This is the end, my felonious friends. This is the end. And with that being the case, I find myself for the first time faced with the task of administering last rites to a show that's been on TV longer than this very site has been on the web. What exactly is the protocol for that sort of thing, do you think? Am I required to present some pithy, paragraph-long summation of the show, or do I just dive right in and tell you what happened like any other week? Do I deliver a flowering eulogy worthy of the Fisher family I'll so soon be seeing, or in the immortal words of Chris Keller, do I just "fuck [it] in the ass one last time" before I kill it? And anyway, what can you really say about Oz? Is it a gritty and honest portrayal of the dehumanizing ennui engendered by a flawed American criminal justice system, or is it a poorly lit pay-cable soap opera, with just enough dick and defecation scenes to keep the rubberneckers coming back for more? You do see my dilemma here, right? In the end, much like Tom Fontana, I decided to just be lazy and let William Shakespeare do all the heavy lifting. So here he is, ever-so-eloquently describing what it's been like to recap the one hundred and ten commercial-free minutes that -- like so many joyous clicks of a ruby red slipper -- have finally brought us home from Oz.
"Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary seven nights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost."
-- Macbeth (Act I. Scene iii.)
Thanks, Bill!
Cypress Hill. He's insane in the brain, people! It's the only logical explanation. Apparently, convicted inmates frequently continue to loudly profess their innocence, regardless of whether or not they actually committed the crimes for which they've been incarcerated. Wow. Who knew? "But what about that one brother who's telling the truth?" wonders Augustus, as he sits surrounded by the entire cast. "The one who really is innocent?" Well, I don't know about you, but I'm betting that guy gets spooned a lot.
Fade up on a grainy, washed-out, I-Just-Got-Some-New-AfterEffects-Filters-And-I'm-Not-Afraid-To-Use-Them-style flashback of Leo's last long walk down The Darkened Corridor of Doom. ["Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?" -- Macbeth (Act V. Scene i.)] As a new day dawns on Oz, the staff gathers to mourn their fallen leader. "We all had our disagreements with Leo," sighs Sister Pete. "But still, he was the best man for the worst job." Yeah, if that job was watching his inmates die. From there it's off to The Late Leo's office, where Tim and Ex-Wife Ellie are packing up his belongings. Ellie confesses that she's been pushing for Tim to be named the new warden, but he doesn't think there's any way Governor Little Bo Peep would ever let him have the job. Besides, he doesn't want it anyway, probably because he knows deep down in his heart of hearts that he's the only man in America who'd actually be worse at it than Leo. Unless, of course, that job was rearranging the entire prison into the absolute worst possible cellmate combinations. Then he'd kick ass. They're interrupted when a guard drags Henry Stanton in to fortuitously exposit that Lionel Kelch killed the warden, as well as pretty much everyone else involved in the Great Season-Six Mayor MacGuffin Murder Mystery. You know, given Stanton's time in solitary this season and his self-expressed, Rosie-fed fetish for masculine women, wouldn't it make more sense for HIM to be the father of Claire's baby? I'm just saying. Terry Kinney strives gamely to present his best take on "steely-eyed" (which fetches up tragically closer to "Steely Dan") as he orders the guards to have Kelch brought to the hole.
Once there, McManus grimly provides him with a lengthy list of the many indignities a prisoner can suffer while confined to the hole. His monologue's real purpose, however, is simply to give Tom Fontana an excuse to hit us with his Inmates Gone Wild: Oz's Greatest Naked Hits reel, as we're treated to successive flashbacks of Keller, Ryan, and a guy I'm pretty sure was Beecher in all their splendid pants-free glory. By the way, now I really don't understand what it is people see in Chris Meloni. Not surprisingly, Kelch quickly offers to give up the man who hired him. Also not surprisingly, we see Officer Murphy leading Johnson the Blatantly Guilty CO down that one hallway set that actually has sufficient ambient lighting. Because he's played by a talented actor, Murphy does an excellent job of tweaking Johnson's smarmy proclamations about Governor Fat Man and Little Boy's eulogizing skills like a man who knows exactly what's coming . Because his character has to be even dumber than Omar White in order to serve the serpentine contortions of this plotline, Johnson does a merely passable job of acting like a man who hasn't noticed that he's been summoned to a suspiciously vague meeting with his boss, in what everyone knows is the prison interrogation room, less than twenty-four hours after personally arranging for the warden's murder. He blithely opens the office door, and is shocked (shocked, I say!) to discover Benjamin Prat waiting there for him with Kelch, Timbo, and a fresh pair of handcuffs all in close proximity. "Before he hauls your ass downtown," snarls Timmy, his flinty gaze now hovering somewhere between Blue Steel and Steel Magnolias, "just tell me why." When a satisfactory answer fails to be forthcoming, McManus hauls off and throws a punch that I'm honestly shocked to be forced to describe as "not even the third girliest in the episode." And it was pretty damn girly. The scene's closing shot of Little Timmy trying to look tough as he huffs and puffs with his shiny forehead and his suit jacket bunched up around his armpits has been topped on my So-Desperately-Pathetic-You-Almost-Have-To-Laugh scale recently only that by the utterly ludicrous trailer I just saw for that new Crispin Glover rat-attack movie. Have we truly sunk that low?
By the way, here's an interesting "little" tidbit I picked up while researching nicknames: If you do a title search on "little" at the IMDb, Mind of the Married Man for some reason appears at number 63 on the TV list, right between Dink the Little Dinosaur and Van Camp's Little Show. Now that's a fitting epitaph if ever I've seen one.
Over in the cafeteria, Governor DeVito is prepping for a press conference and waxing nostalgic about how he's "mellowed" over the years. Dude, if this guy gets any mellower, he's not even going to be able to ride the big boy rides at the amusement park anymore. Ex-Wife Ellie pipes up to reveal that Johnson has fingered The Little Lackey (no, not like that, although it may not be as farfetched in their future) for ordering the murders of Warden Glynn and Mayor James Earl Gay. Governor Coleman responds with a pensive glare, remaining impressively impassive even as Timothy "I Steel Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" McManus squeals, "And you're , Devlin! You and your little lackey, too!" Governor Bonaparte stomps haughtily off the stage, imperiously declaring that "These charges are scurrilous!" as he waves his finger in Timbo's face. Hee! "Scurrilous" is definitely a fun word. "It's a vain attempt to attack a fine, young, [little] man," he continues. "Who's one step away from getting fucked up the ass," replies the entire cast, crew, and production staff of Shaquille O'Neill's Steel. Oy. Timmy isn't finished, though. "My only hope," he growls, "is that when you go to prison, they send you here to Oz." Oh, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. You know better than that. Show, don't tell. You know it's what the people want to see. Robert Reich offers Ex-Wife Ellie the chance to once again desert The Stainless Steel Rat, but she proudly stands by both her (ex)-men, and even goes so far as to call Muggsy Bogues here "a little prick." Shout-out? Governor Villechaize demands resignations from both of them, and then bellows loudly for the shell-shocked Little Lackey as he makes his final exit. Farewell, Governor Tiny Bubbles. Just be happy that "Zeljko" wasn't even the third strangest name in the cast.
