Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Don't Worry, The Title's Ironic
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 08.03.1997
Beecher meets with his mother. He tells her she smells good, and reminisces about the times she would get all dolled up to go out. Well, Toby, you'll have the chance for a reenactment soon enough. Mrs. Beecher tells him that McManus suspects him of using heroin, and Lee Tergesen does a great job of conveying his character's pain as he tells her she doesn't know what it's like in Oz, and he thanks God every night for that. He tells her he'd love to talk about things that are going on with their family, "but if you came here to lecture me, to tell me to 'just say no,' don't. Don't put that final knife in my heart." Ma Beecher just holds him. Aww. Poor Beecher. Although you think that's the final knife? You've got a whole Ginsu set coming, my friend.
Beecher snorts up with Ryan in the Party Pod when a hack calls count. Beecher pulls Ryan to his feet, and they get cutely tangled up in each other's arms. Next, Beecher goes to Pete's drug counseling class. The other Em City attendees are Hill and Pokelwaldt, the latter's continued existence showing, I guess, that Healy was the brains behind the brutality. Pete says the point of the class is to talk about their addictions in order to find the cause, and has everyone reveal what they're addicted to. However, every time the camera focuses on Beecher, we get the sound of his heart ticking like a metronome set on "merengue." A guy who looks old enough to be Rebadow's dad says that his original addiction upon coming to prison fifty-two years ago was opium. Flashback to Rebadow's dad's younger self, who looks a bit like a shorter Ben Affleck with hair and an extra twenty pounds, making out with some dame and choking her to death in the process, not clearly intentionally. "Prisoner Number 45M242. Whitney Munson." Murder one, 110 years, parole in 60. Hill asks why he strangled the "whore," and Munson confirms my suspicion that he didn't think he was. Beecher suddenly stands and sweatily says he can't listen to any more. Dude, it wasn't that boring. Couldn't you save that reaction for one of Hill's monologues? He pushes Pete away and runs, but two hacks grab him.
Two guys make out in the steamy shower. Beecher watches from the sink. A cross-dresser with short blond hair and a tie-dyed half shirt appears in the mirror and says he's there to give Beecher a makeover. Schillinger is visible in the mirror as well. The Avon Boy, who apparently got in character by watching Scott Thompson playing Buddy Cole on The Kids In The Hall, says that Beecher's "boyfriend" told him to, and said not to take no for an answer. Beecher snorts some more heroin. Looking to turn that temporary solution permanent, eh Toby?