Props to the cavalcade of tapers, senders, and VHS traffickers both domestic and international: Sars, Wing, The Man From F.U.N.K.L.E., and Dymphna. As a token of my everlasting gratitude, please enjoy the delicious treats that are currently in transit to your various homes and businesses for your culinary enjoyment. If you find a hearty helping of good karma tasty, that is.
Fade in on the sound of clanging church bells and our intrepid narrator, Augustus "The Metaphor Who Went Up a" Hill "But Came Down a Mountain" lying flat on a table swathed in white sheets, eyes closed. The camera comes to rest above him, and Hill opens his eyes and informs us directly what's what in the world of hackneyed voice-over narration this week: "Obituaries. A man or a woman lives their [sic] entire life. They work and love and dream and laugh and cry. Then they die. And then somebody who they don't even know, who has never met them once, boils their entire life down to a paragraph or two in the local paper." Um, is this episode going to be a meditation on the frailty of human life and the meaninglessness of death? I do hope so. Because that's a theme that hasn't really been fleshed out or explored at all thus far in the show's run. At least not as much as that other heaped-in-subtext leitmotif we sometimes find springing up when we least expect it, that of, "Sometimes bad people go to jail." Over this speech is a flashback retread of the shootout sequence of last week's episode, in which Frenchy takes down Wangler, Junior, and the bulk of many other engaging Season Three plot lines we would have liked to see continued indefinitely. Frenchy takes down Joseph Howard the guard. Frenchy takes down Keller. Frenchy, who manages to convince us of his inherently evil French guy characterization, bereft even of handlebar moustache or sinister "haw haw haw" laugh, takes down himself.
Leo "I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost" Glynn and Officer Murphy chat meaningfully at the guard's station about the status of the seven men Frenchy took down on his shootout at the not okay corral. Much to my subplot-depriving horror, one of the casualties of said gunplay was endearing punk Kenny Wangler, and Keller "had internal damage. He'll be in the hospital a while." Dang. In other news, a whole lotta boring people I can't tell apart lived and prospered. Murphy responds, "I keep asking myself, how did that freakin' gun get in Oz?" Only he, y'know, doesn't say "freakin'." Significantly, the hallowed pages of The MBTV Style Guide advise us recappers to avoid gratuitous cussing as much as possible in these here recaps. But avoiding gratuitous cussing while recapping the show that gave gratuitous cussing its good name back, well, it's a little more difficult to avoid. So I'll remember my HTML tags and I even promise to try to continue structuring my sentences in a more or less syntactically acceptable fashion, but as far as the swearing, well, we're in Oz now. It's just plain unavoidable. So freak it. Freak it right in the ear. ["Do what you can, dude. I don't envy you." -- Wing Chun]
Glynn has sequestered a rather sizable collection of African-American inmates to discuss the unsettling development of firearms in Em City. Said stands tall like the Said of old in attesting, "We don't know where the gun came from," and Arif backs him up immediately: "Why are you asking us? That was a white man's finger on the trigger." Simon "Hat Trick" Adebisi (yeah, his first name is really Simon. Go figure) steps out of the crowd and rather didactically informs Glynn, "One thing is clear. Emerald City is out of control. McManus must go." Hey, that's really weird. I thought I had seen every episode of this show. I must have missed the one where a repentant and responsible Adebisi was released from prison but stayed on at Oz and was appointed head of the Human Resources Department. Arif is quick to jump on the anti-McManus lobby, foreshadowing, "You'd better act fast. The press wants answers. The public wants someone to blame." Glynn sarcastically thanks Arif for his concern. Well, Glynn, it's you or the bald, unphotogenic, fruitcake liberal. And aren't you running for lieutenant governor? How ever will you solve this knotty dilemma? Let's wait and see!
After the meeting, Said walks and talks with Adebisi and Arif, expressing surprise at how "chummy in there" the two men were. Adebisi says he just wants McManus fired, and walks away. Said quietly asks Arif just what exactly is going on, and Arif cuts him down: "What do you care? You lost the taste for power, isn't that what you said?" Yes. "Then you're out of this." Ouch. That's what he said. But these underhanded dealings are presently drowned out as an East Village coffee shop's open mic night suddenly breaks out in the form of Poet, standing outside of his pod loudly free associating a verse about "hacks" and "brothers" and "roaches" and the like. The entirety of Em City screams for him to "shut the freak up" calling him a "dumb crasshole." Only they don't say "freak." And they don't say "crasshole." No, sir, they do not. Adebisi approaches and says, "Instead of crying for Kenny and Junior, help me revenge them." But Frenchy is dead. Against whom do we seek this revenge, Poet wants to know. Adebisi indicates a rather substantial sea of white faces and suggests that they might be ripe for a revenging. Downstairs, Hernandez knows Frenchy got the gun from Adebisi. And he's ready to talk to the forking hacks all about it. Only he doesn't say "forking."
