The Penguin star Clancy Brown on Sal’s war with Oz in episode 7

Note: This story contains spoilers from episode 7 of ‘The Penguin’.

Salvatore Maroni and Oz Cobb finally clashed in the penultimate episode of “The Penguin” and it ended as bloody as expected.

From the start, Oz (Colin Farrell) has been poking and prodding Sal (Clancy Brown), knowing he was safely behind bars. He tried to make a deal with the Maroni family to screw over the Falcone’s and get into business selling Bliss. All that was lost when he kidnapped Sal’s child and burned him and his wife Nadia in a warehouse.

Brown told TheWrap that Sal was a “hibernating bear” while locked up, but now that he’s free and working with Sofia (Cristin Milioti), all he wants is revenge.

‘He’s just hibernating. He is a big bear who is hibernating in his cave until he can fight his way through the corrupt system to get out and get back to work,” Brown said. “It’s like the gangs in the ’60s and ’70s: the same thing happened in New York. I couldn’t really delve into the traditions. I had to dig into the actual history a little bit. “

He added: “When he comes out, he is a bear full of rage, giving in to his animalistic desire for revenge and retaliation.”

Sal is on the warpath because of what happened to his wife and son. If they were both burned alive, it would affect everyone. It’s one of the most gruesome moments in HBO’s violent series, but Brown said what makes it worse is that the Maroni family was one of the healthier ones featured on the show.

“He’s as close as you can get to a good relationship – a good parent-child relationship, a good marriage,” he said. “I mean, he’s about as close as we can get in this damn world called Gotham. I thought that was an interesting counterpoint. It’s pretty cool to be the relationship that works.”

Sal turns to Sofia for help in taking down Oz. The two break bread at the safe house where Sal is staying and while the moment certainly seems akin to “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” there was a sweetness to the scene that Brown said was hammered home by showrunner Lauren LeFranc .

“Lauren felt it was important for Sofia to see that there was a way for the family to work,” Brown said. “And there can be a family that can trust and love each other. She really wanted it to be a warm scene. I think Cristin played it as hot as Sofia can get. She was very wary. I liken it to trying to lure a feral cat or dog into your car to take it to the shelter.

Thanks to Sofia, Sal gets his hands on Oz and takes him to his hidden Bliss operation. He’s ready to take it all off his hands when Oz starts twisting the knife. He tells Sal how his wife and son smelled as they burned. That puts him on edge as fights break out all over the compound. Sal strings Oz along until a heart attack stops him.

Oz wants the satisfaction of beating Sal himself – which wasn’t going to happen – and Brown says Sal’s death naturally increases his frustrations. He added that the two are animals and that Sal winning – but almost winning on a technicality – pushes Oz further into that animal nature.

“Sal has an expression of fear because he knows he’s going to have a heart attack and die,” Brown said. ‘He wanted to kill him. He was ready. He was actively doing it when it happened. Then it’s about Oz’s frustration, because he’s an animal too and he wants to win, he wants to kill. He wants to be a predator.”

“The Penguin” airs Sundays at 9PM ET/PT and streams on Max.