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
And we're downstairs in the TV room, where Chris "Poke A Mon" Keller returns to the fray of Oz after a short stint in the hospital. The walking wounded approaches Beecher from behind (I'm just gonna leave that one right where it is and slowly. Walk. Away.) and places a caressing hand on the back of his head. Awwwww. The song "Love Will Keep Us Together" inexplicably rages in my head. I love that song. Beecher, wound up as he has been, recoils ever so slightly before turning around to note Keller's presence, and they hug rather knowingly for a moment before a guard, apparently lacking in the soothing balm of the soul that is the music of the Captain and Tennille, has seen enough and yells for the two to "break it up." And so they retire to their pod, where Keller does the noble thing for an audience desiring such treatment after such a long absence and immediately takes off his shirt. He's bandaged. He's injured. Beecher asks if he's okay, and Keller plays the tough man in letting us know that "they stab me, they shoot me, I ain't goin' down." Hey, Keller? Just to avoid any further confusion: I'm really, really glad you're okay and all, but as far as the award for indestructible super hero, that mantel is eternally carried by the battered, bruised, but never broken Miguel Alvarez, okay? You're a good guy and I wish you well. But I knew Miguel Alvarez. I have worked with Miguel Alvarez. And you, sir, are no Miguel Alvarez. In other news, Beecher tells Keller about his kids, but Keller already knows. Beecher removes the bandage to see the damage on Keller's chest. Ow ow ow. Keller missed Beecher. Beecher missed Keller. Beecher kisses the wound, and my back arches involuntarily and I find cause to yell "ow" that one more time.
Schillinger sits gratuitously on the toilet inside of his cell in a possible attempt to become less, well, full of shit than his inherent nature would otherwise indicate. Another Nazi Skinhead Freak enters the cell to inform Schillinger that "the two lovebirds have reunited." Schillinger comments that he hopes the two enjoy their evening together. Awwww. See, he's coming around and...oh, wait, there's more: "It's gonna be the last night of sleep, of peace, that Beecher's gonna have for a long, long time." Nazi Skinhead Freak smiles at the wacky hijinks of it all.
Em City after dark. Keller sits on the floor of his pod, unconvincingly smoking a cigarette (non-smoking actors beware -- smokers and former smokers can inherently tell when you're faking. Inhale a lot deeper or ask the director to write it out of the script. Really) and quite a bit more convincingly bummed about the current state of his unhappy existence. Beecher wakes up to find his roomie sitting in an almost fetal position on the floor, and when Beecher joins him there, Keller launches right in: "Toby, I died. And there's no white light. I was there but they brought me back but I was there, Toby, I was in hell and I felt everything. I felt the pain and I felt the fire for all eternity." Yikes-o-la. Just when you thought things couldn't get any heavier. Pain and fire for all eternity. Beecher tells Keller that if all that's left for them in this life is Oz, they have to start thinking about what comes after. They hug and hug. A guard bangs on the glass. Can't two lovers get any privacy anymore? Didn't the guard see the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door to the pod? No maid service! Turn down the beds later! Ah, the star-crossed love of it all.
Next day, Beecher is at work in Sister Pete's office. She enters and finds him there, much to her surprise. Beecher tells her that work helps to keep his mind from caving in, and she wholly concurs, even tying in the lingering Shirley Bellinger subplot and the crowd of protesters outside the prison. Beecher needs a favor. "If I can, you know I will," she responds. He wants her to talk to Chris, and Pete launches into an all-too-true reality check about Keller's inherently manipulative ways: "He tried to use me to get to you." Yup. "Now he's using you to get to me." Yup again, sister. "I will not play his game." Oh, but you will. You probably, probably will. Beecher divulges that Keller is afraid of burning in hell, and that he feels his fate is sealed if Sister Pete leaves the convent. Sister Pete confirms that Keller will, in fact, burn, but that it will be because of his indiscretions against other people and "all of the lives that he destroyed. Including yours." The scary music you're hearing alerts me to the fact that the plot is ever so much thicker than it was just moments before.