On the always-germane-to-the-subject-matter-at-hand television, the inmates are watching a political ad for Devlin's opponent for governor in the upcoming race, Alvah Case. Apparently the people who pay for commercials to be made about him think he's a very, very good man. We are virtually smashed over the head with The Mallet of Visual Irony as we are reminded that Devlin is white, Case is black, Glynn will be running with Devlin, and, as the commercial puts it, "after the riots at Oswald Prison, to whom did even James Devlin turn to sort it out?" That's right, Alvah Case. The commercial's tag line: "Unquestioned integrity. For a change." And the subsequent unquestioned race-related contrivances. For a not change.
Cut to Glynn entering the office of Devlin's henchwoman "Wendy," who doesn't even let him sit down before informing him, "McManus has to go." Glynn responds that her sentiment "seems to be the mantra of the week," apparently even among the non-incarcerated. She shows him a newspaper she calls "The Trib" (an arrestable nickname in and of itself, if you ask me) that screams, "Prison Shooting Leaves Four Dead" right from the front cover. He volleys that he can handle a little bad press, and she responds that McManus has pretty much been at the forefront of every unfavorable development at Oz since he's been there, and she tells Glynn conclusively that he needs "a scapegoat" in all this. And I'll add this line verbatim because I really like it: "He's a weak, limp-wristed liberal, and you've gotta toss him out with the other garbage." Ouch. But really, it's true. And when I'm left speechlessly agreeing with an assemblage of lobbying criminals and a staunchly conservative political adviser who equates "liberal" with "limp-wristed" as if both connote the most base forms of evil, the unifying object of our eye-rolling disdain should consider hitting the road. And fast.
In his office, McManus turns to his desk to regard a pile of mail. He flips idly though until coming across a letter with Diane's UK return address on it. So is England the default contract non-renewal locale where retired television characters go to die? Because I feel like this happens a lot. So one can only hope that Diane has been chilling in Trafalgar Square enjoying a hearty morsel of blood pudding and chips with Delta Burke, Charlotte Rae, and Valerie Harper's character from the disastrous first season of The Hogan Family. ["Don't forget Brenda Walsh!" -- Wing Chun] 'Cause I'm really, really sad Edie Falco is gone for now, and it's important to me that she not be lonely across the pond. Tim cracks the letter open: "Cheerio, mate! I'm right knickered from the long flight, but after tea with the Queen and a walkabout of Blixonbury-on-Croton, I'm off with the gov'nah to see the latest in dec'rous haberdashery." Okay, that's not really what it said. British humor. Here's what it really said: "Dear Tim. I know by now that Sister Pete has given you the news that I'm not coming back to Oz." She never dreamed she would meet a man so caring and loving and understanding and blah blah blah Anglophilecakes. Anyway, she's not coming back. Tim stops reading, extracts a lighter, and sets the letter ablaze, nailing home the in a continuing series of "fire"-oriented metaphors I'm not completely sure I understand.
Staff meeting. Glynn tells everyone that he's been asked to pick a member of the staff to travel to South Africa for a conference on human rights, and whoever is chosen had better book a connecting flight though Heathrow Airport, 'cause a trip to Africa sounds like the red-eye express to Non-Contract Renewals-Ville these days. Officer Claire, I'm looking at you. Tim is soon to bust in on this meeting with a slam, and launches right into his own agenda. He wants to talk about "Officer Howard's memorial service. Y'know, it's important, consarnit, because the man was killed right in front of me." Yeah, and like twelve other people in that room, as well. Oh yeah, and he didn't really say "consarnit." His hands are shaking because that's what happens when a person goes crazy, I guess.
