Episode Report Card Aaron: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, he is free at last!
By Aaron | Season 6 | Episode 3 | Aired on 01.18.2003
Augustus Hill: [complete with ludicrous faux-rasta accent] "One good thing about music: when it hits you, you feel no pain. So hit me with music." -- Bob Marley, "Trenchtown Rock"
Aaron: "Take a step forward, lads. It will be easier that way." -- Erskine Childers. Firing squad, November 24, 1922.
As Dobbins continues strumming away on his famed Concerto in D Minor for Harpsichord and Shiv, we see good ol' Billy Clyde Tuggle utilizing a distraction in the hospital ward to sneak into the mayor's private room. Once there, he tragically opts not to make the man squeal like a pig before slashing hizzoner's throat with a scalpel, sending an arterial blood spray splattering across the sheets, the walls, and Billy Clyde's own presumably toothless mouth. Ew. Farewell, Messy Helms. You'll not be missed. We then go to the wrap-around, with Schillinger, Beecher, Beecher's ugly sweater, and Governor Smallpox each responding to the news of Loewen's death with an flat and emotionless "Oh, well."
And speaking of a flat and emotionless "Oh, well," it's once again time for everyone's favorite part of the show: The Rebadoze & Patti Jailhouse Geriatrics Hour. This week's installment updates the continuing saga of Patti's quixotic quest to save the troubled of youth of Oz by enrolling in them in Oprah's book-of-the-month club. When she's informed that an eighteen-year-old new arrival clubbed his cellmate with one of her precious healing tomes, she immediately jots his name down, so as not to miss out on even a single opportunity to prove how truly annoying a patronizing do-gooder can be. When Rebadoze asks if her boyfriend minds that she spends so much time in Oz, however, Patti's nuclear-powered Heuristic Mega-Watt Emotion Generator kicks over from "maudlin" to "coquettish" (albeit with an unfortunate catastrophic meltdown somewhere in the vicinity of "constipated") and replies, "Is that your not-so-subtle way of asking if I'm involved?" Then she hops up on the table and shoves her knees in his face as a flirting technique. Oh, please. I know Dr. Melfi. Dr. Melfi's knees are friends of mine. And you, ma'am, are no Jennifer Melfi. "Men are like books," she explains, in a cliché so obvious that I was actually able to recap this scene before it even aired. "Sometimes I want a romance, sometimes a thriller, sometimes maybe a trashy novel to take to the beach, and sometimes, I want a classic. A classic like YOU, Bob. Take me now, you neck-string-wearing hunk of finely-aged manflesh!" Ew. Sorry. On the other hand, I've just realized that Patti's shirt has a neck-string of its very own printed around the collar. Hee! It's got the little knot and everything! Now THAT'S funny. Seriously, people. If you've got the episode on tape, go back and check it out. Someone in the costume department is totally my new hero for that. Anyway, Rebadoze wonders if she's ever been married, and even goes so far as to suggest that maybe she's been "reading" too fast. "I'm voracious," she replies. And I'm nauseous. Moving on.