Fade up on Augustus "Metaphorically speakingand speakingand speaking" Hill. "In Oz, you got to be ready to defend yourself." Let me just interrupt to let you all know, this particular episode needed Hill. The explanations of shanks and where they come from sort of appeased my irritation at the seemingly endless supply of weaponry in a maximum-security prison. I said sort of. And I said this episode. Don't everyone go opening threads titled "Megyn: sell-out by mid-season?" just yet.
We open to find Glynn in mid-chastise, his victim poor, depressed Alvarez, who shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other while trying to squelch the voices that tell him to shoot the president and that Jodie Foster is his key to hot, un-bridled monkey-lovin' passion. Glynn bitches that Alvarez is supposed to be his snitch, but hasn't told Glynn one thing he didn't already know. Al tells him about Morales requesting he grease Redding tout suite so he can get back into the cool gang. Glynn, void of anything living in the same neighborhood as sympathetic, just tells him he's screwed and that he may as well send Alvarez's bipolar ass back to solitary. Alvarez weakly suggests that Glynn pick Morales up on a conspiracy charge. Like, "pick him up"? He's already in jail, nimrod. Glynn basically says the same thing, and Alvarez asks him for a few days to figure something out, or until his Fiber-Con kicks in.
Alvarez walks through the common room and meets up with Morales, who asks him where he's been. Al tells him he's been "kissing the warden's ass," and proceeds to outline his new plan to be a "double agent"; since the warden wants info on Morales, he'll only supply him with info Morales wants him to have. Morales: "That's a brilliant idea except, there isn't any information I want the warden to have." Poor Alvarez looks crushed while Morales advises him to start "looking forward to the fifty years all by [his] lonesome."
In the laundry room, oddly enough no longer bathed in the soothing, warm glow of neon lime, Poets hoists himself off the counter to allow Alvarez in. Redding and Hill are in attendance. Al wants to talk, but Burr says they have no business together. "Morales wants you dead." Poet snickers at poor Al, "That ain't no headline." Alvarez shares further that it is he who was asked to do the deed. Burr considers this: "You're playing a dangerous game here, son. Betraying your own skin?" Alvarez whines that they betrayed him first. "No doubt." I love when Burr says that. He's just a cool cat. Till he sees them Cheetos. Burr tells him that the trouble with getting into bed with a traitor is, you never know when they will turn on you. Tell me about it! If I had a friggin' nickel for every traitor I got into bed with, I'd be a rich ho. Burr says he'll have to "decline the offer," and as Alvarez leaves, Poet helpfully repeats, "Dee-cline!" in case Al misunderstood the burning rejection. As he leaves and walks back towards the common area, one of the members of the Latino gang asks Al why he was talking to Redding and company. Al gives him a half-assed answer about borrowing detergent. "We haven't forgotten you shanked Carlos Ricardo." Alvarez hears this, turns around, and releases the challenge since he has "nothing to lose and nothing to gain." He lunges at the guy who was busily twitching his upper lip, and slices his throat. Twitchy falls to the ground and spurts blood while the crowd goes wild. Everybody loves a fight in Oz. A hack tries to grab Al but gets his hand cut for his effort. We see Keller watching the whole thing and looking thoroughly entertained; then we switch back to more hacks, one of them clubbing Alvarez so they all can pin him down to the ground.
“ Hill demonstrates, and then loses me by bitching about cutting himself. The weapon is interesting, though. MacGyver for prison. ”
Hill: "This particular shank is called the Gillette Bayonet. It's designed not to cut -- but to slice. The blade from a disposable razor is extracted and then attached to a pen or pencil." He demonstrates, and then loses me by bitching about cutting himself. The weapon is interesting, though. MacGyver for prison.
Ah, here we are in solitary, just in time to witness Alvarez going big potty. He gets up, and I think it's bad enough that he doesn't wipe, but then he pauses as he's about to flush. The bells start going off, and I know that it's all about to get real, real bad. He reaches inside the toilet, picks up a Mr. Hanky, and proceeds to wipe it everywhere. I realize I have to recap this, but I want you all to know that my gag reflex is currently being tickled not only by the visual, but also by the recall as I type. Gaaah!! A guard looks in the room; we see him first see, then smell, the shit job Al did redecorating, and then he closes the little window as Al wipes it all over his face. What is it with Al and his bodily waste? Y'all remember season three? He drank his own piss in front of Father Mukada because the hacks weren't giving him water or food? I am so never making out with HIM again! Anyway, after the guard shuts the window, he walks back down the hall, past a forlorn Busmalis.