Cut to the service itself, where Ray is ending his eulogy and introducing McManus, who wants to "say a few words." And these, much to the shock of all, are the words he chooses to say: "Joe loved to bet on the horses. And so, in honor of him, I would like to..." At which he breaks into an unusually heartfelt and vibrato-dependent version of Stephen Foster's ode to equine worship, "Camptown Races." Which, truth be told, I can barely even hear over the incessant tearing sound of McManus becoming completely unglued. Sister Pete looks on in barely-constrained horror, Ray and Gloria avert their eyes as much as it is possible to do when rubbernecking at the emotional car wreck their boss has become, and Officer Claire sits in back smiling broadly, as if she has simultaneously won both the battle and the war.
A knock at Glynn's office, and Gloria and Sister Pete enter to tell Leo that they "want to talk about Tim." Glynn indicates that the topic is pretty much closed for a while. Like, say, forever. Why? Because McManus is fired. Eep. A grainy, Fontana-esque black-and-white shot of McManus carrying a single box out of his office and down the steps accompanies Hill's voice-over telling us about the indignity of someone he knew having his name spelled wrong in his obituary. Props to Megyn, incidentally, for setting a really important precedent last week by which we will pretty much perpetually ignore just about everything Hill's preachy voice-overs ever have to say. Ever.
Yay! It's Beecher! I was starting to wonder just where in the heck all the fun people were. He exits his pod and stands at the railing with the other residents of Em City. Murphy has an announcement: "Everybody listen up. Last night, Tim McManus resigned as Unit Manager of Emerald City." Er, "resigned"? From Planet Sanity, perhaps, but Em City gave the man his walking papers. Anyway, Murphy announces that he's in charge now and that "nothing's gonna change." Adebisi whispers an ominous, "Yeah, that's what you think." Ooooooh. Big words from a tiny little hat. Downstairs, Beecher approaches Murphy at the guard's station and asks if he's heard anything about Keller. Murphy snarks that between the shootings and McManus' departure, and I quote, "Your boyfriend's health ain't a priority for me." Flashback to the now-infamous "Oz didn't make you a bitch" fight between Keller and Beecher. Raise your hand if you don't think Chris Meloni is, like, that hot. At all. [Raises hand.] ["Time to get your eyes checked." -- Wing Chun] Cut to Beecher talking to Said about the death of Schillinger's son. His other son. Last season. Said retreads that Beecher came to him for guidance in the teachings of Allah, but that he has "this thing between [himself] and Keller. Homosexual acts are blasphemy." Beecher accidentally grabs a page of the script from today's episode of Passions with the hopelessly cliché, "I don't want to love him, Kareem. But I do." Is the cheesiness of that line supposed to be subverted by the fact that he's talking about two men? Didn't work.
Beecher walks through the cafeteria. He is catcalled from a nearby table by Schillinger, who taunts, "Sorry to hear what happened to your little butt buddy." Ew. Continuing on: "Of course, knowing that guy, he's probably flocked half his nurses and a couple of orderlies by now. I hope he doesn't come back here with any of those staph infections." Hmmm. Hey, he made a joke. Because a "staph" infection is a bacterial disease that people often pick up in hospitals, but Schillinger also alluded to the possibility that Keller would be having amorous relations (flocking them, if you will) with assorted hospital faculty. I wonder if he even realizes the full depth of his deeply textured pun. Oh, and predictably, he didn't really say "flocked."
Over in the visitors' area, Beecher meets his father, who informs him that they have turned up Hank Schillinger. Here's the usual impressive dossier for a junior member of the Schillinger clan (I should probably say "Klan"): He's a drug addict, a petty thief, and he pimped his girlfriend. And he won't come to visit dear old dad unless he's paid for his troubles. Beecher asks how much. "I don't know. Probably what it costs to get him his high." Yeah, we know. Drugs are bad. We don't need another "Just Say No" diatribe from the WASPy masses. I've seen more subtly delivered "The More You Know" segments.
Ray interrupts Vern playing pool to tell him "Hank is here." Vern is overjoyed. Back in the visitors' quarters, Ray tells Hank his father is coming. Ray just wants to know when the money is coming his way. So he can get high again, the rat stoner bastard Nazi jerk. They bond and hug, and Hank tries to make the fast break, but Ray sets him down with a stern, fear-God fish eye that I'm so sure always works in disciplining misguided, smack-addled Aryan youth. I can't even discuss the ghoulishness of Vern Schillinger's ecstatic smile. Because I just turned to stone looking at it. ["I love Vern." -- Wing Chun]
Ray makes his way to Beecher's pod to give him the status update on the scene we've just finished watching. Ray reports that Hank "eventually settled down." Beecher asks about Schillinger's reaction, and I don't know why Ray and Beecher share such a moment of pure chewing satisfaction over the truism that, as Ray puts it, "I've actually never seen him happy. But that's what he seems to be." Ray can't get over "how much Schillinger truly loves this kid." Beecher asks the father if he's ever "loved anybody too much," then stops himself and apologizes and says something about celibacy restricting love or some such other non-sensitive thing. Beecher rephrases the question, and Ray tells him it's all about how the love manifests himself. And then, to my relieved delight, Ray adds before leaving, "And the answer to your first question is yes. I have." You can see the back-story coming from Toledo.
