SPOILERS!
Okay, first thing first – there aren’t spoilers for a show that is over ten years old! If you weren’t able to see this series in over a decade, you can manage a spoiler or two. I hate spoiler alerts. First off, what do people expect when they click on recaps? Why are they even looking for recaps when they haven’t seen whatever it is they are looking up in the first place, unless they have a desire to be spoiled. So shut up about spoilers, in fact, I pledge to never warn about spoilers.
Oz, what a doozy of a show. Man, where do I even start? “Oz” is the street name of the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison set unofficially in New York State. The six-season run of the show ended in 2003 and featured an ensemble cast and, exciting for all, we get to see most of their penises! Hooray for penis enthusiasts everywhere! Also, hooray for prison rape aficionados, too. I tell you, if you like penises and prison rape, this show is for you!
For those of us that aren’t connoisseurs of penis and rape (NTTAWWT), Oz offers drama and creepy action(s). The show, sometimes ham-fistedly, covers all sorts of prison issues, social issues, prisoner rights, and love, I guess. Many cast members come and go, but there is a regular set of characters that we grow to, well, not love, but learn to tolerate. There are two groups of characters – faculty and prisoners.
The Faculty:
Warden Leo Glynn is a longtime employee at Oz that rose through the ranks to oversee the prison. Basically his character boils down to “I’m too old for this shit” so a lot of the time he just sits around reluctantly supporting his employees and prisoners.
Tim McManus runs “Emerald City” in Oz. Em City, as it’s called, is some sort of “make prison better” place that is still chock-full of abuse, violence, and rape. Tim is a stereotypical conflicted bleeding heart liberal that speaks of making prison life better as he continues to be the mayor of Rapeville. (Oh the emotional range his actor, Terry Kinney, fails to convey.) He likes to have sex with his coworkers and spends most of his time being a petty moron.
Sister Peter Marie Reimondo is a nun that, surprise surprise, deals with her faith in the face of the wacky shenanigans that occur in prison.
Father Ray Mukada teams up with the nun and McManus to make life somewhat better for the prisoners, but usually gets stuck in the middle of general goofery and such.
Correctional Officers are pretty plug-and-play with a few regulars. Ultimately, the CO’s randomly take turns at being dicks to the prisoners, sometimes participating in rape, sometimes being petty, and sometimes having a line or two that makes the viewer think they might just be okay, after all. Don’t buy it, though, the “screws” are evil, overall, and no one likes them.
The Prisoners:
Augustus Hill killed a cop during an apartment raid and was pushed off a building and left a paraplegic for his efforts. Hill is also the narrator of the show with these transition speeches between some scenes skits. These scenes are, ahem, F*CKING CORNY! I think I rolled my eyes every single time he gave some heavy-handed bit about this or that with the all-knowing wink and nod at the end to convey to the viewer that they were just given KNOWLEDGE!
Kareem Said is Muslim Imam that blew up a building once or something. He’s basically bounced around life trying to find himself, finally settling on Islam. He’s smart, he’s played by a good actor, and he’s corny as squirrel shit, too. He starts out as pro-black fella only to learn to befriend white devils, which ultimately leads to him being murdered by one…oh well, live and learn.
Miguel Alvarez came to Oz as a boring petty criminal but graduated to having a sweet soul, you know, after he killed a dude or two. He went crazy for a minute, and that was interesting.
Vernon Schillinger is your cartoonish Aryan Nation guy. Dude is pure evil, nothing redeemable about him or his ways. He loves to rape, enjoys inflicting pain on people, has a hobby in murder, and is batshit crazy. I mean, really, he’s a guy you want to die for the entire run of the show, yet he keeps on keeping on. Holy crap do I hate old Vern.
Tobias Beecher was out drunk driving and killed a young bicycle rider. He was a lawyer but quickly became a prison victim and love interest of Vern. Toby went from a whiny white collar Vern appeaser to a bad ass, to some sort of prison lawyer guy.
Ryan O’Reily is typical American Irish punk. He’s also Mayhem from the All State commercials, which is cool. He’s a little shit that is involved with everything that happens at the prison.
Review Continued:
Here’s the thing about Oz, there are so many idiotic coincidences and blatant bullshit scenarios that I sat there a lot of the time whispering, “Are you f*cking kidding me” or “Of course they wound up in Oz”. It’s as if Oz is the only prison option in this fictional world. That is the only way to explain all the stupidity.
Everyone knows everyone at Oz and if someone from the outside gets locked up, they’re going to Oz. Alvarez’s father and grandfather were in Oz. O’Reily’s idiot brother wound up in Oz (after O’Reily had his brother murder the husband of Oz’s lead doctor because he was in love with her.) One CO won the lottery off of an inmates numbers, ran off with $2-million, had a change of heart, and just came back to work his shift at Oz. One prisoner dug out two, TWO, tunnels and was allowed to stay in Em City after his plans failed. I’d think digging two tunnels would lead to life in solitary, but I’m no prison warden.
Back to O’Reily. So he fell in love with the lead doctor. She had a husband and was carrying on with McManus on the side because why not?. O’Reily figures that if her husband was gone, they’d be together. He gets his dimwit brother on the outside to kill the husband, everyone knows he did this and who made him do it, and he’s still sent to Oz and SHARES A CELL WITH HIS BROTHER!!! And the doctor? She stays at Oz! No transfer. No lawsuit. Nothing!
But it gets better. The doctor gets raped outside of Oz and everyone figures it’s O’Reily, who isn’t in solitary forever, and she STILL COMES BACK TO OZ! No transfer, no lawsuit. Jesus! Give me a break!
Oh, and O’Reily’s long lost mother decides to do community service, guess where, OZ!!! That’s right, O’Reily shares a cell with his brother and his mom volunteers at the prison. No conflict there, nope. Same prison that employs the doctor whose husband he put a hit out on.
What else? Oh yeah, people on death row at Oz either get executed super fast or never. There’s really no in between. Either you’re sentenced and executed in a few minutes or you’re on death row forever, or until your prison lawyer of the day (either Beecher or Said) gets you sprung.
God, this show sucked. From the stupid coincidences to the flopping peni to the rape. Pass on this show and save yourself.
Random Thoughts:
- Every show starts with HBO’s nudity warning, and I’d get excited every time I saw it, if only for a brief second, before my heart would sink because this show has the wrong sort of nudity.
- Really, Vern was so creepy and shitty. I hated him and his smugness. He’s one of those wacky people that think they’re correct and just.
- The governor makes way too many visits to Oz. It’s like Oz is the only public enterprise in the show. I doubt my own governor can even spell prison no less visit one every three days or so. He also picked the warden of the prison to be his Lt. Governor. Gee, where can I get a Lt. Governor? Prison, of course.
- Everyone dies in Oz yet the Feds are nowhere to be seen. Seriously, civilians go to Oz and get murdered and it’s like “Welp, this is Oz, yo, shit be happenin’ at Oz, wonder what’s for lunch?”
- Really, a bus full of civilian visitors crashes on the way to Oz and the basic response, save for story line fodder, is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Here's The Thing... 