Episode Report Card Aaron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Super Hole
By Aaron | Season 6 | Episode 4 | Aired on 01.25.2003
Sister Pete's office. Keller comes in for his biannual We're Going To Kill You, So We Need To Make Sure You're Sane Enough To Enjoy It mental health check-up, and he immediately resumes his old flirtatious ways with the good sister. For some reason, the director has elected to block this scene so that Keller looks as unattractive as possible. He's sporting a scraggly two-day growth of beard that's interlaced with various scratches and bruises from his fight with Lopresti, and we even get a long, lingering shot of his incipient beer-belly silhouetted against the only light source left in the entire prison. What's up with that? Keller mopes over the fact that Beecher has obviously fallen in love with someone else, and the sulking quickly escalates into blind rage when he admits that he wants to be able to have the same kind of life as Beecher. "I get executed," he shouts, "and [Beecher] lives a long, old life surrounded by his grandchildren." That's assuming his entire family isn't dead by now, of course. "You can't expect me not to be a little envious," he finishes, but Sister Pete says that if he truly loves Toby, he should be envious and even more. Aww. You know, these two are no Tony and Melfi or anything, but they're certainly no Rebadoze and Patti, either. Good scene.
After revving up his cinematic DeLorean to eighty-eight miles an hour and engaging the flux capacitor, Beecher returns to death row to announce to all and sundry that Keller's death sentence has just been commuted. Schillinger and Lopresti are standing by to provide comically disappointed reaction shots, and I'm left to mourn the fact that Vern manages less than thirty seconds of screen-time this entire episode. Perhaps he's the new Melfi. Keller grabs Toby through the bars of his cell, and they embrace as Keller repeatedly chants "I owe you my life" in a hoarse and desperate whisper.
And how does he repay that debt? Well, immediately upon his return to Gen Pop, he seeks out Cindy Brady in the weight room and heads over to introduce himself. Cindy, who looks as if he still might be wearing a bit of lipstick (Dick Suck Red? Neck Snap Mauve?), acts like the hottest boy in school just asked him to the prom when he replies, "You're Keller, right? I've heard plenty of stories about you." Giggle, giggle. Cindy is even more excited when Keller claims to find him "fascinating," and quickly agrees when it's suggested they meet later on in the Unit B storage closet. Then he grabs a pen and paper and plays MASH over and over again until he and Keller end up in a mansion with three kids and a Ferrari.