Oh, and here's another quick research tip: Never ask your co-workers for help thinking up the names of famous dead racists. You tend get a lot of funny looks that way. And also a trip to human resources.
Without Leo's murder thusly avenged by the righteous fury of Timbo's pounding on The Steel Drums Of Non-Gay Boss-Love, it's finally time to play "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" as Martin Querns struts triumphantly into a staff meeting to announce his return. Now I'll admit that I've never seen most of his earlier episodes, but I definitely like what I'm seeing here. Where you been all my life, Marty? Although he does pose something of a minor nickname quandary. I mean, do you go with "Warden Shaft"? "Lionel Bitchie"? "Cornel Pest"? So many choices, so few scenes. Cut to Leo's old office, still with his nameplate on the door, where Querns is interviewing the staff. First up is McManus himself, and he's basically told that the only way he'll get to keep his job is if Governor Little Lord Soon To Be Orangepants loses his first. Querns then rounds out his brief moment in the sun with a stirring rendition of "Dancing on the Ceiling," a quick salacious comment directed at Sister Pete, and a warning to the inmates that anyone sent to solitary will be strapped into a device called a "restraint chair," which looks like a stripped-down Nautilus machine with a couple of seatbelts attached to it. He's going to make them do military presses? Man, what a bad-ass!
I get no thrill from Blueberry Hill. Here's a story, and it's lame: A prison inmate was once crushed to death while trying to escape in the hold of a garbage truck, despite the fact that his sentence was just three short years. I seriously doubt Augustus intended this, but I'm not really having a very hard time sympathizing with that guy right now.
Oy. I just realized that I've covered only one out of the twelve separate segments in this week's episode, and I'm already on page five here. Seeing as how no one wants to read a sixty-page recap (and I sure as hell don't want to write one), I think I may try to be a bit more succinct from here on out. In fact, all you need to know is that everyone dies and the prison gets closed. Thanks, everybody! It's been fun! Okay, just kidding. But Willy Shakespeare did say it himself: "Brevity is the soul of wit." ["And thou know'st we work by wit and not by witchcraft." -- Othello (Act II. Scene iii.)]
Anyway, my newfound terseness seems to have arrived at the perfect moment, because it's time to pay a visit once again to the Polident Pod. After some pre-dawn exposition about Patti's imminent return from her dual crapectomy, Rebadoze ties on his finest Sunday neck-string and sets off for the library. He finds La LuPone waiting there for him, wearing a beige peasant blouse and spouting some over-emoted drivel about how "only God can make a tree," even though mankind can still produce a pretty impressive breast-shaped sack of silicone. Any truly devoted HBO fan will join me here in making the obvious synergistic "Does this mean David Schwimmer is God?" joke. Also, I think the fact that this scene ends with the two of them holding hands and reciting poetry at each other speaks volumes about why I don't want to recap it anymore. ["Shut up. In measureless content." -- Macbeth (Act II. Scene i.)]
Patti ventures over to solitary, intending to peek in on young Pablo in his new home. She's stopped by a guard whose unfortunate resemblance to another member of the cast has led me to tar him with the familiar sobriquet "NotJohnson The Blatantly Bribe-able CO." NotJohnson informs her that the kid isn't allowed to have any visitors, which prompts Patti to seek advice from Rebadoze on navigating the shadowy corners of Oz's black market in favors. "Pablo is just another terrified kid," she explains. "He pretends to be tough but he's not." "You're telling me!" answers Rebadoze. "In my day we had to walk ten miles through eight feet of snow just to shank another inmate." But still, he does have some suggestions about how she can resolve the situation. "How much cash do you have?" he inquires. "And what are your thoughts on anal sex?" Cut to Patti, sitting outside Pablo's cell and performing the world's worst Books On Tape rendition of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer while NotJohnson counts his cash a few steps away. Inside the cell itself, Pablo sits strapped to his restraint chair, with little metal hooks holding his eyelids open and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony hitting a crescendo on the soundtrack. How is it that Tom Fontana feels so strongly about the death penalty that he wrote an entire episode condemning it, but he doesn't consider forced exposure to Patti's "dramatic" "reading" "voice" to be cruel and unusual punishment? And while we're at it, what about poor Penders? Not only does he get no screentime in the finale, but now he's even got someone more annoying than Omar blathering away outside his door all day.
The scene features Busmalis doing the following: Professing a desire to procreate, asking Rebadow for parenting tips, discussing his "loins," discussing "jerking off," making obscene hand gestures to accompany his discussion of jerking off, deciding to FedEx his sperm, telling Rebadow that he's "brilliant," and kissing Rebadow square on the lips. For your sake and mine, that's all I'm going to say about it.
After McManus capriciously denies his request to send Norma a turkey baster filled with love via Day Air, Busmalis angrily announces his intention to sue the state of Shelbyville in order to protect his inalienable right to masturbate with a sense of purpose. You go, Agamemnon! Millions of incarcerated would-be fathers with nothing but time and, er, something else on their hands are hanging on your every word! Well, when they're not perusing their copies of Swank, that is. Unfortunately, the commissioners quickly deny his appeal, noting that "while procreation is a fundamental right, the purpose of punishment is to take away such fundamental rights." "We lost?" mutters a confused Busmalis. "But how can that be? Every sperm is sacred! Every sperm is great! When a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate!" But not even the peppy musical stylings of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life are enough to sway the judges, and Busmalis is forced to haul off and deliver what I'm proud to announce is actually the girliest punch of the episode. The head commissioner is sent sprawling to the ground by the massive force of the five tiny air molecules Agamemnon's fist disturbed as it passed more than three feet away from its intended target. Busmalis quickly dives on top of him, only to pulled away by the guards and led off to solitary. Whew. For a minute there, I thought he might be headed for the hole. I'm not sure I could have survived seeing a full frontal of Little Agamemnon. It's bad enough that I'm stuck with the mental image of him in the Grumpy Old Pod, dreaming of Jessica Tandy and beating off into a plastic cup while Rebadow lies around fluffing his neck-strings on the bottom bunk. On the other hand, the anvillicious irony of his presence here in solitary hasn't been fully revealed yet, so maybe the hole will start to look a lot better when it is.