We fade from him to Rebadow, breaking the sad news to Norma that her fianc is currently in solitary confinement and not allowed to get married. Norma asks why, and Rebadow regales her with the saga of boy-digs-tunnel, boy-meets-girl, boy-promises-warden, boy-tries-to-fill-in-tunnel-but-hits-a-water-main, boy-loses-privileges. We've all heard it a million times. Norma implores him to do something. Rebadow promises he will.
In the warden's office, Rebadow is just finishing the whole saga, and Glynn says, "That's a lovely storywhy should I believe you?" The warm fuzzy factor rises as Rebadow reminds Glynn that, in thirty-five years of being in Oz, he has seen murders, riots, and had a hundred different cell-mates, but not once has he "stepped up on another prisoner's behalf." Glynn sort of nods and glazes over until Rebadow finishes, then says, "Okay. But no more goddamned tunnels!"
Cut to the geri-pod as Busmalis enters and thanks Rebadow profusely. "I don't know how you got me out, or how I'll ever repay you." Rebadow clucks that that's all stuff and nonsense since it was no big thing. Busmalis walks to the sink to splash his face as Rebadow wags a finger. "No more tunnels!" Busmalis waxes philo-not!-phical about tunnels and how he figured out in solitary that they're extended graves. But he's not dead yet! No sir! Off he goes to call Norma, and Rebadow smiles at the sheer whimsy of it all.
Staff meeting. McManus holds court with a grandiose explanation of good versus evil and how he plays a part in everything that ever was. He laments the aging pill, currently being tested, and how the fact that the inmates will be freed "invalidates the whole purpose of our jobs." Stupid itchy McManus. Murphy breaks in with, "Tim's right, a killer at twenty who is in for twenty, turns forty and goes free -- he's still a killer." Tim then goes on to say that the pill is an admission to their failure, that they can't rehabilitate them so why even try? His plea? To stop the program. Gloria fumes, "Leave it to you, Tim, to turn a disagreement between us into some self-righteous crusade." Then to the rest of them, "He's making speeches because he didn't want the O'Reily brothers included." Sister Pete says she thinks Tim "brought up some good points" Gloria balks at this, but Pete stands her ground. He does actually bring up some points, but I hate him, so I'm automatically on Gloria's side. Claire pipes up to ask, "Which one of you can claim to have turned one of these fucks around?" LoPresti agrees with her, and Murphy tells him to go back to selling used cars. Can you not totally see LoPresti in a plaid sports jacket? He's such a cheese-head. Where was I? Oh, right, Glynn wakes up and announces to the table of bickering fuckwits that he'll "call the commissioner" on this, but until he decides to "pull the plug," the program continues. Way to rule, Leo.
In the infirmary, Gloria gets ready to examine all the pill-poppers, who are currently in their underwear. Cyril stands and plays with a split end while she checks Ryan outand then she examines him. Thank you, I'll be here all week. Ryan asks when the effects of the drug will start rearing their little gray heads. Gloria says it's never been tested on humans, or Robson, but the lab rats began aging within three days. Ryan leans closer and winces, "If I get old and wrinkled, will you still love me?" Gloria looks at him, thinking, "Hell no" but just stares dumbly at him until, "!" Cyril plops down and she asks if he has any complaints. "I have a tummy-ache." Yeah, you and me both, Cyril.
Lights on! Ryan sits up in his cot and hacks a few times before telling Cyril to get up. He hops down from said cot and walks over to the mirror to splash. He catches sight of poor old Cyril and "Mother of Christ!" Cyril turns over and says, "Ryan, I don't feel so good." Back in the infirmary, Cyril gets examined yet again by Dr. Nathan's amazing stethoscope of diagnosis. She finishes, and Ryan follows her to her desk. He asks what she found. "He's begun to age." Does anyone have a cookie? Because that Gloria sure deserves one for that astute observation brought to you by the makers of No Shit Sherlock. Ryan wigs, "What about me?" The whole idea was for him and Cyril to go through this together, "to get out of Oz, together." He wants her to stop administering the drug to Cyril. She says no: "You signed an agreement." "I don't care! Everything I've done so far has fucked Cyril's life up and I'm not about to watch him disintegrate!" Gloria sticks to her guns and refuses to stop with the pills. Again with the "You signed an agreement!" Ryan: "I don't care!" Gloria: "Well, I do!" Ryan glares and points at her: "Fuck you." He goes to take Cyril back to their pod; she protests and says they're keeping him for observation, then tells the guards to get Ryan out of there. Maybe I'm just nutty, but I detect trouble in paradise. Speaking of nuttywonder how Alvarez is doing.