Episode Report Card Aaron: B- | 4 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT So Long, And Thanks For All The Dick
By Aaron | Season 6 | Episode 8 | Aired on 02.22.2003
Gloria comes racing into Querns's office to deliver the news, and she's forced to admit that whatever that powder may contain, it's way beyond her expertise. She recommends calling the state bio-terrorism unit, and also calls for an immediate evacuation of the entire prison. ["[Contrivance] now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke open the Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence the life o' the building!" -- Macbeth (Act II, Scene iii)]Alarms start blaring everywhere, and over in Em City, McManus and Murphy are trying to coordinate the prisoners' departure. "All I know is that the move is temporary," says McManus. "We'll be back someday." Yeah. I wouldn't bet on that one, Timbo. We get more shots of everyone from the staff to the prisoners in the hospital ward being evacuated from the building, and then we finally find ourselves on a bus where all of our favorite inmates are looking pensive and worried. Well, all of them except for Beecher, because he's too busy enjoying a private little smile at the thought of Chris Keller's last great "fuck you." The buses form a line and slowly start pulling out of the parking lot, and for what I believe is the first time ever, the camera pulls back to reveal a full-on exterior shot of the great and terrible Oswald State Correctional Facility. Farewell, Oswald. That light at the end of the tunnel means your hallways need never be darkened again.
But we're not through yet! We head back inside the now abandoned prison for a nice little audio and video montage. We hear the voices of guards and inmates past as we pan around the empty sets. The highlight comes when Edie Falco's distinctive nasal twang breaks through the babble to repeat her classic line from the show's very first episode: "We tell you when to eat, when to sleep, and when to piss." Aww. Sniff. Edie never gets to talk about piss on that "other" show, dammit. ["Pity the line's ganked from The Shawshank Redemption." -- Sars] We see a couple of workers in full-body hazmat suits moving through the prison, and we linger on one of them just long enough to convince me that it's really Tom Fontana hiding behind the gas mask. If you've got the episode on tape, you can go here to compare. Make sure you scroll down and check out his yearbook photo. It's not to be missed. ProbablyTom reaches out to flick off the light switch, and Oz returns to its natural state of darkness for the last time ever.
Sigh. I am soooooooooo over the Hill. But here's a story, and it's the last one you'll ever hear. As partial restitution for all the (admittedly deserved) times I've ripped this guy, I'll present his last ever monologue in full: "So, what have we learned? What's the lesson for today? For all the never-ending days and restless nights in Oz? That morality is transient? That virtue cannot exist without violence? That to be honest is to be flawed? That the giving and taking of love both debases and elevates us? That God or Allah or Yahweh has answers to questions we dare not even ask? The story is simple. A man lives in prison and dies. How he dies, that's easy. The who and the why is the complex part. The human part. The only part worth knowing. Peace."
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