A much needed respite from the felonious fogies brings us to the staff lounge, where Father Mukada encounters a teary-eyed Claire chatting with Dr. Nathan. After Claire departs, Gloria -- who just a few short weeks ago used the word "fuck" three times in one sentence while emphatically declaring that she would never violate the Hippocratic Oath again -- ignores even most basic tenets of doctor/patient confidentiality in the service of exposition by revealing to the good Father that Claire is pregnant. Because he just doesn't get enough of the good gossip during his weekly bridge club sessions at the Hadassah Community Center, Mukada summons Claire to his office for a discussion of the impending demon-spawn. After a quick montage reveals that Claire has banged pretty much every male prisoner in the joint, she reveals that the baby is most likely to be "golden brown and marinated in salsa," which will present any number of problems in the "redneck" trailer park where she resides. Which reminds me that I'd like to officially announce that I'm moving to Wisconsin, just so I can tell people that I perpetually reside in the state of Eau Claire. Yeah. Sorry. Geography puns are a weakness of mine. Showing a level of resigned maturity that I didn't think she was capable of, Claire describes her plans thusly: "I'm going to take a leave of absence, drop the calf, and from then on keep my fucking legs crossed." Well, hallelujah. And also, heh. Tom Fontana wraps this whole little segment up in a nice bright ribbon of finely woven contrivance when Claire returns to solitary to monitor her charges, and finds Busmalis there, bemoaning the fact that he'll never be a father. Anvils ahoy, people! Look out below! Oh, and farewell, Kristen Rohde. I didn't think it was possible to be scarier than Schillinger, but you pulled it off with flair.
Jack and Jill went up the Hill, to fetch a pail of pablum. Here's a story, and it's dumb: A man who snuck out of a Vermont prison to hit the local Kwik-E-Mart for cigarettes and beer was actually captured by the guards while trying to break back in. Augustus seems to think that's pretty funny, but let's not forget that this comes from a man who keeps breaking back into prison to narrate even though he's ostensibly dead.
Hey! Rick Fox is back! Woo hoo! And also, "Awwww." I'd forgotten that his acting is even worse than his rebounding. It's so cute watching him try to enunciate. Because he's one of the few people to ever successfully make it out of Oz, and because the Lakers were mired in a hideous slump when these episodes were filmed, Querns has decided to bring good old Jackson Vayhue back to deliver a pep talk to the current inmates. Afterwards, Jackson is signing autographs when Dave Brass comes over and starts acting like an Ain't It Cool News fanboy who's just run into Natalie Portman at the supermarket. I think it's probably for the best that the recent Six Feet Under DVD signing was cancelled, because nobody wants to see me get close to Lauren Ambrose and then freeze up and be all "Fire bad, red hair pretty."
After Dave caps off his gushing with a few vaguely threatening remarks about "all the crazies in the world" (and also uses the word "stundeens" as a euphemism for testicles), the action switches to the meditative maze, where Brass and Murphy share a nice male-bonding moment. Brass explains that the only reason he ever wanted to play in the NBA was so that he could be famous. "I don't want to die a gimpy old guard at some half-ass prison," he adds, without revealing what his thoughts are on being a gimpy old prisoner at some half-ass prison. Then he forgives Murphy for ratting him out over the whole Morales tendon-slicing deal, and proclaims that he's quitting Oz to start a new life for himself. Yeah, that'll work. I'm sure there's just a huge job market out there for physically handicapped vengeance junkies who still faintly reek of the blood-shit-piss-puke cocktail they were doused with a few years back. Which is why I'm not exactly shocked when the very shot is a TV anchorman reporting that Dave Brass has been arrested for attempting to murder Jackson Vayhue. Sigh. Farewell, sweet Davey. You got stuck with a cheap-o ending, but I never really liked you anyway, so that's okay.
And then the whole thing goes to Hill in a hand basket. Sigh. Again. Here's a story, and it sucks. Literally. It seems a superior court judge in Texas was indicted for soliciting sexual favors from the female relatives of defendants in exchange for sentencing leniency. It's a good story, but I would have liked it better if they went with that crazy New York stalker judge. That guy was creepy.
Tom Fontana has obviously elected to front-load the show with all the plots he doesn't care about but has to resolve anyway, because now it's time for Father Mukada's segment. He kicks things off by meeting with Jaz Hoyt's father, who's played by an elderly, patrician actor whom I'm embarrassed to admit I can't identify. I've seen him a million times, but his name escapes me at the moment. ["Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!" -- Macbeth (Act II. Scene iii.)] ["Sars can, though. It's James Karen, voice of the Pathmark commercials." -- Sars, with an assist from the IMDb] Anyway, PapaHoyt warbles that he and MamaHoyt were excellent parents, "but there was always something not quite right about the boy. From the very day we brought him home from the orphanage." Like a house cat hearing the distinctive sound of a can opener going to work on a jar of tuna, Mukada's ears prick up at the mention of this eminently gossip-worthy revelation. He begs for all the information he can get on Hoyt's birth parents, and practically cackles with glee when learns that Hoyt's real father died in prison.
And speaking of Hoyt, here's the man himself, strapped to a bed in the hospital ward. Um, wasn't this guy transferred to a psych hospital a few episodes ago? What the hell is he still doing here? And then the writers slather even more contrivance onto their peanut butter and contrivance sandwich by having MamaKirk there to offer him some juice. When he refuses it, she angrily throws the liquid right in his face. Yeah. Because nothing says "I'm a good mother, and not a psychotic priest-loving stalker" like dousing the man who murdered your son with warm apple juice. This, of course, is Mukada's cue to enter, as he pulls her away from Jaz and tries gently to explain why it's not nice to taunt convicted murderers who are convinced they've been possessed by the devil. Somehow MamaKirk interprets this lecture as an opportunity to ask the Good Father on a date, and before he even knows what happened, Mukada is agreeing to meet her for dinner and wiping her lipstick off his cheek. Even with extensive use of my TiVo's pause button, I still can't determine whether or not it was Dick Suck Red.
we see Mukada and Sister Pete briefing the real MamaHoyt in preparation for a visit with her son. Ray uncovers even more juicy details about Jaz, not least of which is the news that his father's name was "Buster." After warning her that her son may "say terrible, terrible things," they escort BiologicalMamaHoyt to the hospital ward, where she hugs Jaz and brings an unsatisfying plotline to a highly unsatisfactory close. Hell, we didn't even get to see the guy naked again, despite all the perfect opportunities afforded by his loose-fitting hospital gown. Man, what a gyp.
I can't believe I just wrote that.