Meanwhile, back in the The Land of Redundant Narration, Hill stares into the camera and conveys for our convenience: Blah-di-blah blee blee blee death blah.
Hill is bidding his wife goodbye as Mobay enters the visitors' room to talk to his "girlfriend." They kiss madly and whisper a bit, his "girlfriend" telling Mobay that the "Lieutenant" wants to know when "he'll see some arrests." Mobay tells her that the investigation has slowed to a crawl since his two drug connections inside Oz were killed. "Girlfriend" whispers for him to "take it slow, partner," to remind us once again that she is in fact his partner, and not his girlfriend. Thank you, thank you, thank you all for that helpful reminder of the mechanics of "going undercover." We get it. He tells her he doesn't want to stay in Oz a minute longer than he has to, which, of course, is shorthand for "I'm dead inside of three more episodes."
Hill is in his pod at night talking to Mobay about how he feels like he's losing his wife. Mobay says that will never happen to him and his own girlfriend. Hill, who had been in the visitors' room, tells Mobay that his "girlfriend" looks familiar for some reason. Cut to Mobay on the phone in Glynn's office, fakey accent dropped and telling his "girlfriend" that she was spotted and not to come visit "for a while." More Mobay fun times as we cut to behind a flight of slotted, metal steps to find Mobay exchanging drugs (probably for more interesting character development, which I think is contraband in this particular subplot) for something with Poet. Mobay says he "used to work the line in Jamaica." Cut to Mobay and Adebisi going toe to toe on Mobay's potential smuggling acumen, and Mobay provides the name "Nestor Parks" as a reference. He's serving fifteen years. Adebisi sends him packing and tells Poet to contact Nestor Parks. Feh.
Kareem is having a little meeting with Tricia Ross, the Poor Man's Mira Sorvino, who landed him in so much trouble with the other Muslims to begin with. The trial damning the prison for its culpability in the riot begins today, and Tricia believes that Devlin and the state and the prison system are all responsible. Said giggles girlishly in assent, telling her that he can remember "the frightened little girl" she was when they first met. He continues, "I am very pleased with all the changes within you." She says she really wants to kiss him, and then consequently responds to his holier-than-thou-and-thou-and-thou-and-thou-as-well bravado with the too-hasty comeback, "You know what? Everything that I respect about you also really pisses me off." So Mira Sorvino storms out, body language identical in her sad, furious anger as it was in her liberated and carefree happiness. I can't believe they actually handed her an Oscar™ once. Oh, wait.
Continuing his entirely unconvincing attempt to show the other inmates just how much he's lost his taste for power even as he preaches to anything with a pulse, we catch up again with Said telling a group of co-plaintiffs in the state's lawsuit the what's what. Ryan (thank GOD! Where you been, man?) pipes up that they have seen updates on the news, that they basically don't need Said to tell them what they already know, and, out of the mouth of babe, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...When do we get our flumping MONEY?" Only he doesn't say "flumping." 'Cause it's not even a real world. Hill (quotable because he's not narrating) asks whether they will all be testifying. Said spontaneously regains his ostensibly lost taste for power and informs them he will be the one testifying. What an unbelievable surprise. The Muslims leave en masse to plot some further revolutionary dealings. Said tells them he believes the jury will return a verdict in a week, even though it has taken months for the trial to begin. Ryan says, "See you in my bed, Djb," and the scene ends. Or maybe he says some such other thing about the trial. I don't really remember which.
