If there was one truly good person among the cast of (mostly criminal) characters in The Penguin, it was Victor “Vic” Aguilar, played by Rhenzy Feliz. Tragically, Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) killed Vic in the series finale. Although Vic was always under threat of death throughout the series from Oz, he eventually began to feel safe with him. He even came to see him as a father figure of sorts. As Oz climbed to the top of the criminal underworld, Vic was loyally by his side. All of that was for nothing, as Oz strangled Vic in the final moments of the series finale, letting his body float away in the river. It’s one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire series. RIP Victor Aguilar, you deserved better.
Vic’s Tragic Backstory in The Penguin
Vic was a kid from the working class part of Gotham, who lost his entire family when the Riddler destroyed the sea walls in The Batman. The sea water flooded his entire neighborhood, killing his parents and sibling. Vic is soon forced into criminal activity to survive. In the first episode of The Penguin, Vic and some friends try stealing the rims off of Oz Cobb’s car. His friends run when Oz discovers them and starts shooting at them, but he catches up to Vic. Instead of killing him, as he planned to do, he takes pity on the boy for his stutter. After all, Oz has his own disability and that shared commonality reached to some humanity in him. (Or so we thought.)
At first, Oz forces Vic to work for him under threat of death. Eventually, Oz warms up to him. Vic becomes almost like a surrogate son to him. There are genuinely moving scenes between the two. Early in the series, Vic even saves Oz’s life. So it came as a massive shock to viewers when, after Oz has consolidated all power, he murders Vic in cold blood. He saw his emotional attachment to the boy as a weakness, so he had to eliminate him. (Also, it stands to reason he believed that Vic knew too much.) It’s the moment when we know for sure that Oz has no true redeeming qualities, as much as the series creators fooled us into thinking otherwise.
Vic Shared Many Similarities to Robin II, Jason Todd, Including His Fate
Vic shared many similarities to Batman’s second Robin, Jason Todd. They both met their mentor figures by trying to steal a piece of his car. Both were taken under that mentor’s wing because they saw something of themselves in each young man. Now, like Jason Todd, Vic was brutally murdered in the prime of his life. Comic book fans should have seen this coming, as at one point, Oz threatened Vic with a crowbar. In the comics, the Joker famously killed Robin by beating him to death with a crowbar. It was our first big clue that Vic wasn’t making it out of this show alive. Given that Matt Reeves’ The Batman universe is far more grounded, we highly doubt Vic will ever come back to life like Jason did. There are no mystical Lazarus Pits in this world. But Vic will always be remembered as a great addition to the characters inhabiting Gotham City.
