It’s very hard to turn off Easter egg brain. That’s the way of approaching shows, particularly those based on comic books, without wondering “Oh, who is this character secretly?” Versus watching a show, and just taking in what you see on screen. Take, for example, Dr. Julian Rush, played by Theo Rossi on the second episode of HBO’s The Penguin. Is Dr. Julian Rush from DC Comics? Is he secretly Batman villain The Scarecrow???
Or, alternately, is he Dr. Julian Rush, a therapist working with Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), and that’s it?
Spoilers for The Penguin Episode 2, “Inside Man” past this point.
Rush is first seen right at the top of this week’s episode. Or rather, first, we cut in on Sofia, back in Arkham after killing seven women as the serial killer known as Hangman. It becomes apparent she’s in some sort of dream state once Alberto Falcone (Michael Zegen) shows up with his finger cut off — just as we left his dead body at the end of last week’s episode.
Turns out, Sofia is in the middle of a red light hypnosis therapy session with Rush, and when she comes out of her fugue state, she freaks out. Rush then does a very un-doctor-like thing by holding Sofia tightly, until she calms down. There’s a moment when it looks like they might kiss, before she calms down entirely, and leaves.
That’s all we see of Dr. Julian Rush in the episode, but — possible spoilers here — Rossi was credited as Sofia’s lover when his role was announced, so it definitely seems like some doctor/patient boundaries have been crossed here. And obviously, more to come.
Those are the circumstances that we see in this week’s episode, but how about Rush? Easter egg brain activated: is there anything we can find out about his character from the comics?
Who Is Dr. Julian Rush From DC Comics?
The answer is that Dr. Julian Rush seems to be an original character created for The Penguin. Last week fans were losing their minds over Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), wondering if because his first name is “Victor” he might be Victor Fries, aka Mr. Freeze, or Victor Zsasz, a serial killer and Batman villain. Chances are, Victor is simply Victor, Oswald Cobb’s (Colin Farrell) driver, and a kid who lives on the mean streets of Gotham. Lots of people have the same first name, after all.
That said, there is a character named Rush who vaguely looks like Theo Rossi. First introduced in Green Arrow #1 in 2011, created by J.T. Krul and Dan Jurgens, Rush is a generic supervillain with strength and durability who fought Green Arrow and led a gang of supervillains. He’s not a therapist and other than the name has no similarity to the character on The Penguin.
There’s another character that Rush seems far more similar to, and frankly, I thought we were going to get the reveal up until the camera went over to the “Dr. Julian Rush” nameplate on his desk… Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka The Scarecrow. The villain is usually presented as a doctor at Arkham, experimenting on inmates, ultimately driven mad by his use of fear gas to induce nightmares.
Mind you, there are a lot of similarities here. First meeting Rush inducing nightmares on Sofia, and making her confront her fears? The morally iffy medical boundaries? They’ve even got the same first initial in “J” which, I’m sure, is making the nerd internet go crazier than, well, Scarecrow right now.
And it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that this is, indeed, the Batman Epic Crime Saga version of Scarecrow. In The Batman, the movie changed the name of The Riddler from Edward Nygma to Edward Nashton. And The Penguin changed Oswald Cobblepot to Oswald Cobb. Going from Dr. Julian Rush to Dr. Jonathan Crane is a bigger stretch, but not without precedent.
Still, it’s far more likely that Theo Rossi is simply playing Dr. Julian Rush, a psychologist or hypnotherapist who has crossed some ethical boundaries. We’ll potentially know more as the season continues.
Who Is Theo Rossi? Here’s Where You Know The Actor From:
Born John Theodore Rossi, and professionally credited as Theo Rossi, the actor is probably best known to comic book fans as Hernan “Shades” Alvarez from Marvel and Netflix’s Luke Cage. Continuing the nickname trend, he also played Juan Carlos “Juice” Ortiz on Sons of Anarchy.
He’s appeared in dozens of TV shows including Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Jericho, Lost, Veronica Mars, and more. On the big screen, you may have seen him in Cloverfield, Army of the Dead, or Emily the Criminal.
He’s currently got 317.2k followers on X (formerly Twitter), and 627k on Instagram. Go follow him there, and speculate wildly about whether he’s Scarecrow or just a corrupt therapist.
Where To Watch The Penguin:
The Penguin Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
The first episode of The Penguin premieres Thursday, September 19 at 9 pm ET on HBO and Max. There will be an encore airing on Sunday, September 22 at 9 pm ET, and then the show will move to its regular time slot of Sundays at 9 pm ET starting on September 29.
Here’s the full list of episodes in The Penguin, with premiere dates:
- Thursday, September 19, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 1: “After Hours”
- Sunday, September 29, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 2: “Inside Man”
- Sunday, October 6, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 3: “Bliss”
- Sunday, October 13, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 4: “Cent’Anni”
- Sunday, October 20, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 5: “Homecoming”
- Sunday, October 27, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 6: “Gold Summit”
- Sunday, November 3, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 7: “Top Hat”
- Sunday, November 10, 2024: The Penguin, Episode 8: “Great or Little Thing”