Said is getting ready to leave Oz, but he discovers to his horror that a new prison ordinance requires each prisoner leaving the penitentiary to wear an orange jumpsuit that doesn't match his radical political beliefs or his current choice of knit cap. He tells his lawyer that he refuses to wear the jumpsuit, on the grounds that it will prejudice the jury against him. Said tells his lawyer to go to the Board of Prisons and file a motion to let him wear whatever he wants. Back and forth and back and forth. So perhaps the trial will be delayed again. Said walks back toward the prison, and Beecher apprehends him walking past the laundry room and asks, "Back so soon?" Said claims that there was "a complication," and Beecher tells him that it seems "there always is" with him. Well, now, just what exactly do you mean by that, Beecher? Here's what, and it's a doozy: "I think you want this case to fail. If the jury rejects our lawsuit, then you'll be able to point with righteous indignation at a system that doesn't work. But if we succeed, then what do you have? What can you rage against? So you'll do anything to find a complication." Beecher says that despite all the horrors to which Oz has introduced him, he still maintains his love of the law, and promises that if Said won't go and testify, he'll do so in Said's place. Go, Beecher. Cut to a shame-me-twice Said watching television with the other inmates, as Beecher exits the courthouse, bedecked in his orange jumpsuit. He left the collar up on said orange jumpsuit, incidentally, in an arrestable offense for which the Fashion Police would put him in a cell wallpapered entirely in green-based paisley with vertical red bars. Maybe that's why Said rolls his eyes when he sees Beecher on television. The reporter's voice-over: "Beecher's testimony about physical abuse by guards at Oswald before and after the riot stunned the jury. Beecher claims that even after the S.O.R.T. team had gained control, prisoners were tortured." Everyone is happy. Said is not happy.
Okay, what's this guy's name? He's from across Oz, a here and queer and used to it member of Oz's gay clique, and he enters the visitors' room wearing a short-sleeved denim shirt and a gray scoop-necked t-shirt with the word "BOY" written in sequins across the middle. We shall call him "Boy." And I'll bet Boy would have a thing or two to say about the woeful orange jumpsuit mishap just a few scenes back. He sits down at a desk with a phone at it and picks it up to communicate with the woman on the other side of the glass. The name of the woman is Mrs. Lazarus, whose good Christian faith has brought her to the prison to tell Boy that he was not given a fair, unprejudiced trial. And she's come to tell him this even though she still inherently believes him to be guilty. Oh, the moral complexities! Cut to Boy in the cafeteria recounting the rest of the story to his posse: "So then Mrs. Lazarus says after the jury got sequestered, one of the other jurors, a red-necked masterflocker, announced to everybody that this shouldn't take long, that he's a fag, and all fags should be dead." Only he doesn't say...oh, never mind. Anyway, the aforementioned masterflocker convinced the entire jury to find Boy guilty solely on the fact that he is gay. He's going to try to get a new trial and fast. And, one hopes, a speedy as all heck way for me to learn his name for further recapping purposes.
Shut up, Said. Of course the two people farthest from each other as possible on the ideological spectrum would be working together -- just the two of them -- in the library. Boy asks Said whether the Muslim is prejudiced toward him because he is gay. Said says no; after all, he prays day and night for the spiritual salvation of Boy and those like Boy. Boy thinks that makes him even more prejudiced. Said asks just exactly what Boy wants. Boy wants "justice," and the high drama of that line indicates that we would fade into that would be a godsend four-minute commercial break on any other network but this one. But it's not TV. It's HBO. This is a whole lotta show we're right in the middle of right here.
Wow, Shirley. I really like what you've done with the place. Sheer curtains over the cell bars. The bed in a corner complimentary to the light. You being anally debauched by an unknown male presence in a gratuitous grunting sequence occurring entirely in silhouette. Wait, what was the last thing I just said?
Cut to Glynn's conference room, where he speeches the staff about Shirley Bellinger's execution, transpiring "two weeks from Tuesday." She's the first woman to be executed in this state in, like, a thousand years, so he wants them to be prepared for more undue media and protester attention. Officer LoPresti suggests having the death-row cells painted in preparation for the TV cameras. Cut to last week's idiot with a cell phone, Ralph Galino, who has been chosen to paint the cells. He rants about having been a contractor before he was in the slammer, and he doesn't know who decided he was qualified to paint. This subplot seems of the utmost importance, I must say. LoPresti tells Shirley that the warden decided she was free to roam the room while Galino paints her cell. She makes the squeeze as tight as possible when they pass each other entering/exiting the cell, Shirley writhing coyly and apologizing even more so. She talk-show-hosts herself from cell to cell, asking how "Nat" is doing, and he responds that he is working on a new dress. The prisoner in the cell across the way calls Nat "fucking girlie queer bait" (except he doesn't really say "fucking girlie queer bait." Oh, wait, yes he does), and we are to assume Nat is, I suppose, Another Friend of Boy's, if you will. We back-story the evil, evil man in the other cell, whose name is Mark Miles, on death row for the small infraction of systematically shooting his families. As in, the plural. Shirley smirkingly observes that his three counts of first-degree murder "makes [her] feel like a downright amateur." Heh. Shirley gets a little too close with the gold-toothed gentleman in death row cell four, and LoPresti drags her back to her cell as Galino finishes up his paint job. Shirley, you loony bitch, you. You fabulous, guileful, calculating, pertinent, deranged, opportunistic, loony bitch.
