To Your Health

As we see the Em City inmates lined up in the open area to get their mail from Schillinger, Hill tells us that six percent of the U.S. prison population is 55 or older, which is double the number from ten years earlier. Great. Hill's monologue is going to lead me directly to Rebadow. I thought suffering was supposed to lead to enlightenment, not more suffering. Then again, this is Oz. Rebadow opens his package to reveal brownies, but someone takes the box from him, and then Wangler punches him in the face. Wangler, pick on someone as annoying as yourself. Oh, that's right, you were. In the prison hospital, Gloria attends to Rebadow as McManus watches. This scene flows into a roundtable discussion wherein the more humanist-minded among the staff propose turning Unit 2 into a seniors-only area. Again, great. I really want to see some geezer get his throat cut just as he yells out, "Bingo!" Glynn then steps on my bingo punchline. Watch it, dude. After hearing it from Mukada, Gloria, and Pete, Glynn notes that McManus has been quiet. Don't look a gift mute in the mouth, Leo. McManus sulkily admits that it's a good idea. I see I'm going to be dealing with some deep-seated issues of McManus's here too. Can I abort this recap? I'm very early along here. Glynn agrees to run the idea by the Commish, and adjourns the meeting. Gloria stays to inquire if McManus is okay, and asks him to dinner. McManus: "Dinner? You think I'm an asshole." Well, even assholes have to eat, Timbo. And how does "think" enter into it? McManus sniffs that he doesn't need a "mercy dinner." How about a last meal?

McManus interrogates a handcuffed Wangler in his office, and tells him that Rebadow is in the hospital. The response is tepid, a temperature familiar to me, but McManus says that he's pissed off, and that "you don't hit old men." He huffs that if he tells them to, the guards will kick Wangler's ass. I wouldn't be opposed to that action, but don't you think you could do it yourself, considering that he's tied to a fucking chair? Wuss. Anyway, Wangler blusters that he's not afraid of anything, but McManus asks him if he's afraid of dying, and starts choking him until he falls backward to the ground. Hmm. I'm something more than completely unimpressed. It'll pass, though. Richard Gere and some other hack take Wangler away, as McManus looks like a trip to PCP detox would be quite appropriate. We won't see that until later in the episode, though.

McManus is lifting weights in the gym when Glynn enters. They switch to a long shot as McManus does incline bench presses, which makes me wonder if they subbed a stunt lifter in for Terry Kinney. Glynn asks McManus if he's okay, saying that he's been different for the past few weeks. And there are so many ways he could have been different in a positive sense. Shame. Glynn breaks the news that the Commissioner rejected their senior-citizens unit proposal, but McManus opines that it was "Governor Fuckwad" who was behind it. Nice try, McManus, but "Pernicious Peewee" blows your effort away, so shut it. Glynn reassures him that the PP is almost out of office, as he's on trial for fraud and corruption. I'll spare you the obligatory Marion Barry joke. Glynn says that he hears McManus has been living at Oz, and that he's worried Oz will take away his soul. Slow down, Leo -- if it makes him more interesting and less self-righteous, who are you to stand in the way?

Hill tells us you don't have to be 55 to be old. Dude, tell me about it. I'm already sneering at the young whippersnappers that they don't make pop culture icons the way they did in my day, and my day was the eighties. Frightening. At night, McManus heads up to the guard's station and tells the one guy on duty to take a break. The camera pans back to show him looking around. Scene. This McManus I could almost get used to.

Groves brings food to Rebadow, who says he can't stay in Oz anymore because he's afraid. Sorry, dude, but if they let people leave on those grounds, the only people left would be Adebisi and Schillinger. I'd still watch that show, though. Rebadow goes on that he's specifically afraid of the young, and that when he first came to Oz, people treated their elders with respect. He says that he's going to escape, and Groves enthusiastically asks how. Rebadow: "God will show me the way." He smiles the smile of someone who's had that extra shot of morphine, a smile that I recently had the happy occasion to wear. We see him enter a stairwell wearing a robe over his hospital gown. He goes down a floor, but sees a couple of guys smoking. He tries upstairs instead, but only finds a locked door, and ends up tumbling back down the stairs, where he lies unconscious. Well, that was instructive. The hell?

Hill says that a lot of things can go wrong with the human body, something else I've been all too familiar with recently. In solitary, the guards come around with food, but at Miguel's grandfather's cell, it appears that the sandwich on the tray is not going to be enough to produce a picnic for the occupant. The guards unlock the cell to find him naked and wailing uncontrollably. The guards call for medical assistance, which leads into a flashback. "Prisoner Number 43A515. Ricardo Alvarez." The flashback is not of his original crime, which was armed robbery, but of the crime described by Mukada in "Visits, Conjugal And Otherwise," that being the murder of the Haitian who had cut his son's tongue out. Life in solitary. In the hospital wing, Gloria tries to tell him what they're going to do, but it becomes clear that he has no idea where he is. Upon questioning in Spanish, he reveals that he thinks he's in Havana. That would be fun.