The Batman is receiving its first spinoff in the form of a TV series starring Colin Farrell as the Penguin, and the Oswald Cobblepot standalone vehicle just received an exciting new update in the form of its second cast member. How I Met Your Mother star Cristin Milioti has boarded the HBO Max production in the all-important role of Sofia Falcone, a character who will be very familiar to DC Comics readers.
Milioti might be best known to general audiences for her role as Tracy, the eponymous mother, in the aforementioned sitcom, but the Tony and Grammy-Award winning actress has proven herself to be best-suited to more morally complex and darker characters in other projects, such as Made for Love, Black Mirror, and The Resort, so naturally her hiring as Sofia has inspired a lot of excitement among the fandom, with Matt Reeves even welcoming her into the Bat-family.
But who is Sofia Falcone and what can we expect from Cristin Milioti in The Penguin series? Let’s take a look…
Who is Sofia Falcone in the DC universe?
First of all, the announcement of Milioti’s casting offered a brief character description which introduces Sofia as the show’s female lead. The daughter of Carmine Falcone (as played by John Turturro in The Batman), she’ll be battling Cobblepot for control of Gotham City’s criminal underworld in the wake of her father’s death at the hands of the Riddler.
While not a direct translation of Sofia’s arc in the comics, this does evoke the role she fills in the source material. Milioti’s part in The Penguin being announced on Oct. 31 was no doubt a deliberate nod to Batman: The Long Halloween, the seminal graphic novel from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale in which the villain made her debut. The comic was previously a big influence on The Batman‘s storyline so it appears it will continue to be of inspiration to this off-shoot, too.
In The Long Halloween, Sofia is similarly introduced as Carmine’s daughter, recognizable for her tall stature and muscular physique—which has led to her nickname of Sofia “Gigante” Falcone. The storyline explores a killer who wipes out many of Gotham’s most prominent mobsters from one October to the next—a killer ultimately revealed to be her apparently meek brother, Alberto. Sofia herself is presumed dead when she falls out of her father’s penthouse apartment after tussling with Catwoman (her half-sister in The Batman universe).
Sofia returns in sequel storyline Dark Victory, in which she is introduced as having become paralyzed due to her fall and has to permanently wear a neck-brace. However—spoilers!—it ultimately turns out that new serial killer the Hangman, who has been murdering Gotham police officers, is Sofia herself, having faked her paralysis. She takes out her “disappointment” of a brother and attempts to execute Two-Face for killing her father, but is stopped by Batman, only to be shot dead by Harvey Dent.
Milioti is far from the first actress to bring Sofia to life. Teen Wolf‘s Crystal Reed notably played her as a major antagonist in Gotham season 4, in which she similarly was depicted as fighting Oswald (Robin Lord Taylor) to rule Gotham, as well as serving as a femme fatale love interest for Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie). Laila Berzins also voiced the character in The Long Halloween‘s two-part animated movie adaptation.
The Penguin series, which Colin Farrell promises us will be “tasty and unusual,” will waddle onto HBO Max sometime in 2023.