Sister Pete runs into Gloria Nathan in the infirmary, and Gloria launches right into the matter at hand, telling Sister Pete that she had dinner with Preston's parents the evening. And she mentioned the interaction program. And how did they react? "Patricia seemed more intrigued by the idea than Lars." Well, go figure. I mean come on. The man's name is Lars. His life has been conflicted enough as it is. Miraculously, though, Gloria has convinced them to participate in the program. But, sadly, the news is not all good: Gloria feels that Preston's parents do blame her for Preston's death, "but they're too WASP to be confrontational." Clever little character development there. I like that. I like Gloria. Things are going well.
Sister Pete's office. Sister Pete tells Cyril that he will probably "have to talk to the mother and father and wife of the man [he] killed" while Ryan looks on with an ironic protectiveness. Cyril gets it. When he meets them, Cyril plans to tells them that he "want[s] to be their friend." Awwwww. Major, MAJOR soft spot for Cyril. Sister Pete asks Ryan what he wants to say, and he tries to shut her down, telling her the only reason he's there is for Cyril, "to cure him of those nightmares." Sister Pete indicates that this is not so much the case, and she wants Ryan to go into detail about how he developed feelings for Gloria while under her care, and how this led to his having Cyril kill Preston. Ryan leans into an extreme close-up: "I still love her. I do. And that ain't never gonna go away." Oh. My.
Back in his pod now, Ryan self-mutilates the already injured hand to get back to the infirmary. Once back under medical attention, however, he discovers that Dr. Nathan isn't around to examine him. Oops.
Back in Sister Pete's office, Gloria introduces the nun to Preston's parents. They sit. Lockjawed Lars expresses skepticism with the whole program. Sister Pete begins to prepare them for the experience ahead, asking Preston's mom what she wants to ask Cyril and Ryan. Predictably, it is not, "Pardon me, sir, is this the Chattanooga choo-choo?" and she begins to cry when she asks why they had to murder her baby.
Back in Em City, Ryan terminates a pay phone call with me, making plans to meet in my bed after this episode wraps. Oh, that's right. We're together now. Sorry, Earth. MINE! Ahem. Cyril asks him why Ryan doesn't use "a cell thing," and Ryan sets the record straight in telling Cyril that cell phones are not allowed in Oz. Why, then, does "the man who talks funny" have one? Cyril indicates Stanislofsky walking into his pod and impersonates a Russian accent. It's real funny, like. And before he can say "AT&T Wireless services," Ryan is inside of Nikolai's cell asking him about the phone. Nikolai denies having one. But if he did, he wouldn't just let Ryan borrow it. There would have to be some kind of "rental" situation with spools of strings attached. But he doesn't have a cell phone. He just said so. But Ryan doesn't believe him. So at lunch that day, Ryan convinces Pancamo that he needs to get an ill Cyril out of the cafeteria and back to Em City. Predictably, we cut to Ryan in Em City, where he runs into Nikolai's pod and tears it apart. Nothing. Cut to...oh, my God, it's Ryan's naked behind in the shower. Does TV get any better? Anyone tape this? Oh, wait. I DID. 'Cause it's my job. I get paid. For watching Dean Winters wet. In the shower. As many times as I feel it necessary within the confines of my occupational requirements. And if you look reeeeeal close, you can just barely see...Anyway, Nikolai walks into the shower and accuses Ryan: "Couldn't find it, could you?" Real innocent response: "Find what?" They volley. Did I mention I get paid for this? Suckas.
