Episode Report Card Aaron: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Do you shiv or swallow?
By Aaron | Season 6 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.04.2003
The next day, Ryan meets with his new fancy-pants lawyer, who exposits that Cyril can't be considered mentally retarded because his injury didn't occur until after he was eighteen. Um, okay. I'm just going to assume that little tidbit is part of the lesser known Plot-Device Amendment to the USA Patriot Act and not give it a second thought. This means, of course, that Cyril can still be executed for killing Li Chen. Fancy Pants announces that their new course of action will be to prove that Chen's murder wasn't premeditated, and that all they need to succeed is a single witness.
Okay, seriously. Whose kid is it that they let direct these second-unit crime flashbacks? Tom Fontana's? Chris Albrecht's? It's got to be someone's, because they're consistently the most hideously awful portion of the show. I mean, I could buy the uber-cheesy digital video camcorder effects as some sort of artistic statement about the banality of crime, but the production values are so routinely awful, and the crimes themselves so mind-numbingly stupid, that more often than not I find myself checking the remote to see if I've accidentally flipped over to a cable access channel. For God's sake, Glenn Shupe killed a guy by throwing a dart at his head this week. What the fuck is that? And somebody turn off that friggin' green filter while we're at it. This ain't the Matrix, you know.
Back in Oz, Shupe leans against the phone and dials with his one remaining hand. He looks saddened by his disability, but with hair like his, and that tie-dyed shirt he's wearing, I foresee a long and profitable career as the new drummer for Def Leppard after his release. Ryan, however, has other ideas, and he shows up to threaten Shupe into cooperating with Cyril's attorney. Which Shupe promptly does, telling the guy that Cyril was only acting to save his brother's life.
Later, Ryan, Betty Buckley, Sister Pete, and the lawyer meet to discuss the case. Unfortunately, Glenn Shupe doesn't make for a very credible witness, because every one knows that he's a pathological liar. "The irony is that this time he's telling the truth," says the lawyer. "Shut up, Alanis," replies Aaron. Ryan paces back and forth in the office as the others discuss strategy, and keeps having flashbacks to Cyril in his cell until we finally fade to white.
Fade back up on the gym, where Ryan finds Peter Schibetta working out on a Nautilus machine. He taunts the kid a bit about his time in the psych ward, but since none of it even approaches "keep your sunny side up" levels of hilarity, I won't bother transcribing it. Petey endures this for a moment, but then jumps up to accuse Ryan out of nowhere of being the guy who murdered his father all the way back in Season One. Ryan claims it was Adebisi who did the deed, and also points out that even if he was guilty, a prag like Petey wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyway. Petey fluffs his hair a little more, the better with which to look slightly unhinged, and waves a threatening finger in Ryan's face before stomping off in a huff.