Fade up on the artful public speaking acumen of one Augustus "So Long-Winded My TV Blew Away" Hill, who delivers a decidedly William Safire-esque homily on the numerous existing slang words for prison while decked out in standard issue black-and-white-striped jail duds and chains affixed to his wrists. Conventional wisdom has it that there is also a cannonball tethered around his ankle and sacks of money with dollar signs lying at his feet to complete this typical Everyprisoner ensemble, but the camera never pans down far enough to prove this hypothesis either way. He reels off several slang terms for prison, but wants very badly for us to know that his personal "favorite" is "the clink." ["Mine too, actually. I don't know why." -- Sars] I would beg shamelessly for Hill to tell us just exactly why this term gets his jones up so hardcore, but something tells me that my encouragement is not required for him to continue this address indefinitely. Ah, there he goes now: "That's because the word comes from the sound of chains made back in the 1400s. They had these big-ass, motherfuckin' iron chains. The prisoners weren't allowed to talk, so when they moved around the dungeon, all you heard was 'clink.'" Just for the record, my computer's thesaurus also suggests the words "hoosegow" and "pokey" as synonyms for "prison." I wonder why Hill decided not to include these terms. Perhaps he was worried that any more examples of slang terms for prison would cause his speech to run too long. Because if Hill's speeches share one common link from week to week, it's their brevity. But honestly, this lengthy period you and I have spent locked down in "the clink" of preachy introductory narration has provided time for me to muse on the many qualities of the prison uniforms of old, and how I think the authorities should consider bringing them back into vogue for today's inmates. They even come equipped with a little black-and-white striped hat. All Hill needs is a black mask over his eyes and a taste for cow's meat, and he would do well to consider a career as a kind of bad-ass Hamburglar for the new millennium. I mean, really. At least the Hamburglar worked silently.
Meanwhile, over in the Em City section of the Oswald Pokey (see how up on the lingo I am?), a guard announces the Gen Pop transfer of a significant batch of nondescript white men I've never seen before. A shirtless Adebisi (sorry, Dymphna, if you're still listening to this show on the blue radio that your cable has become) stands just a few steps off from the guard as if in a significant position of authority himself. When the transfers are completed, Adebisi offers a come-hither "pssst" to a black youth (he looks about fifteen) bedecked in a way-too-tight short sleeve polo shirt (is that, um, velour) that I think he saw me wearing in my junior-high-school graduation picture and stole out of my closet. Maybe it was that very theft that landed him in the pokey to begin with. See what I mean about those striped uniforms being a good idea?
Adebisi escorts the young man into his pod while Said looks piously on from across the way. Adebisi turns to face the youth and offers his affectionate, candle-lit directive of the day: "Blow me." Awwwww. Young (and much, much younger) love. As the boy bends kneewards to get busy gettin' busy, Adebisi can feel Said's glare and turns back toward the door of the pod to look at him. Then he closes a makeshift curtain he has run across the glass exterior of the pod. Allah wept.
Cut to Said busting in on an increasingly ill-intentioned, sinister-voiced, mock-turtlenecked Querns and demanding, "How can you condone what Adebisi is doing?" Querns responds -- using the word "condone" three dozen times in one sentence -- in essentially telling Said to just. Step. Off. Said threatens to take this issue to the warden, but Querns sees his "I can go to the warden" threat and raises him one "I can send you to the hole" in the great Em City poker game (is it a coincidence that that word sounds so much like "pokey?" Can we get a ten-minute speech on the linguistic antecedents of these two words? I'm almost sure we can), until Said relents and storms on out. Adebisi, meanwhile, walks contrivedly past at this moment, and we see him fraternizing peacefully with other inmates while Querns looks on approvingly as if to intuitively deduce, "Wow. Quick blow job."
