‘The Penguin’ Puts Kinky, Feminist Spin on the Crime Drama as Dr. Rush Goes from Psychiatrist to Sub

Creator Lauren LeFranc on flipping genre conventions: “In crime dramas many men sleep with women and then discard them, and that to me felt relevant for Sofia, she's going to use Rush.”

It doesn’t matter what version of Batman, comics or movies or series, Arkham Aslyum for the criminally insane is never an institution promising professionalism and the best in psychiatric care. This was on “The Penguin” creator Lauren LeFranc’s mind when she created Dr. Julian Rush, played by Theo Rossi, a character, much like the series, that puts a very different spin on “Batman” lore.

“We brought in Dr. Rush thinking about how infamously in the comics, there’s so many psychiatrists from Arkham, and they’re all usually insane or villains themselves,” said LeFranc. “It doesn’t really breed a lot of healthy practices.”

Picking up where “The Penguin” executive producer Matt Reeves left off in “The Batman,” showing a bleak vision of Arkham where the Riddler (Paul Dano) meets the Joker (Barry Keoghan), LeFranc expands upon Reeves’ vision, painting a dark hellscape where Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) is institutionalized, under false circumstances, and experiences something more torturous than prison.

“It’s not really rehabilitative in the way that Sofia claims she’s been rehabilitated in the first episode,” said LeFranc.

When Sofia returns from her ten-year stint at Arkham, she is desperate for everyone to see her as normal and for life to return to how it was before her now-deceased father, the powerful mob boss Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong), altered the course of her life by having her committed to Arkham. The irony being, as we see in Episode 4 flashbacks, Sofia was in good mental health prior to her barbaric treatment at the asylum.

As LeFranc told IndieWire, part of the inspiration for her version of Sofia was Rosemary Kennedy, whose father had her lobotomized her at age 23 for being difficult, and, unlike Sofia, was never able to tell her own story. Initially, the creation of Dr. Rush became a narrative tool that allowed LeFranc to unfurl Sofia’s story, not only to the audience but Sofia herself.

“I wanted to introduce a character from Arkham, and I wanted you to not know who this man is in the second episode,” said LeFranc. “And then we come to Episode 4 and you realize that he and Sofia have a deep history in Arkham. He’s someone who did end up believing her.”

In true Arkham tradition, Rush crosses professional boundaries but in ways that are unexpected, revealing, and compassionate. Carmine Falcone was so feared, only Sofia’s brother Alberto (Michael Zegen) stands by her, but he is powerless, even with lawyers, to free her. With all the signed affidavits declaring Sofia insane and falsely painting her as “The Hangman” killer, doctors at the institution fall in line as well. In the darkest moments, trapped in the darkest hell, Rush, a junior doctor, is the only one who sees what is really happening to her.

“Though his hands were tied and he couldn’t do much about it, [he] also enabled us to establish EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing] therapy, which is a very useful therapeutic tool to dig into your past trauma and to try to confront it,” said LeFranc.

In Episode 4, LeFranc and team put their own cinematic spin on the therapeutic treatment, with waves of red light in a noirish setting, as Rush helps Sofia unlock the painful truth about her father (he was actually the Hangman, who killed multiple sex workers) and her mother (she didn’t commit suicide by hanging, but was one of her father’s victims). It’s a truth that sets Sofia free, as she stops hiding her scars and anger, and seizes control of the Falcone crime family by killing off those who were loyal to her father, and rebranding it the Gigantes in honor of her mother.

These EMDR revelations don’t just have a profound effect on Sofia but Rush and their already unconventional patient-doctor relationship. In Episode 5, Rush shows up at the Falcone Mansion, now a crime scene, not to admonish or counsel her for killing off her family — he agrees with Sofia when she says, “I think we’re past the point of analysis, don’t you?”

“When I saw what happened on the news, I knew it was you, that you did what you had to do. I can already see it,” says Rush, explaining why he came. “What it has given you — the release. And I’d like to feel that too, with you. I’d like to be a part of whatever’s next.”

In the next scene, Rush watches, like a doting foot soldier, as Sofia grabs the reins at the head of the Falcone crime family table when she shoots Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly) in the head.

“I was interested in the idea of creating a dynamic between Sofia and Julian Rush that felt where she’s the alpha and he’s the beta,” said LeFranc. “Where he is in awe of her and, and sees something darker in himself and sees what she’s evolved into and is really fascinated by that and wants to be around her and wants to be a part of that.”

This goes to whole different level when we next see the two characters together in Episode 6, as a post-coital Sofia gets dressed, she checks to make sure the tied-up and naked (pants around his ankles) Rush wasn’t hurt during their BDSM encounter.

“I deserve it,” replies Rush, as Sofia unties him from the chair, and opens the door, to which he replies, “Bored with me already?”

“I have work,” Sofia coldly replies.

LeFranc told IndieWire that this was part of her overarching desire to create different types of roles for women characters than we’ve come to expect in crime dramas.

“Sofia doesn’t feel a deeply emotional connection to him, again, sort of flipping on its head this idea of you’ve seen a lot of crime dramas — many men sleep with women and then discard them. And that to me felt relevant for Sofia, she’s going to use Rush for the things that he brings as a psychiatrist and certainly does utilize him [in the last two episodes series],” said LeFranc. “But also will take advantage of him in whatever way — he’s fascinated with her, that’s kind of nice for her to enjoy, and then she’ll call him when she needs him.”

Episode 7 of “The Penguin” airs on HBO and Max on November 3.