Episode Report Card Djb: D | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT In The Claire
By Djb | Season 4 | Episode 8 | Aired on 2000.08.30
It's spirit week inside Oz again, as the nearly all-black Em City shouts its well-rehearsed rallying cry, "Clayton! Clayton! Clayton!" at the televised news of Devlin's shooting, while the increasingly Aryan Cellblock B wants to "Kill Hughes! Kill Hughes! Kill Hughes!" McManus sits dejectedly in his office and tells Murphy to call for a lockdown, but as the C.O. attempts to corral the wayward inmates into their cells, a black prisoner hauls off and takes Murphy down with the heavy-handed wallop of non-ambiguous thematic relevance. Black prisoner? White guard? I don't want to speak too soon here, folks, but I think it is entirely possible that this episode might be tackling the sticky issue of racial politics. Let's go see!
Meanwhile, Leo "If There's Something Strange in Your Neighborhood" Glynn is holding a press conference at the entrance of the prison. He announces, "Clayton Hughes is a close friend of our family. And though I find his actions utterly reprehensible, I feel compelled, out of loyalty to his mother and late father, to stand by Clayton's side in his time of need." Therefore, he is sad to announce, he will be withdrawing his name from the ballot and ending his bid for lieutenant governor. He takes his wife's hand, ignoring reporters' questions as he steps off the podium, and directs a genuinely pathos-laden gaze to the ground as he ponders his character's future of somehow, some way manufacturing the necessary emotional investment of returning to a life of sporadically yelling some close variant of the line, "I'm the warden, dammit! You can't talk to me like that!" over and over and over again now that his character will be returning to one dimension straightaway. Poor Glynn.
Back in Em City, Supreme "But Go Light on The Mayo, I'm Watching My Waistline" Allah approaches Mondo Brown and Ambiguously Angry Incarcerated Extra Number Four Billion and, somewhere midway through his congressional filibuster of the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for "fuck" ("Fuckabilly"? "Fucktomotron"? Who even knew these variations existed? This show knew. Okay, no it didn't. But he says it, like, a lot of times) tells the two in numerous parts of speech (pluperfect infinitive? I didn't even know that tense existed in the English language) that they're not moving enough drugs. Ambiguous wants to know who is outselling them, and Supreme indicates Mobay from afar. So, as the ever-increasingly episodic nature of this show dictates, Brown and Ambiguous wait until Supreme is, well, still right behind them before approaching Mobay and tell him to stop making them look so bad. Mobay claims that he's just following orders, and Ambiguous sics the place up with his "what the fuckatilly is the OED, anyway" response, "Yeah, we's tellin' you something different." Mobay stands up and stands strong, returning more and more to the accent of his native Jamaica, Queens, rather than Jamaica, y'know, Jamaica, as tends to happen when Mobay gets mad, forgetful, or opens his mouth ever. He says, "I'm not afraid of you. Or you." Brown grabs Mobay by the shirt, to the delight of onlookers Keller and O'Reily, but the tiff is broken up before it comes to blows when one of Querns's henchmen steps in and, angry that ambiguous inmates get much, much cooler lines than ambiguous guards, overacts the sentiment, "You have got to learn to control your emotions." Ambiguous Guard won't be tossing Ambiguous Inmate in the hole and divesting him of his clothing, his basic human rights, and his SAG card today, though, because the homicide officer investigating the Gergen case has shown up for a meeting with Brown.