Episode Report Card Djb: D | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Love Pope
By Djb | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 08.01.2000
Cut to Querns making an impression on the prisoners, introducing himself with a low, growling, Vincent Price-esque vocal cadence, in which he tells them all, "I'm not some candy-assed white liberal looking to turn you into better citizens." Hmmmm...sound like anyone you know? He's going to meet with each prisoner individually eventually, but until then, he wants them all to remember one important principle: "Don't fuck with Querns." Furtive where-the-hell-is-that-candy-assed-white-liberal-when-we-need-him looks are exchanged plentifully around the floor.
Cut to Querns in McManus's old office, meeting with Adebisi. He's indulgently telling Adebisi about his own drug-dealing history, as if he's expecting Adebisi to lean forward and offer him a hearty, "Hats off to you, new friend!" He doesn't. Querns tells him that he was never caught for his underworldly deeds of yesteryear, and that he knows every trick Adebisi can try. He then utters a true fan favorite line of dialogue when he stands above Adebisi, regards the hat warily, and looks with both his eyes and his hands in inquiring, "How do you keep that thing on your head?" Exactly. Adebisi stands, and Querns sits him right back down. And thus his radical ideology as unit manager is presently set forth: "To my mind, drugged-out prisoners make for a quiet cell block. So you can sell whatever the fuck you want to whoever you want to sell it to, I don't care." On one condition: no violence. Is this wise? Lionel, it's not wise. Hello? I just got to let you know. Cut to Adebisi, Pancamo, and Morales deciding that they trust the motives of Querns. They're totally okay with this plan. Easy, as they say, like a certain Sunday morning I might mention here.
Tim McManus has peeled himself off the back of the unemployment line and dropped into Glynn's office for a visit. He admits that after Frenchy's shooting and the disappearance of Carmela Soprano to an HBO lot just across town (er, I mean, the highly plausible "London"), he just went plum crazy. He even apologizes for his much-heralded singing at the downed officer's memorial service back in Episode 2, and I think he should hold his tongue on the "sorry, boss" for providing arguably the most entertaining moment this season has seen thus far. Anyway, he wants his job back. But, as we've recently learned, a certain platinum pop sensation of the seventies and eighties has swooped callously into town to ensure that that won't be happening. Tim nearly breaks down, saying that Em City is his life. He brings up Clayton Hughes and blames him explicitly for getting the gun into Oz. Glynn fills in the blanks: Hughes has been charged and is out on bail until his trial starts, just so there are no incredulous shouts of "hey..." from the home viewing audience when Hughes shows up, not-in-jail-style, in a future scene. McManus wants his old unit back. Glynn says no ten or twenty more times. Then he offers McManus Unit B, the light-free basement hell hole and current home of a certain Nazi Skinhead Freak, who laughs (I said keep that smile to yourself, villain) at the new unit manager's arrival and adds, for good measure, "Well, well. Look who's here to join the party." At least he and the new cat up in Em City can put together some killer vocal duets for the yearly, much-awaited Oz Employee Talent Competition. That should take his mind off the hellbound nightmare his life has otherwise become since last I put my recapping shoes on two weeks ago.