Back in his pod, Said attempts to initiate conversation with Arif, who ignores him quietly. Said tears a book out of his podmate's hands and demands, "You see what's going on?" Arif, in fact, does. And so Said proselytizes further, "You said you wanted to lead. Well, in the name of all that's holy [glacial, we-already-know-what-you're-going-to-say-and-you're-taking-up-entire-cycles-of-the-moon-you-could-be-using-on-riveting-Mobay-subplots- and-Hill-speeches-on-second-thought-take-your-time pause]...lead." Cut to Arif leading, taking pains to land an audience with Querns. Querns is in his office on the phone, smiling broadly and chatting jubilantly because the truly evil are easy to identify, given their propensity to laugh and smile at markedly inappropriate times. On television. Arif is finally allowed to enter, and after he bitches and moans about Querns's unwillingness to meet with the Muslims, he launches into his prepared speech. Because he's, y'know, leading: "The Muslim population constitutes eighteen percent of Oz. As their leader, I expect some sort of representation." Querns responds that he perceives the Muslim population of Oz to be "rudderless," and Arif unwisely turns the conversation to intimidation tactics in threatening, "You wait, Querns. You'll feel the full force of our power." Querns rises and moves lithely over to Arif in a way that makes me sad I blew my load of light-hearted Lionel Richie song title references way back in the recap of Episode 4. Querns threatens ominously, "You threatening me?" And then again, "You threatening me?" Then, in a stark and unadorned exhibition of prison brutality at its most egregious, Querns pokes Arif. HE POKES HIM! Right in the ribs! And do not adjust your sets, folks. That's TWO FINGERS he's using. Yes, Querns is a bad man. But his strong-arm techniques could use a little roughening up, methinks. I guess back in his much ballyhooed days on the streets, low-life thugs and other unscrupulous types would poke him around and speak the language of the mean streets with dastardly threats such as, "You can be in our gang. But first you must...WIN A THUMB WRESTLE!" What gang was he in, anyway? The Brownies?
As Arif exits Querns's office (I'm surprised the brave Muslim can even walk, so violated was he in there), his day only gets worse as his authority continues to erode. He spots a number of Muslims deep in conversation with last week's cast addition Supreme "But Hold the Tomatoes, I'm Allergic" Allah. Cut to Arif all up in the face of one of his knit-capped brethren, telling him to stay away from Supreme and, angrily, "that's an order." For the love of Allah, no more poking. I know that TV-MA label and the fact the the show airs at, like, five o'clock in the morning both happened for a reason, but I just. Can't. Take. The violence.
Over in the cafeteria, Poet poetizes about "fair of the sponges" and "bungee cord jumping" and bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens or some such thing. Arif approaches Supreme, who works in the cafeteria, and addresses him by a name that lacks adjectival description in telling this "Kevin Ketchum," "I'm not warning you again." But about what, I can't say I'm exactly sure. Supreme tells Arif he's nothing more than "a Kareem Said wannabe." Cut to Arif approaching the modest and demure Adebisi as he comes out from behind his curtained pod. Arif tells Adebisi that Supreme is a danger to them both, as he is "making all these converts of my people and yours." Adebisi smiles way big and proclaims that he's not worried. Arif tries to talk Adebisi into offing Supreme, but Adebisi won't bite. Then he makes his way down the steps and buddy-buddies himself up with Supreme while Arif looks on. I muzzle somewhere in the area of ten thousand "Ketchum if you can" puns and move on with all great haste to the section.
Murphy stands behind the reception desk at the entry to the hoosegow and attempts to greet a resurgent McManus with the proper amount of politeness as stipulated by his new job description. McManus asks just what the hell Murphy is doing at the reception desk, and Murphy reiterates for the benefit of week's "Previously On" section that he and Querns have experienced a "parting of the ways." But Murphy isn't loving reception, and he fears for his future at Oswald. But McManus somehow hears something in Murphy's dire admission that sounded to him a whole lot like "but enough about my disastrous unemployment prospects, Tim. How can we make this all about you?" And so McManus launches into a prepared speech which appears to fall roughly into the genre of "apology," which includes the absolution, "Given my behavior at the time, how could I pass judgment on what anyone else did?" Murphy tells McManus he sounds enlightened and asks if he found God. "Better," McManus volleys. "An affordable shrink." McManus invites Murphy to dinner so he can talk about himself more. What Murphy doesn't know is that he's the affordable shrink McManus has talked so much about. And by affordable, he means "free, sucker. Now pass the ketchup and heed my whinin'."
