Episode Report Card Chuck: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Naked and the Dead
By Chuck | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.05.2002
Or not. The school bus driver climbs on the horn; the bus narrowly misses the careening semi, shoots off the road, and does a couple of rolls before coming to a standstill. I don't see any stunt dummies (children, whatever) in the back, and we immediately cut to the diminutive governor making some proclamation, so it'll be awhile until we know what really happened. Maybe the children were gifted and deaf, on their way to distribute canned goods to the less fortunate. And the limbless.
So, the governorette is holding a press conference and yammering about the state's fabulous, modern correctional facility -- the most neatest, modernest one in the whole solar system, to hear him tell it. The state will spare no expense or effort in housing -- and punishing, emphasizes Tiny Devlin -- criminals (or "bottom-feeders," as he calls them. So sodomy laws must still be in effect round these here parts). Four hands and the largest pair of scissors in Christendom (which I just know will disappear into someone's briefcase and get whisked through airport security and carried on to a plane, even though my nailclippers were confiscated last time I flew, lest I manicure someone to death) cut the ribbon on, I presume, the new, super-strength, post-explosion Oz. The new Oz looks exactly like the old Oz, with industrial metal appointments and cozy family-style mess hall seating.
And apparently just a dining room, as the tour abruptly ends. Self-righteous Father Mukada barrels into view. Parking lot. School bus. Mukada speaking in annoying, soothing tones about visiting difficulties caused by the recent explosion to a group of completely uninterested listeners. Visitors to Oz standing next to the school bus, including the Schillinger girl with dead Hank's spawn. Those who they love and who love them. Well, perhaps I can just stop writing right now, since the rest of the episode has just been explained. And there goes the gifted-children theory.
Murphy and McManus are organizing the prisoners for their return to Oz; McManus mentions that this is the first visiting day in months. Think that bus will be full? As McManus calls inmate names for line-up, Mukada reads from a list of bus-bound visitors -- all females: Carrie Schillinger and baby; Hill's mother; a black Muslim woman; a sassy Latina, all fuchsia and cigarettes. The women board the bus and the prisoners parade back into Oz, making grunty, manly noises about the refurbishment. The bus begins the drive to Oz as the return procession continues. Back and forth and back and forth; Mukada smiles smugly as he surveys the denizens of the estrogen-mobile; the inmates remark about the completely non-existent differences between old Oz and new Oz. Room assignments are delivered and the bus keeps moving.