Hey! Father Ray is a secret smoker! Who knew? Flick…ahhhhh. MamaKirk comes down to find him working late in his office, and it's more of the same "She's Lonely, He's Celibate, Blah Blah I Think I'm Hitting The Wall With This Recap-Cakes" that we're used to seeing with these two. When MamaKirk lingers for a few extra seconds to stroke Mukada's bony shoulders after helping him put on his coat, he finally decides to address the situation. "I'm sorry I can't be more to you," he says, before adding that he's taken a vow of celibacy. MamaKirk is aghast at his presumptuousness, and in all fairness, I do think she was looking for more of a friend than a fuck-buddy here. Not that she'd kick him out of bed, of course. I mean, it's not like he'd take up very much space. Anyway, she hauls off and delivers what is hands down the manliest punch of the episode, cracking Father Ray with a pretty good slap across the face. Because he's a priest, Mukada simply turns the other cheek. Because she's a freak, MamaKirk slaps that one, too. Okay, just kidding. But she does call him "a fucking slanty-eyed mongrel," which seems harsh enough on its own.
And now for the much anticipated "Where In The World Is Jeremiah Cloutier?" segment, as Sister Pete explains that Hoyt is willing to divulge the final resting place of the flame-broiled Dylan McKay, but only to Father Mukada and no one else. Ray immediately bops on down to the hospital ward, and despite being told that revealing this information will likely cost Jaz his life, he still demands to know everything. After all, the only good gossip is the kind worth killing for. Jaz whispers something we can't hear, and then we cut to Mukada, struggling to pull a cinderblock out of a random corridor wall. Seeing as how nobody ever bothers to change the light bulbs in Oz, I don't have a hard time believing that he couldn't get a maintenance man to do this kind of work for him. On the other hand, I do have a hard time believing that the Oz casting department -- which has always been the show's greatest strength -- couldn't even get Luke Perry to come back for one ten-second cameo. I mean, it's not like he's got anything else to do these days. The guy is filming a show for the SciFi Network with Theo Huxtable, for Christ's sake. We cut back and forth from Hoyt getting murdered by a biker in the hospital ward (complete with MamaKirk observing all Nurse Nasty-like from the sidelines) to Mukada saying the last rites and refilling the hole in the wall with Luke Perry's crispy-fried corpse still entombed with the casks of Amontillado. Farewell, Jeremiah Cloutier. At least you didn't die in a race-car wreck.
Boot Hill. Enough said.
Here comes the shortest section of the program, this one featuring Arif and Crackhead Cosby. Well, there's always room for Jell-O, I guess. After Arif confesses that he can no longer live with the guilt of profiting from Redding's destruction of the printing press, he finds himself summarily dismissed from the Muslim prayer group. They also punch him a few times, leaving his shirt ripped to tatters and soaked in an improbably large amount of blood. I mention that only because it will be important later. When he explains the situation to McManus, Arif ends up thrown in the Em City cage, and Crackhead Cosby ends up getting sent to solitary. Sigh. Whatever. Not even a brief appearance by Business Barbie and her paper-thin pink T-shirt that's as close as we're going to get to female nudity this season is enough to rouse me from my "I Can't Believe There's Still A Full Hour To Go" stupor. Farewell, Crackhead Cosby. May your gait always be shambling, and your pudding pops always ice-cold.
Cherry Hill. Or maybe that should be "Benny Hill," seeing as how Augustus is surrounded by the entire population of Oz as they all peruse various pornographic magazines. Here's a story, and it's stupid: The state of Wisconsin has banned all sexually explicit materials that prisoners can receive through the mail. This includes -- among other things -- Playboy, Maxim, and photographs of The Sistine Chapel. This bit actually does have a very impressive special effect, as the naked women in the porn magazines are replaced by various religious icons, but I definitely could have lived without the shot of Ryan O'Reily groping his crotch. I may be alone on that one, though.
Woo hoo! It's Torquemada time! The Sex-Eye strolls along the upper tier of Em City, stopping just long enough to confirm that the Italians outside of Oz have given Pancamo their blessing to do business with him. "I don't intend to be a silent partner," snaps Chucky, although he does struggle a bit with the big-boy words. You know, like "intend" and "silent." ["Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed." -- Macbeth (Act III. Scene ii.)] From there Torquie moves over to join Alvarez, and after some over-sexed dialogue about "dialing a dago," he once again leans in for a sexy sniff before departing. Man, why can't I be more like Torquemada? Nobody ever thinks MY post-nasal drip is sexy.
Cut to Alvarez, sniffing his pants as they come out of the dryer. Heh. Guerra comes into the laundry room toting a shiny new boom box, and tells Miguel that he received it as a gift from Torquemada, along with a few free tabs of Destiny to enhance his music-listening pleasure. He pops a couple, and is soon dancing around like madman and stripping off almost all his clothes. I'd mock him, but anyone who's ever seen me dance (meaning anyone who was at my Bar Mitzvah and no one else ever) knows that I myself have two left feet and strange penchant for spontaneous nudity, so perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut. Alvarez grows increasingly frantic as Guerra's gyrations grow increasingly frenzied, and soon enough the music gets shut off and Guerra comes down with a massive case of that DTs. He screams and wails about the bugs coming out of his skin, and then because we haven't seen anything truly disgusting in at least sixty seconds or so, he proceeds to claw his fingernails across his neck a few times and then collapse to the floor in a bloody heap. Guerra gets rushed to the hospital ward, and then all the hacks rush to Em City for a shakedown, where they find Destiny tabs in almost every cell. Hey, how come we've never seen that one fat inmate with the mullet before? He looks like he'd be pretty funny.
You know, of all the things that annoyed me about this finale (and I assure you that my grievances were legion), the one that bothered me the most is that we never even get an explanation of why Cutler left all his crap to Alvarez. I mean, even if the writers just needed a cheap and flimsy excuse to set Miguel up for a romance with the ex-wife of a dead racist, don't you think it's incumbent upon them to at least, I don't know, tell us what that cheap and flimsy excuse might be? Anyway, Miguel and The Widow Cutler are seated in The Great Visiting Room Of Hand-Jobs And Hokey Love Scenes, gazing deeply into each other's eyes and whispering sweet nothings about drug overdoses and the tribal nature of Oz's racial politics. When they lean in for the big kiss, we see a surly-looking biker observing them in the background, so you just know this means trouble for sweet, sweet Miguel. And here comes that trouble now, as the ever-dwindling crew of Aryans pins him against a gymnasium wall to receive a stern talking-to from Schillinger. You'd think that the sight of my two favorite prisoners trading witty repartee and foreign-language profanities would be enough to excite me, but it's not until Schillinger calls The Widow Cutler a "stupid cunt who doesn't know her place" that things really start to heat up. Alvarez pops Vern right in the nose with a punch that can definitely be classified as "manly," and then turns turtle as the other Aryans start pounding on him. Hey, is that Rob Zombie?