Over in Cellblock B, McManus enters his office and engages a typically cynical female guard in conversation concerning the activities of the night before. Quiet night? "If you count two fist fights and some anal penetration as quiet, then yeah." A quiet night at the Rodman/Electra residence, maybe, but McManus isn't going to stand for this kind of violence on his watch. The fights were between Hoyt and Keenan (Gloria's assaulter), and when the cells doors slide open for morning count, the two experience another fancy-meeting-you-here clash and the fighting erupts anew. McManus looks on forlornly as if to say, "This never happened in the halcyon days of Em City. Except, of course, for when it happened every freakin' day."
Querns sportsjackets (kind of an odd choice for an action verb, you may be saying. But if you've seen him move, you know what I mean) himself into Glynn's office. He brings Glynn up to speed on Murphy's transfer, and then continues on that many of the officers were loyal to Murphy, so he wants numerous other transfers he has detailed here on this sheet of paper. Glynn doesn't even bother to rationalize the obvious "look at that goatee. Of course you're evil" leitmotif that's leapt out of the pocket on Querns's giant lapel and perched itself on Glynn's desk for all to see, giving his resolute "done" to all of Lionel's changes. Mobay, looking as if he has snorted the universe's collective store of "things that make you die" up his nose in the last, like, ten seconds, is called in to implement the changes. Querns asks Glynn how the campaign is going, which an excellent transition into...
...the break room, where Murphy and the other two offed Em City guards decide that Glynn would be no help to them in this touchy situation, as "he's got his head up Devlin's ass" and isn't thinking about their problems. They suggest going to the union, and McManus enters the room to ask what the three are complaining about. They're upset that Querns is replacing the personnel in Em City with people of his own choosing, and, more upsetting to them, "He's choosing all black guys." But McManus somehow heard something in these three men's dire admission that sounded to him a whole lot like "but enough about our disastrous unemployment prospects, Tim. How can we make this all about you?" And so McManus tells them he can use their help in Cellblock B. Over in Glynn's office, the warden authorizes these transfers as well, and McManus asks, "Doesn't it bother you that Querns is putting together an exclusively black staff?" Glynn responds that his one order to Querns -- no more violence in Em City -- has been marvelously upheld since Lionel first said "Hello." McManus demands, "How long is that gonna last?" and storms out self-righteously before Glynn has time to sufficiently formulate the "Until you're back in charge, you bleeding-heart liberal tree-huggin' hippie" response this scene so desperately needed to end with.
Because I shower at work every day -- even though, like McManus, my work is primarily performed at a desk with a computer -- it makes total sense to me that every employee important to this week's action shows up simultaneously in a co-ed locker room somewhere deep inside the pokey. It's like Ally McBeal on lockdown. Which, come to think of it, wouldn't be the dumbest possible creative direction for that show to take at this point. Ally. Not this one. McManus is shirtless. Murphy is buttoning up. Claire enters. She reports that she has been transferred to Em City as a result of someone reporting to Glynn that Querns was filling the place up with exclusively black COs. McManus expresses shock. She muses, "Life's full of ironies." And considering that McManus spent so much concentrated energy trying to get her out of Oz, and all he succeeded in doing was getting her deeper in, I offer a moment of congratulation to the writers that this cycle of employment hijinks might actually qualify as certifiable irony. Go, show. Then Claire takes off her shirt and stands topless in front of you and me and God and everyone, for a moment that the camera holds onto for a pretty intense length of time. And then my respect for anything ever having anything to do with Claire's character disappears immediately, conclusively, and forever. Because I have nothing else to say on the matter. Because a girlish, horrified shriek of "Ack! Boobies!" doesn't really qualify as the apex of maturity in the recapping genre. Still, though. Ack. Boobies.
