Episode Report Card Chuck: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Men Behaving Badly
By Chuck | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.12.2002
Slowmar. At a lunchroom summit, McManus introduces Said to his new charge, and I suddenly feel new sympathy for Said. From now on, Said says, he and Slowmar will be inseparable; they will share a pod, eat together, exercise together, work side by side. McManus tells a very reluctant Slowmar (who looks like he's furiously trying to figure out what Said's words meant) that he's still got to go to counseling and rehab and get tested for drugs once a week -- and that this is his last chance. If he makes one wrong move, it's back to the hole permanently. Slowmar gets it.
And moves into Said's pod -- all nervous gestures and oral diarrhea. He's already driving Said more insane than he was before, but I imagine that Said thrives on an external cross to bear -- likely a pleasant diversion from what's going on in his head. Said remains silent for a few moments of Slowmar's ridiculous posturing and then starts to lay down the law: "Don't hustle me." And, in response to Slowmar's generously dispensed terms of endearment: "I am not your baby. My name is Minister Said and you will address me as such." Slowmar doesn't want to be converted and starts to protest; Said tells him to get out, but then Slowmar gets all contrite, and Said tells him to make his bed instead, and gives him a new mantra -- "I will not fight." After some healthy skepticism, Slowmar starts to get into the words, but then starts to talk about the worms that plague him every time he goes into solitary, and then starts to think about all of the days -- 23,000 -- that he'll be in Oz. 23,000 days of not fighting and staying sober. Slowmar realizes that his chances are not good at all.
More silly manmade law time, courtesy of Hill (Cloutier's walling plays on the video screen). In Nogales, Arizona, it is illegal to wear suspenders; Hill wonders what horrific event transpired to cause the city leaders to outlaw suspenders (I recall an outbreak of rainbow ones during my youth that could easily inspire a letter to my representative) and whether there are fringe groups that meet under cover of night to don the outlawed braces.
In the infirmary, Mukada asks after Cloutier (well, he was dancing earlier, but now he's a bit tuckered out, so he's back in bed) and wonders if he can see him. Nathan warns him that Cloutier isn't looking so hot, but Mukada says he worked at Benchley Memorial while he was a seminarian and has seen burn victims. Not like this one, Daddio. Mukada walks in, sees Cloutier, and begins an "Our Father." We get to see Cloutier as well, from a different angle, in extreme close-up this time, mesh holding his seared flesh on his face, as he makes some bubbly prayer noises. Just to share for a moment, I'm currently eating Chinese food and am slightly amazed that I didn't just spit up all over my keyboard.