Down in the hospital, Dr. Nathan is patching up Alvarez while McManus pesters him for details about the fight. Timmy also exposits that Luis The Parole Board Guy has agreed to meet with Miguel, and then offers up his palm in what may very well be the dorkiest request for a high-five ever. God, I hate McManus. ["I would set my life on any chance to mend it, or be rid of [him]." -- Macbeth (Act III. Scene i.)] When Alvarez limps back to Em City, he's immediately accosted by Torquemada, who's traded in his kickin' black boots for a fishnet shirt and flame-red scarf. Man, I totally want to see this guy trading fashion accessory tips with Robson. Now that would rock. Torquemada claims to need Miguel's help in resuming his drug trade, but his real motives are made clear when he finally breaks down and admits that Miguel is "so fucking sexy." "I like straight boys best," he continues before -- wait for it -- LICKING THE GLASS of Miguel's pod. Damn. I'm honestly not sure whether I should be really disgusted or questioning my sexuality right now. The power of the Sex-Eye is not to be trifled with.
The day, Miguel heads to his meeting with Luis The Parole Board Guy. In case you hadn't already noticed, Luis makes it clear here that he isn't a very nice man, and that he also has some major ethnic self-hatred issues to work through. The upshot of the scene, however, is that Miguel will never get paroled. Ever. "Oh, we'll still go through the procedure," gloats Luis, "but that's just so that each time your number comes up, I can see how much you've ripened." Um, "ripened"? Whatever, Luis. Although I suppose Alvarez has been known to self-fertilize with his own manure from time to time.
It would appear that Em City's open-door housing policy is still in effect, because Torquie has just appeared in Miguel's pod to announce that they're now roomies. Because Oz is obviously one of those many maximum-security prisons with a designer outlet mall in the basement, Torquemada has decided to change his outfit once again, this time selecting a more evening-appropriate white t-shirt and teal sarong. Miguel loudly swears that there's "no way" he'll ever become Torquemada's "bitch," and the Sex-Eye manages to look sexily bemused as he pooh-poohs (get it?) the very idea. Then he drops the big bombshell: "I have a little confession," he says. "I'm a virgin. I've never had sex with man, woman, fish, or fowl." Well, that's…interesting, I guess, both because I find it hard to believe that the Sex-Eye could be a virgin, and also because he felt it necessary to clarify his remarks by adding that he's never fucked a trout. Torquie goes on to explain that he's hosted any number of orgies, but has never actually participated, because he only likes to watch. "So I don't want to fuck you," he concludes. "That would be too common. I want to be you, Miguel Alvarez." Damn, this guy is smooth. In fact, his line is so good that I'm actually getting a little turned on, despite the fact that I'm straight and very much aware that he's a fictional character. Miguel, however, is less impressed. At least for the moment. He hops out of his bunk and heads over to stare out through the pod's glass walls. "I'm tired," he sighs. "I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of the walls, the lies, the fear, and the death." He thinks for a moment before continuing. "I'm so tired. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of men always coming and going, going and coming and always too soon!" HA! So there! At last, a Mel Brooks joke you people haven't beaten me to yet! Anyway, Kirk Acevedo is acting his little scar off in this scene, and he finally turns around to come face-to-face with Torquemada. "You want a party, baby?" he asks, with the tired resignation evident in his voice. "Keep those D tabs coming." He swallows a pill, and then Torquemada's painted fingernails begin to lightly caress his naked, sweaty chest as they [The remainder of this paragraph has been edited by the Television Without Pity Standards & Practices Department. Good God, man! Keep your erotic fan-fic to yourself!].
Bunker Hill. Don't fire until you see the whites of their, uh, eye! Here's a story, and it's cutting off the sex scene we all wanted to see: Prisoners in Oregon have to pay their own room and board, and are sometimes forced to commit additional crimes to cover the cost. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Let's get back to the sex!
Alas, 'twas not meant to be. Although maybe we should be thankful for that, because this scene features McManus and Sister Pete discussing the fate of Lemuel Idzik, who's been sentenced to death for murdering Omar White. From there Sister Pete heads over to death row, where she tries to have a quick psychiatric session with the ever-enigmatic Idzik himself. Lemmy's sporting a brand-new Jewish star tattoo on the back of his neck, and I can't help but wonder if that's influencing me in any way, because I actually thought to myself that Joel Grey did some excellent work in this scene. It's the script that's stupid here, not the actors. Anyway, Sister Pete presses him to divulge his reasoning for murdering Kareem Said, and Idzik finally cracks, revealing that he did it because Said once bought him coffee in Istanbul. Really. No, really. That's what he says. Apparently, Said is the one who got him started on this whole "death of the universe" kick by making a casual comment about "nightfall" as they spent a few moments together in a Turkish café. Just so you know, I really want to rewrite that last sentence to say "Turkish prison," but I can't. Damn my sturdy recapper ethics! We're treated to a ghostly, superimposed shot of Eamonn Walker as all this goes on, and I've got to say, Said deserved much better than this (incidentally, did you know that Tears of the Sun was originally set in the Amazon and intended to be Die Hard 4? They actually re-wrote the entire script just to take out all the "yippee-ki-ays." Or at least I hope they did). "Bizarre, isn't it?" wonders Idzik. "How one man's laughter can level someone else?" Oh. Well, gee. I'm sorry, Tom. I didn't realize I was hurting your feelings so badly. I'll try to be nicer in the future.
My God, that's a stupid plot twist! Our very shot is yet another news anchor, this time announcing that Idzik's death sentence has been overturned. Unlike everyone else in the history of the show who's been found insane, Idzik doesn't get sent to a psychiatric hospital. Instead, he gets sent to McManus's office. Now THAT is cruel and unusual punishment. "I know you want to die," Timmy tells him, "and the irony is that in Em City, you probably will." Ha! Okay, I can at least find Timbo to be tolerable when he's being all meta and self-mocking like that. It's when he tries to be serious that we run into trouble. And here comes that trouble now, as McManus turns maudlin. "I've heard all about your doomsday scenarios," he says. "The sun will cool, the planets will darken, man will become extinct." ["Throw physics to the dogs: I'll have none of it!" -- Macbeth (Act V. Scene iii.)] "I say, so what?" he continues. "Live in the now! Carpe diem! Hang on, Sloopy!" Idzik treats this Tony Robbins-esque view of our collective universal fate with the clear and focused disdain it so richly deserves, and I've decided to emulate him by not recapping anymore of Timbo's drivel. So thus ends the sad story of one Lemuel Idzik, murderer, amateur astronomer, and the man who finally did to Omar White what so many have dreamed of doing themselves.