The loud and obvious sound of retching emanating from inside the cell of Nathaniel Ginzberg indicates that he also had the utter misfortune of watching the mammary-heavy sequence. Meanwhile, Sister Pete tells Glynn that Gloria says Nat is on Death Row in more ways than one and is anxious to stop the suffering from AIDS. Sister Pete: "He asked me to ask you if it would be possible to move up the execution." Glynn responds that there is no legal precedent for being executed early ["well, except Gary Gilmore" -- Sars], and also, more surprisingly to him, "You're encouraging me to do this. Given your position against capital punishment." She thinks it would be a blessing for him to be Kevorkianed as quickly as possible, and plays Naughty Nun once more in telling Glynn, "My church is against a lot of things I'm not." She is clergy. Hear her roar.
Down in Em City, the inmates are watching that pokey-saturated news channel that reports only tidbits about their prison and people they know. All the time. What ever happened to sports, Lotto numbers, Mr. G with the weather and a Seinfeld rerun? Anyway, we learn that authorities are still hot on the non-trail of Alvarez, and then we learn that a judge accepted Ginzberg's request for an earlier execution. Over on Death Row, Sister Pete drops in to find Ginzberg dressed in full drag and make-up, and she tells him that he looks "like Susan Hayward." He can't steady his hands enough to polish his nails, however, and so he employs Sister Pete's help in this. She takes on the task bravely, but finds his hands shaking so badly that she advises him to lie down. He reports that tomorrow morning he has "a date with an angel," and Sister Pete gently lays the sweet transvestite down for a nap-like respite of some kind.
Because this is a show that "pushes the boundaries" and "takes chances," Pancamo is inexplicably sitting on the toilet and smoking a cigarette for the entirety of this scene. Well, why not? His podmate (am I supposed to know his name? 'Cause I don't. And I'm sorry) reports some season's past back story: "Ginzberg's dead tomorrow 'cause he killed Antonio Nappa. You wanted him to do it. Doesn't that bother you a little bit? He's dying because of you." Pancamo responds that they chose this life for themselves and have to deal with the consequences therein. But that practicality is simply not existential enough for Podmate, who volleys, "But Chucky. Are you afraid of dying?" He says no. Just then there is a loud crack on the pod window, and Claire bellows for Pancamo to get rid of the cigarette. She walks away. "Her," he says, "I'm afraid of." Ba-dumm.
Over in Schillinger's cell, he has obviously had a cup up to the ceiling so he could hear the Em City television and become unbelievably well-informed as to the facts of Ginzberg's case. He thinks the gas chamber, the method Ginzberg chose, is a good way to die, because "one minute you're sittin' there, breathing in and out, stuff fills your lungs. The thing you know, you don't know nothing." Other Guy responds, "Instead of a last meal, they should give you one last blow job," while he fondles himself up on the top bunk. 'Cause we're pushing the boundaries and taking chances, is why. And who the hell is "they"?
It's 5 am on Death Row when Glynn, Sister Pete, Ray, and LoPresti enter to fetch Ginzberg. Are any of those four the "they" Schillinger's cellmate was referring to in the last scene? Because I can tell you that my oral pleasure needs would do well to exclude any of those four, especially in the final moments of my life. I'll stick with the meal, thanks. Now put that thing away. Anyway, Glynn attempts to rouse Ginzberg, but they find him lying on his bed, already dead of natural causes. Sister Pete again asserts that he looks "so beautiful," and takes to polishing his nails. Could Death Row be any less fun?
Em City by morning. Over in The Place Where The Authorities Aren't, Mobay talks at full voice in no uncertain terms with Adebisi and the usual suspects about DRUGS ENTERING OZ. Tomorrow. Pancamo discloses that they are going to "get healthy" tomorrow, which means a new shipment will be arriving. They will not tell Mobay where the shipment is coming from, but they do inform him that he has to recruit five new users, which they call "babies" and which Mobay pronounces in his increasingly fakey-sounding Jamaican accent in the most annoying way possible. Bee-bees. And the "s" is really hard. I would very much like for Mobay to just shut up.
