Why was this main character killed in the finale?

SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the season finale of The penguin on HBO.

Yes, Oz Cobb managed to bend over The low.

In one of the last scenes of The penguinIn Colin Farrell’s eight-episode season, Colin Farrell’s character had one final surprise to offer fans: No one, absolutely no one, is safe in his increasingly violent orbit.

Despite his love and admiration for young Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), Oz takes the life of his most trusted confidant. For EP/Showrunner Lauren LeFranc, it was important to showcase this “inevitable quality” of Penguin before the limited season on HBO comes to a close.

“Oz has shown that he is someone who is narcissistic and lives in his own delusion. He has a really hard time receiving love and he looks for it from his mother, but he never fully trusts her with people,” LeFranc tells Deadline. “In many ways he is a broken man. When it comes to Victor, it was really important to me that Oz kill him – not because he had a reason to, and Victor stood up for him. Victor is like family. But Victor saw Oz at his weakest and most vulnerable. Oz really feels like he needs a certain amount of power. He can’t have weakness, so he kills Victor.”

“It’s not that Victor did anything wrong,” LeFranc continues. “I think Oz really chose in that moment to kill his own heart and embrace the monster that he is. It’s a terrible tragedy, and I’ve always viewed our show as a tragedy. I hope people are horrified by what Oz is doing, because there’s no justifiable reason we’ve given for him, which is always important. I think a lot about who dies, when, and what people might think about those deaths. Who has the power at this moment? Who is mistreating someone else at this moment to create these dark and terrible justifications?”

Luckily for Feliz, he knew from the start that his character wouldn’t have to wait long for the fictional city of Gotham.

“The very first meeting I had with Lauren, we sat down and she told me the entire character arc of Victor,” he tells Deadline. “So I knew where we were going before I even got to New York [where production occurred].”

At least it helped shape his character’s journey. “I knew the core of what it was about, so I could try to create an arc that would end and hopefully make it as tragic and surprising as possible,” says Feliz. “Oz doesn’t want weaknesses. He’s just experienced what it’s like to have someone he cares about suffer pain. I think he doesn’t want to feel that vulnerable again, so he might as well take out Victor now before someone uses it against him.”

Feliz says the death scene was filmed in the early morning hours on Roosevelt Island in New York’s East River. In the week leading up to her scene, Farrell would sometimes nudge the young actor and ask, “Are you ready for our scene?” Are you ready for this?”

“It was a big deal,” Feliz admits. “Colin was good. He checked to make sure my neck was okay because I told him, ‘Do it. Don’t hold back so much.’ I just wanted it to feel real, whatever that is. Am I depressed? Not necessarily. I knew it was going to be a limited series, so I knew it was going to be one right from the start and that’s it. If there is a way out, there is no better way than to perish at the hands of the boss himself. And I’ve never died on screen!”