Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Meeeooow! (Fffft!)
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 07.13.1999
Em City. The hacks conduct morning count as Said is led to the gate. Metzger is giving the new inmates Diane's speech, and I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear that his version is nowhere near as commanding as hers. Said, El Cid, and Wangler all greet their charges. Wangler's is a "Malcolm Coyle," who rates an immediate prisoner flashback. You know, given that there are regulars on the show who still haven't had a flashback (Arif and Guerra come to mind), I'm really hating this immediate introduction to these characters' histories. It just telegraphs that they're going to be important for an episode or two and then disappear or die. Anyway, Coyle and a crony emerge from robbing what looks like a sporting-goods store, if the golf clubs in Coyle's hand are any indication, but two cops are on the sidewalk. They shoot his friend, who had a gun. Coyle, armed only with the golf clubs, surrenders. Well, that was informative. What? Seriously, that was the most pointless prisoner flashback ever. "Prisoner Number 99C122. Malcolm Coyle." Grand larceny, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault of a police officer. WHAT? We saw no indication of either of those last two things. How are we supposed to get any insight through these flashbacks if they don't even show us the important stuff? Sheesh. Anyway, Coyle's sentence is fifty years, parole in twenty.
Wangler introduces Coyle, who apparently goes by "Snake," to The Artist Formerly Known As Poet, who's going by his given name, since he doesn't write poetry any more. Well, this episode is certainly looking up, then. Snake wonders why they're watching Miss Sally's Schoolyard, as it looks like a bunch of stupid puppets, but soon Miss Sally appears and starts jiggling her hooters around, and the crowd, well, hoots. Pancamo thankfully interrupts this animals-in-their-natural-habitat Not-ional Geographic moment to tell Wangler that Nappa wants to see him. Cut to the bathroom, where Nappa is shaving, and since there's no shirtless Ryan this time, I feel teased, and not in the good way. Wangler lectures Nappa that he's going by "Bricks" now, and if that's some sort of "dumb as a box of" commentary by the writers about Wangler, there might be hope for this season yet. But seriously, how lame is Wangler? I mean, he's like that girl in junior high who decided that her middle name was so much cooler than her first name and told everyone to start calling her by her middle name, and everyone's like, "Sure, [Middle Name]," even though everyone knew even in junior high school that this was a little phase that was going to last two weeks, at most. "Bricks," my ass. Nappa gives the code that tomorrow, "everybody gets healthy," meaning that the drugs are on their way, baby, and he doesn't want Snake hearing too much about their operation. Wangler protests that Snake "seems" all right, but Nappa duhs that "seems" isn't good enough, and given that Wangler was around for the whole Markstram affair, I'd think he'd think so too, but I guess that brings us back to the whole "Bricks" issue. Wangler asks how he can be sure, and Nappa in turn asks if "on the corner" they didn't have some sort of test for that. Wangler agrees that they did. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with drinking your own piss, because I've seen quite enough of that for one episode. Or lifetime, for that matter.