Over in Glynn's office, Mobay meets a detective from the Homicide Department working on the Gergan (Bad cop. Last week. Dead) case. Glynn tells us that Gergan turned state's evidence and "the DA is pissed that his prime witness didn't last a week in Oz." Mobay deadpans that he thought the elevator shaft incident was accidental, but homicide lady's "gut says otherwise." Hey, she knows stuff. Mobay suggests someone found out Gergan was a cop. "No, this is something else." Hey, she knows more stuff. A flashback from last week, intended perhaps for viewers who make a habit of fast-forwarding through the violent parts (ah, to recap a thirty-second show) displays Mobay offing Gergan in the elevator shaft. Mobay offers to help her, and the homicide detective says she'll be sticking around to interview some inmates. She leaves. Glynn keeps Mobay in his office and asks about the status of things. Mobay recounts the fact that drugs are coming into Oz the following day, he just doesn't know from where. He also tells Glynn that they want him to recruit some new buyers, and Glynn reads from page freakin' one of The Complete Idiot's Guide To Sneaky Yet Principled Undercover Chicanery by telling Mobay that, as a police officer, he can't sell drugs, just as he told him so many weeks back that a police officer can't use drugs. Good thing Mobay went so far out of his way to prove Glynn wrong, wrong, wrong. Mobay tells Glynn not to worry, letting him in on a ruse: he'll use the cash he already has and pretend it's from his [lapses into Jamaican accent for just the wrong freakin' word, if you want my opinion on it all] "bee-bees." Shut up, Mobay.
Except he's a smooth-talking, two-timin' ruse-maker, as we cut to the cafeteria to find Mobay using his cash-on-hand and keeping the drugs for himself. After lights out in their pod, Hill begs for Mobay to shut up (Hill, in his narration-oriented role, should find that appeal a familiar refrain) while Mobay snorts a-plenty. Hill needs to get some sleep! Mobay yells, "So sleep." Only he doesn't do it in his accent. Hill notices. Cue montage of Mobay using. Back in the pod, Mobay throws the remaining stash of cocaine into the toilet and stares worriedly at the ceiling while Hill stares suspiciously up at Mobay. Uh-oh. They'll find him out for sure now. And they'll kill him. And his wife. And his bee-bees.
Cut to a scene with more camera angles than a Spike Jonze-directed Skechers commercial, in which Mobay drops in on Sister Pete and tells her he's happy Glynn has shared his undercover secret with her, for the obvious purposes of hasty character development. He needs to talk. Let the critical Mobay back story commence: "Oz is my first big undercover assignment. A lot of the guys I worked with in narcotics didn't think I could handle the job, but I knew I could. I thought I could." He left his wife and his son and it's his son's birthday and if he blows this case his career is over and on and on the pathos goes. The point: "Sister, I'm an addict." He looks at her miserably, lost and in need of help. Like a beeb in the woods. Shut up, Mobay.
Hill: Life in the pokey. Hard. Not easy.
In the first of so many full-frontal shots over the course of so short a time that I'm convinced its a record even for this show (Claire's merciful waist-up-only near disaster notwithstanding), we join Keller in the hole, one arm against the cement wall, urinating aggressively into a bucket. I spend remarkably little time recapping the scene that follows, lest my self-evident reliance on the rewind and pause buttons cause me to rest on a still frame of the last shot when a roommate should happen through the room and incredulously observe, "What in the name of holy hell is going on down at that web site?" The scene I'm missing much of is in some way concerned with Beecher telling Said that his son is dead and there is nothing he can do to change that. Well, that's news. Said tells Beecher that "killing Keller is no way to mourn [his] child." Ray enters the pod and tells Beecher that Holly, his daughter, was delivered alive. Beecher and Said hug while Ray stands aside, unhugged. There. Point A to Point B. Folks, consider it recapped.
Maybe because he didn't get a hug and was feeling left out, Ray is the only person besides Beecher and his lawyer to sit in on a meeting over in Ambiguous Conference Room #1. Lawyer man says that he has checked out the leads passed along by the Stephen King doppelganger of a few weeks back, and nothing adds up. They have conclusively proven that Keller had absolutely nothing to do with the kidnapping, and that they have arrested "the real kidnapper," the son of a good clean family man, a responsible and shockingly non-incarcerated youth named Hank Schillinger.