Ryan has run out of patience. He approaches Galino's (that's the total idiot from whom Nikolai pinched the phone last week) pod and starts right in with a bonding chat about life in Oz: "You know what the hardest part is? It's gettin' used to life without all the trimmings. I'm talking about sex, a good cigar, a fine bottle of vino, a cell phone." Galino takes the bait with no further prodding, volunteering that he gave the phone to Stanislofsky. Is Ryan getting better at playing everyone around him like a cheap fiddle with one string, or are the inmates just getting progressively dumber as the series wears on? Ryan reminds Galino that Stanislofsky is a hated Commie pinko Russian, and Galino swears vengeance when Ryan tells him that the red bastard has commandeered the phone for his own private use. Over in the computer room, Nikolai looks at a monitor screen filled with pornographic images of women in some behind-the-iron-curtain renegade Communist bloc that may or may not exist anymore. Galino bursts in and demands the phone back by nightfall. Cut to Nikolai in Pancamo's pod, where Nikolai asks whether Galino is at all associated with them. He is not, and Pancamo even adds for extra clarity, "I don't care if that motherfucker lives or dies." Oy. Last week a pair of sneakers, this week a cell phone. I'm really looking forward to that not-too-distant-future episode where a character gets bumped off for angling in on, like, another guy's box of Pop-Tarts or something. Everyone just relax.
Back in the cafeteria, Hoyt the total disgusting pig of a man confers covertly with Nikolai. Ryan tries to meddle, but Pancamo is there to tell him to get the hell back to work. Hoyt kills Galino under a deserted flight of steps with the help of a syringe and the fettering acumen of some other long-hairs from the total disgusting pig clan. Cut to an indeterminate time later. The medical staff stands over the poor shlub and pronounces him dead by overdose. Down in the laundry room, Ryan walks in on Stanislofsky and congratulates him for a job well done with no traceable steps. Ryan tells Nikolai that he underestimated him, adding, "And I don't usually do that." He suggests that instead of remaining each others' arch-nemeses, they could just "work together. Like Russia and the U.S. What was that called, exactly?" "Rocky IV!" I volley to no one in particular, before Nikolai bails me out by chiming in with the correct answer: "Détente." Oh, yeah. That. They shake on it. Perestroika!
Jeez, Alvarez. There are, like, four minutes left in this episode. You sure picked a heckuva time to show up. Fade up on Dr. Nathan speaking Spanish to a man named "Carlo," who is lying in the hospital bed to an ailing Alvarez. She walks to Miguel's bed to tend to him, and he wakes up to a really extended flashback of last episode's stabbing. He finds himself shackled to the bed with leather manacles (calm down, Sars), which Gloria tells him is "standard procedure for anyone in solitary." Poor Alvarez. Back on the floor of Em City, Hernandez tells Chico that he can't abide by a prison system that never seems to end up with Alvarez dead. Chico tells him that Carlos Martinez is in the bed to Alvarez, and that he'll take care of the whole killing Alvarez situation as soon as he can track down a weapon. Back in some pod, Chico checks a ceiling panel above a bed and unearths a knife. Hmmm. Haven't we learned by now that these chancy murder attempts will never end up with Alvarez dead? Why even bother anymore? The man is a superhero.
Back in the infirmary, Busmalis does his best Zero Mostel impersonation while he mops the place up and does a little soft-shoe. Alvarez wants to know why the hell he's so happy, and Busmalis tells him that he's getting out of Emerald City. Um, excuse me? He's digging a tunnel. Alvarez pronounces him to be a "bad word, another bad word," and commences once more with the singing and with the dancing with this insistence: "You say that tomorrow, you'll be saying that to my backside." Meanwhile, Hernandez's numerous cronies hand off the offending weapon meant to take down the invincible Alvarez. Cut to Carlos eating lunch in his hospital bed, as narrator Hill catches us up on the who and why: He killed some guys so now he's in jail. Forever. Later that night, a sleeping Alvarez is about to be the victim of an approaching Martinez, but he wakes up just in time to scream for help. Two guards run in to restrain him, and the news is returned to Hernandez with merely a shaking of the head that Alvarez will, at least for this week, continue his lucky streak of chronic non-deadness.
And finally, Murphy is taking nighttime roll call, and Busmalis has failed to materialize. Even Rebadow doesn't know where he is. He was last on duty mopping the hospital floor (we know. We were just there), and Murphy appears to not have much more control over the prisoners than was maintained in the heady McManus days, as he runs off in the infirmary's general direction. He arrives, gun drawn, and enters a closet at the far end of the hallway. Giant hole in the floor. Bye bye, Busmalis. Gloria reenters the infirmary and finds Alvarez AWOL as well. Hill says a final word about obituaries. Which is really, really important. Because we hadn't heard anything about those already.