. Sofia assured Eve that she wouldn't say where she got that information from.
"Gold Summit" ends with Victor and Francis dancing around the apartment now that the power has come back on. It's a joyous moment, one Victor needed after he'd shot and killed Squid to protect this secret...only for it to be discovered anyway.
Unbeknownst to the happy pair, an armed Sofia was watching them in shock as she'd been told by Oz that his mother had died. Obviously, Francis is quite alive. What Sofia does with this knowledge can't be good for her former driver and now thorn in her side.
The Penguin airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.