Schillinger Sr. is sitting down to a meeting with Beecher's lawyer and Keller is being released from the hole as we find ourselves back in Querns's office. He speeches the two podmates and lovebirds (for a riveting congressional filibuster ripped straight from the pages of the OED on how that word came into being, stick around and all will be explained! Don't, actually. I'll probably be skipping right by it for a change) that they are not to touch each other ever again "in love or in war," and tells Keller he is being transferred to another pod. He then sends Keller packing (wow, literally), and tells Beecher to stay behind. He informs Beecher that his movements through Oz will be limited now that the truth about the kidnapping is known, but Beecher wants to know why he is being punished for the death of his own son. Querns squirms: "Given the fact that I have transferred all of the Aryans out of Em City, this is the safest place for you." Beecher throws a jaded "Ha! What is safe, anyway" look in Querns's general direction, and Querns relents: "Relatively safe." In other words, safe to the point of being not at all safe. Got it.
Cue the big break-up. Beecher enters the pod to find Keller packing up his suitcase full of pain. Beecher apologizes, "My son died horribly. I was out of my mind with grief." Keller hath no fury: "You've got plenty of reasons to assume the worst about me. But I worked very hard to regain your trust, your love. I thought I had, but this proves I haven't. I can't. I won't. I never will." Keller cannot forgive him for the mistrust. Keller leaves. Keller is instantaneously to be replaced by Beecher's new podmate, who instantaneously exhibits many different kinds of bad roomie behavior. He takes the top bunk, which Beecher claims is his. Adebisi appears at the door and warns New Podmate that he'd better "be nice," thwarting the building tension at least for the moment. But I have a sneaking suspicion that if this show follows its typical pattern, New Podmate is not yet finished demanding the numerous ways and means in which he intends to, when it comes to Beecher, be on top. If you know what I mean. And you do.
Cafeteria. Schillinger's Nazi Freak Henchman asks Schillinger if the Feds arrested Hank, and we learn that they nabbed Hank after he gave the girl up to Beecher's parents. Schillinger also doesn't know if Hank will turn his father in. "In" where, I have no idea. Certainly doesn't seem as if he can get any further "in" than he already is. Keller stops by the table for a moment to tell Vern that, when it comes to parenting, "you're father of the fucking year." Schillinger stands and walks away, while Keller calls out after him that when Schillinger dies, his name dies with him. He looks ruefully down at his lunch and throws it away uneaten, observing quietly, "And the world'll be a better place." Kill the man, save the food! Did the cheese sandwich kill Beecher's son? No, Keller, it did not. What was his name again? Larry?
An unparalleled number of full-frontal naughty bits make their appearance in a scene that pretty much gives me the one-eyed willies for its sheer shock value. Beecher is shaving and his new podmate and another friend are showering when Keller enters, removes his towel (it's a new scene, so it counts as a new sighting), and responds to New Podmate's request, "Mind if I fuck your girlfriend?" Keller doesn't care what they do. Beecher leaves. New Podmate and friend leave. Keller turns the water all the way to "hot" and puts his hand at his side (Hand. Thigh. Water. Naked. Just imagine what's included in THAT close-up) while the water pours down on it until it begins to bleed. Which is to supposed to be an unremittingly disturbing moment, I think, but doesn't even rank in the top three most starkly troublesome visual images I was forced to endure in the thirty seconds alone. And that doesn't even include the close-up.
Keller is in confession; Ray listens to Keller's "shucks, no way" admission that "in the past year or so [he has] committed numerous homosexual acts." Then he admits in one sentence to having sex with men and killing them before he came to Oz. Oops. Ray tells him he must confess this again, but this time to authorities. Ray refuses to absolve him until he does so. Keller calls him a "Hack in Black" -- an expression I've never heard, but think would make an excellent title for the debut techno album Ray's so clearly got up his sleeve -- and storms off.
Keller, of course, has been given a new pod on the "Beecher's Pod Observation Deck," as he can see directly into his old digs by looking straight ahead out his pod's door. New Podmate walks up behind Beecher and sets the mood: "Come on Beecher, suck my dick." Beecher watches Keller watching Beecher take off his shirt and disappearing into the shadows to do just that.