We're in the homestretch now, my friends! It's O'Reily time at last! Sheamus hauls his unkempt hair and stupidly spelled first name down to the cafeteria, where he's greeted by a somewhat less than enthusiastic Ryan. In fact, the junior O'Reily decides to taunt Daddy by throwing his arm around Jahfree Neema and announcing to the entire world that they're now best friends. Neither Sheamus nor Jahfree looks very pleased by this, although I at least did get a tiny visceral thrill out of using the words "Sheamus" and "Jahfree" in the same sentence. Who comes up with these names? After lunch is over, Sheamus gets called to a meeting with Betty Buckley, who pleads with him to visit Cyril one last time before the execution. "I'll leave the hand-holding to you," snarls Crusty McSplitEnds. "He'll get no comfort from me." Betty bitches him out with the ever popular "and who'll be there when YOU die?" speech, but Sheamus replies with a witty bon mot of his own. "Why don't you go suck off your nigger boyfriend?" he asks, proving once and for all that improperly conditioned hair can actually damage the brain beneath your scalp. Betty slugs him a good one (nicely balanced between girly and manly), and then starts to cry as he's led back to his cell.
Best scene of the night, right here: Sheamus approaches Vern in Unit B, saying "Hey, Skillenger. I've got a job that needs to be done." Uh-oh. Anyone who reads our forums knows you never call Vern "Skillenger." Schillinger (Shill-Lin-Grrrr) corrects him once, and then refuses to kill Jahfree Neema for him, even though Neema is black and Sheamus is offering to pay. It's not until Sheamus says "Skillenger" a second time, however, that Vern gets really pissed off. And rightly so, I would think. After all, wouldn't you assume that a man with a superfluous "H" in his own name would know better?
Having failed to enlist the Aryans, Sheamus resorts to Plan B and simply bribes a guard for the chance to kill Neema himself. In what is likely the most pathetic display of knife-fighting acumen since Michael Jackson's seminal "Beat It" video, Sheamus soon ends up hoisted on his own petard. Or stabbed with his own shank, if you prefer. He gets rushed to the hospital. Neema gets rushed to The Hole, complete with the only live-action full-frontal shot we'll see all night.
Later on, Ryan spends most of his first day as a hospital orderly taunting Dad about all the many ways in which his life is fucked up. Gloria catches him in the act, however, and calls him into her office for a little chat about why it isn't nice to taunt convicted murderers who haven't washed their hair since 1973. "I watch you care for your brother," she tells him. "And you're so warm and so sweet with him. And then you get this look in your eye, this dangerous, terrifying, incredibly sexy and alluring look." Gloria goes on to say that she wants to forgive him for having her husband murdered, but she can't as long as he's unwilling to forgive his father. She forces him to promise that no harm will come to Sheamus, and as the scene ends, you can totally see Ryan trying to figure out how he can Lord of The Dance his way out of this one.
The Miseducation Of Augustus Hill. Here's a story, and it's Sorkinized: All the people (including Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia) who support the death penalty but not abortion are obviously hypocrites, right? Oh, and Republicans are yucky.
Yeah. Okay. So if you really want to know what happens in these few scenes, I highly recommend you just click here and read my recap of "A Day In The Death," because we've seen all this before. We once again kick off the execution pre-show with Ryan and Cyril up on death row, sharing superficial banter that appears to be about nothing, but actually contains far, far more than the recommended USDA daily allowance of subtext. It's all very touching and fraternally sweet, but I'm still bitter about the bait-and-switch from last time, and there's no way I'm falling for the old "banana-in-the-electric-chair" trick twice in two weeks. From there we recycle the same old montage sequence, complete with the Em City inmates pounding on their cells, Cyril being led to the execution chamber (now with added cheek-swishing!), and Ryan pacing pensively in the meditative maze. Things are at least a little bit different this time, however, because we've got Querns running the show instead of Leo, and because Gloria suddenly shows up to join Ryan in the maze. When the red phone fails to ring, Querns gives the signal to start the execution. As we hear the electricity sizzle, and Cyril's body begins to give off smoke, we finally cut away to Ryan and Gloria, who are marking this tragic and life-altering moment by…making out? Well, that seems a little weird. Now I'm proud to have hooked up with a few girls under some very strange circumstances in my day (including once on the altar of a church, and once with a girl who'd been making out with a television personality just a few hours earlier), but I can't imagine that I'd ever get the urge swap spit at the exact moment that my only living sibling was getting fried in the electric chair. I know you love her, Ryan, and I know you're running out of time in the episode, Tommy, but that's just wrong. And then, with one final shot of Cyril's body contorting in agony (accompanied by the unforgettable image of Martin Querns losing his lunch right on the execution chamber floor), it's finally over, and the deed is done. Farewell, Cyril O'Reily. If nothing else, you've finally proven that bad hair isn't genetic.
And speaking of Crusty McSplitEnds, Ryan gets to spend his very last scene in Oz telling Pops that his other son has been executed. Sheamus uses this news as an excuse to run down his tale of woe, explaining that nothing has ever gone his way in life, and now he's afraid of dying alone. "Don't leave me, Ryan," he whispers, before wiping the Soul-Glo off his hand and extending it to his son. "Don't worry," answers a melancholy Ryan. "I'm not going anywhere." Aww. How meta. And also sad.
Fade to the cafeteria, where Sister Pete and The Prison Rape Players are gathered for a support group meeting. Robson has asked for and received permission to address the entire group, and he leads things off by announcing that he's HIV positive and getting transferred to the AIDS ward. "Initially I blamed Cutler," he tells them, "but the truth is that this is my fault. Because of all the times I had unprotected sex thinking I'd never be the one to catch my dick in the zipper." Yeah. If by "zipper" you mean "Beecher's overbite." "Anyway, I'm glad I got to spend some time with you guys," he concludes. "To see through the window both ways." And as much as I'm saddened to see Robson go, he has caused me to ponder an interesting question: Do you think it would be possible to assemble a Frankenstein-like creature from all the body parts that have been severed in Oz? I mean, you've got Shupe's arm, Robson's dick, that one guard's eyes, and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Now there's a fun science project for you. Fade to black.
And now, at long last, we've reached the final segment. It's all Beecher, Keller, and Schillinger from here on out, so strap yourselves in, heat up the paper clips, and get ready for thirty minutes of butt-fucking, back-stabbing, and The Bard from Stratford on Avon. It's go time. ["By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." -- Macbeth (Act IV. Scene i.)]
