Written by Vladimir Cvetko
Directed by Kevin Bray
Oz (to Francis): "You deserve the best and I'm gonna get it for you. I promise. And I ain't gonna quit til I do."
Oh, Oswald, talk about promises. We know he loves his mother but it's a love that doesn't entirely bring out the best in him either. I've loved watching Oz and Francis's relationship unfold over the season but it's also undeniably toxic one too.
In flashbacks, you've got the young Oz (Ryder Allen) being somewhat jealous of the attention Francis (Emily Meade) gave his brothers Jack (Owen Asztalos) and Benny (Nico Tirozzi). In fact, Oz's jealousy of his own brothers quite frankly led to their deaths.
In some ways I'm not surprised that Oswald was responsible for making himself an only child but it does add another dimension between him and Francis. Was there a part of her that knew what he did? Is that why she made him promise to make her happy? I kind of think so.
Speaking of Francis, an absolutely sublime performance from Deirdre O'Connell this week with her scenes with Sofia. Watching Sofia trying to work out Francis while also witnessing one of her episodes made for quite an intense scene. It's clear Sofia viewed Francis as responsible for Oz being the monster he is but at the same time, a lot of Francis's words affected Sofia too.
I do love that yet again, Sofia did get the upper hand with Oz by blowing his operation sky high. That was after Oz had gotten his own upper hand with Sal's death. I'll admit if the episode has a minus, it's in the somewhat anticlimactic way that Sal was wriiten out. Sal really didn't get enough time to savour getting one over on Oz.
Saying that, Oz really isn't in a good position either. Sofia has his mother, blew up his operation and managed to get her goons to capture him. For Oz's sake, he better hope that he's got a Plan B before Sofia finishes him off for good.
- We finally met Rex Calabrese (Louis Cancelmi) in flashbacks before Oz disposed of his brothers.
- Sofia had Gia committed to a children's home and seemed perturbed when she realised the latter was cutting herself.
- Julian really will do anything Sofia tells him to do but would he have been fine with her if she had harmed Gia?
- Victor was still alive and trying to get more muscle for Oswald while shit was going down.
- Standout music: Nice use of Islands In The Stream at the start of the episode.
- Chronology: The flashbacks had to have been in the 1980s considering that Oz told Francis that Jack and Benny went to see Beetlejuice.
Top Hat definitely gets points for those flashbacks and that scene between Sofia and Francis. It's a top notch penultimate episode as the ante got well and truly upped between Oswald and Sofia. Sal's death could've been better done but that's a minor quibble.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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