Remember how I wasn't going to tell you how the word "jailbird" came into existence? Yeah, well, here's where I'm not.
The short-attention-spanned among us are reminded for the amount-of-numbers-that-appear-after-the-decimal-point-in-pi time that Rebadow killed Hernandez. Thanks again for the flashback. Maybe they should start showing every scene twice in a row, lest we forget the salient details of large chunks of plot development that have JUST TRANSPIRED. That, or maybe chop the flashbacks and, for the love of all things holy, throw in some commercials. I mean, I love the show and all, but c'mon. It's endless. Rebadow tracks down Morales in Em City and tells Morales that he has gone back on his promise to let Rebadow kill someone. Morales says he's trying to keep violence down, what with the whole Querns-thinks-heroin-is-fine-if-we-just-stop-all-the-yelling platform currently in effect in Em City. Rebadow says that he doesn't need Morales's permission, just his protection. All right, Morales assures him. Who are you going to kill? At which point Rebadow turns a sinister profile and utters by far the greatest, most "bwah ha ha ha" funny line this episode could possibly have to offer: "Who, indeed?" He skulks off. Morales looks after him with a shocked glare, thinks to sincerely wonder aloud, "All right, who spiked the Geritol," and moves right along.
In a scene that spends its five-day weapons waiting period shouting "Dream Sequence!" from the top of the bell tower, Rebadow is in the cafeteria with a machine gun the size of a small nation, which he uncorks on the whole of the Oz populace. I scratch down Natural Born Killers and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on my rental list, ponder for a moment if the latter was ever actually made into a movie, and ponder further why I would rent the former when I hated it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns the first time I saw it, and scratch them both off. When I look up, Rebadow is making nicey-nice with Busmalis, who is overjoyed that his old friend has decided to kill -- er, I mean "talk civilly with" -- him once again. Rebadow offers Busmalis his pie. Busmalis gives Rebadow's laugh-out-loud quip a run for its drug money with his own spirited response: "Yes. YES!!!" Rebadow's eye twitches ever so slightly, and I wonder what on Earth I was thinking during those politically correct college days when I had myself convinced that, indeed, all old people are not completely insane. Because clearly they are. Just like it says on the TV.
Night in the geriatric pod. Rebadow does methodical sit ups while Busmalis lies on the top bunk, relieved that Rebadow is talking to him. Busmalis comments, "I'm the happiest of men." Rebadow launches into a speech about The Art of War and the primal urge to kill. But Busmalis turns a sleeping ear to the proceedings, which of course is a clear signal for his best friend of thirty-five years to murder him in cold blood with all great alacrity. Rebadow unearths a knife from underneath the mirror. He lunges. Busmalis, his arm cut rather badly, wakes up. Pandemonium. The guards seize Rebadow and drag him to the hole. Thankfully, an opportunity for an up-close encounter with Rebadow's privatest of privates slips mercifully by. He lies down on the floor of the hole and resumes his perpetual sit-ups. That's right. Keep the camera on the face. And don't move it. I freakin' dare you.
I swear, if this subplot didn't feature Ryan O'Reily as the focal point of the entire operation, I'd fast forward through the thing like it was a damn Verizon Wireless commercial. O'Reily hides in a corner of some stock room making calls on the cell phone, all of the "when can I get that?" and "well, I'll need it by Friday" variety. Oooooh. "That" and "it." Such alluring topics worthy of basing an entire season's worth of plot development on. He hangs up. Meanwhile, Querns enters Stanislofsky's cell in protective custody and comments, "You called for me," in a way that I don't know whether it's a joke or not. "Called"? Get it? Yeah, me neither. Querns tells Stanislofsky that if he won't tell him why he's so afraid of Hoyt, he's going to end the red Commie bastard's tenure in PC and put him back in Em City. So Stanislofsky recaps the inert cell phone subplot while I spend some time throwing up my hands and wondering why I went through all the trouble in the first place. Herewith: Galino. Cell phone. O'Reily. "That." "It." Blah. Cut to Querns marching up to O'Reily and demanding the cell phone. Cell phones, O'Reily deadpans, are "against the rules. Mr. Querns." Back in PC, Querns tells Stanislofsky that he's sending him back to die because Stanislofsky cannot prove his story. Stanislofsky requests to see his girlfriend and a rabbi, which sounds very, very much like the beginning of a hilarious Russian-themed joke which continues "walk into a Russian bar" and ends, "Now quit Stalin and don't give me any more Bolshevik!"