But first, a nice familial interlude. The long-lost Schillinger sister (last seen mothering a clan of freaks and geeks) has come to visit Oz, and also to tell Vern that their father is on his deathbed. "It's lung cancer," she explains. "All those Chesterfields finally caught up with him." Flick…ahhh. The sister, who's named Greta and married to a nice Jewish man named Irv, hands over some pictures from baby Jewel's first birthday party, and did I just see a flicker of genuine emotion pass across Vern's face? Nah, couldn't be. "What I did," he says, with just a tinge of regret, "shutting you out after your wedding? I had to." "And I despised you for decades," she replies. "But now all I can say is, 'Shalom.' Shalom, Vern." Oh, that is totally my new motto in life! time someone cuts me off on the freeway? "Shalom, Vern!" time my boss dumps another project on my desk at 5:30? "Shalom, Vern!" When I find out this year's Six Feet Under finale is 140 minutes long? "Shalom, you motherfucking, cocksucking, overly verbose, carpal-tunnel-causing assholes! Shalom."
up we get Beecher meeting with that one FBI guy who's always after Keller. Agent Melonilust offers Toby a pretty straightforward deal: Toby testifies against Keller (while lying if necessary), and his parole will be reinstated so that he can go free again. Of course, the agent also throws in a bunch of vaguely threatening remarks about Toby's daughter Holly, but that's just to provide window dressing. And speaking of the window, Agent Kellerisdreamy opens the Venetian blinds at precisely the right moment for Keller himself -- who just so happens to be passing by -- to see Beecher in there meeting with the FBI. Toby seems unnecessarily freaked out by this, especially considering the overly dramatic lengths Keller went to last week just to prove his love. Before he leaves, however, he does promise to consider taking the deal.
Cut to Unit B, where Keller and Schillinger ["Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death." -- Macbeth (Act V. Scene v.)] are waking up on the morning of the big performance. "Tonight's your big premiere," says Keller. "And Beecher's big finale." Well, I'd definitely agree that the finale was big, but it does seem a little narrow-minded to say it was just Beecher's. I mean, I've written eighteen pages so far, for God's sake. Keller then explains his nefarious plan, which is to replace Schillinger's prop knife with a real one just before Vern and Toby's big fight scene. Um, excuse me? THAT'S the plan? I thought Keller was supposed to be some bad-ass serial killer or something? I've seen better plans for violence on The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Schillinger, however, loves the idea, and the scene ends with him smiling that evil smile I've missed all season.
Meanwhile, Toby is meeting with Sister Pete to decide whether or not he should accept the offer he's been given. They engage in a lengthy debate about whether or not it would be morally right to commit perjury in order to ensure that a guilty man is punished, but it seems pretty clear that Toby has already made up his mind. "I want to be with my children," he sighs, although Sister Pete refuses to condone his plans. After giving us one of those patented puppy-dog-eyed, lost-boy looks that Lee Tergesen is so famous for, Beecher leaves to go get ready for the big play.
Showtime. No, not the network, thank God. We're in the cafeteria, and Betty Buckley peeks through the closed curtains to check out the audience. It looks like just about the entire cast is there, with the Italians looking bored, Ryan chatting up a friend, and Torquemada getting his temples massaged by one of the prison's more flamboyant inmates. Hee! Betty gathers the cast together for a pre-show pep talk, and while Alvarez is clearly high as a kite on Destiny, everyone else seems pretty stoked. Hell, Stanton is practically peeing in his pants, he's so excited. Even Schillinger and Beecher seem to be getting into the spirit of things, as Vern extends his hand to wish Toby a "good show." They shake on it, and Miguel dims the house lights, and then Betty steps out onstage to make a few announcements. After naming all the understudies who'll be taking over for inmates who are either in the hospital or solitary (Guerra, Busmalis, and Redding), she goes on to dedicate the performance to the memory of both Leo Glynn and Cyril O'Reily. That gets big applause from the crowd, with even Claire joining in.
The play itself opens with Stanton, Reggie, and Poet doing a fairly credible job as the Weird Sisters. The real highlight, however, is Lady Buttercup, who's totally working the sequined red evening gown he's got on. I swear to God, if you gave that guy a nose job, he'd be better looking than most of my recent girlfriends. He's not a half-bad actor, either. Meanwhile, the machinations backstage are only getting wilder. Keller pulls Toby aside and tries to tell him about a plan to get rid of Schillinger. Toby doesn't want to hear it, however, and demands that Keller just shut up and hand over his prop. Ah, the perils of the backstage romance. One day you're duct-taping your lover to a chair, and the you're reduced to merely passing out cardboard shanks. Ain't that always the way? Keller hands over the shank (Is it real? Is it fake? Who knows?), and Toby goes out onstage for the big final scene. After some more anvil-worthy exchanges of Shakespearean subtext ["Nothing is but what is not." -- Macbeth (Act I. Scene iii.)], Macbeth and Macduff begin their dramatic fight to the death. Schillinger grabs Beecher in a chokehold and whispers, "You're dead, sweetpea," as he prepares to deliver the killing blow. Heh. That Vern, witty to the very end. But then Beecher makes a desperate strike with his own shank, and we finally discover once and for all who Keller really loves. It's Tobias, and Vern is already sinking to his knees with blood spilling down the front of his uniform. "That cocksucker!" he mutters, and never have I heard last words that were so fittingly appropriate. Incidentally, the background shot of Keller nonchalantly stabbing himself in the head with the fake shank has made me giggle each and every time I've seen it. Beecher screams for Dr. Nathan, and then Keneniah breaks character and hilariously declares, "That motherfucker is dead!" to the entire audience. Touchdown! The crowd goes wild!
Farewell, Vernon Schillinger. You were the best of the worst, my favorite of all inmates, and I will never, ever, ever be able to see J.K. Simmons in any other movie without picturing you burning that swastika into Beecher's ass. You will be missed, albeit in a weird, masochistic sort of way.
After a brief Rashomon-style inquiry rules Schillinger's death an accident, Toby returns to Em City to find Keller waiting for him in his pod. Or should I say "their" pod, because Keller reveals that McManus has made them roommates again. Heh. That Timbo, clueless to the very end. What follows from there is a lengthy, well-written, well-acted break-up scene that I probably would have enjoyed much more if I knew all the backstory behind it. Then again, I still have nightmares about slogging through the recaps of Tony and Carmela's epic fight scenes in their own season finale, so maybe not. Beecher storms out of the pod, saying that he's going to have McManus transfer him into Gen Pop. Keller follows close behind, begging Toby to stay by pointing out that Schillinger would have killed him by now if it weren't for Keller's intervention. That's the wrong lever to use on Beecher, however, because Toby still takes too much pride in the fact that he cares about life. There's a nice nod to Cathy Rockwell (the little girl who started it all), and then Beecher admits that after six years in Oz, all he knows is that "every life is precious…and the loss of a single life, even in Oz, is [his] loss, too." "Well, that's bullshit," Chris Keller correctly replies. "The only thing that matters is you and me." Toby tries to explain that a man who "kills for sport" could never understand, but Chris is more than happy to own up to his murderous ways. "I kill because I have to," he sneers. "I kill what gets in my way. Like the Aryans." That part about the Aryans will be important in a minute, by the way. He tries to pull Beecher in for a kiss, but Toby demands to know one thing first. "Did you purposely fuck up my parole?" he asks, prompting Keller to let him go and walk away.