Cut to Stanislofsky and his girlfriend. He tells her he is very likely to die, but that she must do him one favor and call [hands her slip of paper] this phone number at 5 pm sharp. Like I'm supposed to have absolutely no idea what's about to happen. And, because every clock on the planet is perfectly synchronized to the second, the phone rings at 5 pm to the Em City second. The guards uncover the phone taped to the bottom of chair, and O'Reily looks very, very guilty. Cut to O'Reily and Hoyt being interviewed separately by Querns. Big lies all around. Oh, um, and somewhere in there Hill made a speech. Ring. Hello? No one cares. Click.
O'Reily pod. Ryan tells Adebisi that he wants Stanislofsky dead, a conversational thread that dies way after it should have when Adebisi indicates that Cyril hasn't spent much time looking not dead these past few days. When Ryan can't wake him, he calls for a guard and we cut, real ER-style, to Cyril being wheeled into the infirmary. Oops. He ODed on the Haldol. Again, oops. Ryan paces outside of a rather tall set of bars and Said approaches in an attempt to comfort him. Ryan tells Said he thinks Gloria did this in purpose. Cut to Sister Pete walking into Gloria's office, where Sister Pete begins the process of trying to convince Gloria that Keenan's attack on her was random and that O'Reily had nothing to do with it.
In the strangely unguarded and completely empty gym with its free weights and numerous other metal death tools, many of which can be configured to outweigh even the fastest of men, Ryan enters to find Keenan mid-lifting. After some more faux luck-o'-the-Irish bonding, Ryan asks Keenan just what it was like to violate Dr. Nathan. And so Keenan begins his story, "She was walking into her apartment. And she was so hot." This proud depravity is juxtaposed against Cyril the Innocent waking up in the hospital and saying things to Gloria like, "My brother, he does bad things. But deep down, he's not bad," and the even more cloying (is that even possible? Read on!) "He loves you. With all his heart." Back in the gym, Ryan soaks in the rest of the story, exhales a genuinely winded, "Jesus," before collecting himself and adding, "You sure did a job on her." Ryan asks Keenan if he would like to work for him. Keenan would very much like to, indeed. Then he tells Keenan that he always gets someone else to kill for him. Then he makes an exception just for Keenan. Barbell fun times. Keenan hits the floor, dead. Arif, standing near the door, watches it all, but runs away before Ryan sees him. Ryan steals Keenan's shamrock necklace. Cut to Keenan being wheeled out of the infirmary, as Gloria gives the directive to send him down to the morgue. She returns to her office to find an envelope with her name on it, which she cracks open to discover contains a note written by a production assistant whose boss probably told her, "You're writing this for Ryan O'Reily's character. Try to make it look like you're real craaaaaaaaaazy." The note reads, "All for you, Gloria. All for you." The shamrock falls out of the envelope into her hand.
Glynn's office. Dr. Nathan tells Leo that she came back too soon, and she needs to leave Oz immediately and try to deal with her anger. Glynn tells her that her job will be waiting for her when she wants to come back. She changes said "when" sentiment to an "if," and retreats to her office. While she's packing her belongings into a cardboard box while a Hill narration rages on all the while (Whatever. Pause buttons exist for a reason), she tosses the shamrock into the garbage and, reconsidering, picks it out again. On her way out of the hospital, she stops by Cyril's bed and smoothes his hair. Over in Ryan's pod under the darkest cover of night, he's looking way too pensive to not fuck with an unsuspecting audience of me one last time this week. Then he stands up, completely naked, and walks right up to the transparent floor to ceiling glass of his pod. How. YOU. Doin'?