"I couldn't face living the rest of my life in here without you," Chris finally admits, as he leans against the railing on the upper tier of Em City. "Don't you see? I did what I did out of love." Tobias isn't moved by this revelation, although something is clearly affecting him, because his line readings here have taken on a monotonous quality that brings to mind my old Speak-And-Spell computer, rather than a man ending a tumultuous relationship with the great gay prison love of his life. "I loved alcohol," he says, as the tears begin to well up. "I loved heroin. But I had to put them behind me because they were poison. Death. You…are death." Chris finally seems to understand that there's not going to be a happy reunion this time, and they stare longingly at each other just long enough to communicate that it's really finally over. But then Keller grabs Toby by the throat, plants one last ferocious kiss on his lips, and yells, "Beecher, no!" as he executes a perfect backwards swan dive and plummets over the railing to die on the floor below. Damn! If I hadn't seen the spoilers, that definitely would have shocked me. Everyone in Em City stares accusingly at Toby as they gather around the body, and we slowly push in on Keller's eye as he slips into eternal darkness. Farewell, Christopher Keller. I just hope things work out better for you over there on SVU.
And now, as a special added bonus, and also as a way to provide you with a brief opportunity to take your minds off the death of the beloved B/K Love Pod, here are some interesting tidbits about this episode that I couldn't find a home for:
1. Much like almost every episode of The Sopranos, this week featured at least two product placements for Snackwells.
2. The uniform we see Rick Fox wearing is just different enough from his normal Lakers home jersey so as to prevent a trademark infringement lawsuit.
3. Alvarez has what appears to be an entire paragraph of text tattooed on his lower back. Can anyone with HDTV make out what it says?
4. Not counting the montages, there were exactly ninety-one separate scenes in the episode, including nine Augustus Interludes.
5. I've consumed thirty-seven cigarettes, almost two and a half liters of Dr. Pepper, one small bag of Doritos, and twelve Rolaids tablets since I started writing. And there's still five scenes to go.
Meditative maze. Beecher is there with Sister Pete as he dutifully ties up all the loose strands of exposition regarding his ultimate fate. We learn that he still may face the death penalty for "murdering" Chris Keller, and also that the deal offered to him by Agent Melonilust has been taken off the table for good. But at least he knows that Chris really did love him, and that he really did love Chris. "When God was designing the universe," he sadly asks Sister Pete, "why did he make something so wonderful so fucking painful?" "I think he thought we could handle it," she answers, and I think she's right. Little Timmy pops in at this point, warning Beecher that he may be sent to Unit J if the Aryans try to retaliate for the death of Vern Schillinger. Toby remembers that Chris said he took care of the Aryans, and everyone just stands there looking stupid as they ponder what he might have meant by that.
And they could stand there all night and all the day, and they'd still probably never figure it out. After all, who could have guessed that Keller was a secret chemist, capable of whipping up a mysterious white powder that looks like anthrax, kills like sarin, and coats like Pepto-Bismol, all without leaving the prison? We cut to the mailroom, where a pair of random Aryans open a package to discover a jar of the aforementioned powder. One of them oh-so-gracefully lets it slip out of his hands, and suddenly it's a festival of crappy special effects, as everyone starts gasping for breath and applying low-rent color filters all over the damn place. It's also worth mentioning at this point that Sars and I had a little bet going on what the ultimate death toll would be for the finale. We set the over/under at eight and a half, and she was kicking my ass with the "under" pick right up until Keller saved the day with his little foray into biological warfare. So, thanks to both Chris Keller and Contrivance, I'm now one dollar richer. I'm sure that will console me while I'm soaking my fingers in Epsom salts tomorrow.
Gloria comes racing into Querns's office to deliver the news, and she's forced to admit that whatever that powder may contain, it's way beyond her expertise. She recommends calling the state bio-terrorism unit, and also calls for an immediate evacuation of the entire prison. ["[Contrivance] now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke open the Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence the life o' the building!" -- Macbeth (Act II, Scene iii)]Alarms start blaring everywhere, and over in Em City, McManus and Murphy are trying to coordinate the prisoners' departure. "All I know is that the move is temporary," says McManus. "We'll be back someday." Yeah. I wouldn't bet on that one, Timbo. We get more shots of everyone from the staff to the prisoners in the hospital ward being evacuated from the building, and then we finally find ourselves on a bus where all of our favorite inmates are looking pensive and worried. Well, all of them except for Beecher, because he's too busy enjoying a private little smile at the thought of Chris Keller's last great "fuck you." The buses form a line and slowly start pulling out of the parking lot, and for what I believe is the first time ever, the camera pulls back to reveal a full-on exterior shot of the great and terrible Oswald State Correctional Facility. Farewell, Oswald. That light at the end of the tunnel means your hallways need never be darkened again.
But we're not through yet! We head back inside the now abandoned prison for a nice little audio and video montage. We hear the voices of guards and inmates past as we pan around the empty sets. The highlight comes when Edie Falco's distinctive nasal twang breaks through the babble to repeat her classic line from the show's very first episode: "We tell you when to eat, when to sleep, and when to piss." Aww. Sniff. Edie never gets to talk about piss on that "other" show, dammit. ["Pity the line's ganked from The Shawshank Redemption." -- Sars] We see a couple of workers in full-body hazmat suits moving through the prison, and we linger on one of them just long enough to convince me that it's really Tom Fontana hiding behind the gas mask. If you've got the episode on tape, you can go here to compare. Make sure you scroll down and check out his yearbook photo. It's not to be missed. ProbablyTom reaches out to flick off the light switch, and Oz returns to its natural state of darkness for the last time ever.
Sigh. I am soooooooooo over the Hill. But here's a story, and it's the last one you'll ever hear. As partial restitution for all the (admittedly deserved) times I've ripped this guy, I'll present his last ever monologue in full: "So, what have we learned? What's the lesson for today? For all the never-ending days and restless nights in Oz? That morality is transient? That virtue cannot exist without violence? That to be honest is to be flawed? That the giving and taking of love both debases and elevates us? That God or Allah or Yahweh has answers to questions we dare not even ask? The story is simple. A man lives in prison and dies. How he dies, that's easy. The who and the why is the complex part. The human part. The only part worth knowing. Peace."
Fade to black.
Aaron: Oz is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Tom Fontana: Oh, yeah. Sure. You finally deign to speak with me, and it's to call me an idiot. That's real nice.
Aaron: A thing of custom, 'tis no other; only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Tom Fontana: Whatever. So do you have any final thoughts?
Aaron: Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once.
Tom Fontana: Huh?
Aaron: Get out. Now.