Welcome to a feature called "Writing Blind." In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time. I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season. This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.
Oz is probably the best show in existence with characters who have flexible characteristics and motivations. That's not really a compliment. Oz is primarily focused on plot more than character. The strength of the actors add character to places where there isn't. The show seems a little less concerned with getting inside the head space of individual characters than it does in making sure the plot is interesting. If it does attempt to do that, it does so bluntly.
The reason why I think this is the case is in its introduction to new inmates. It shows them in present day, and through a different camera filter, shows what they did to get in prison. This isn't a show particularly interested in delving into the complexities of man. These people are defined by what they did. This strategy helps with creator Tom Fontana's impatience with storytelling. He can consistently shift character motivations in order to do what he wants to do.
In this season, Nazi supporter Vernon Schillinger and formerly sane and normal person Tobias Beecher continue their feud. The smartest thing the show ever did was making Beecher crazy, in my opinion. It's more entertaining, it's different than what you'd expect, and there's not a lot of places to go by placing a normal person in Oz. So you get a cat-and-mouse game between the two that might not ever end.
The casting on this show is sometimes so goddamn good it's unbelievable. Schillinger has tried the direct approach, but being a good villain that he is, he decides he wants to hurt Beecher in the most painful way imaginable. So he sets Chris Keller in Oz to make Beecher fall in love with him. And it works. And it only works because Christopher Meloni is fantastic. Seriously, he makes the entire thing believable. It's cruel at the end when they break Beecher's arms and legs, and while that is the show's pulpy side, it's still affecting because Beecher was starting to gain some of his humanity back.
The other extremely disturbing storyline is undoubtedly Ryan O'Reilly, who begins the season in a power struggle for control of Oz with Adebisi. That changes quickly when he has cancer, which Dean Winters of course excels at playing. This is right up his wheelhouse. Acting tough while showing you are actually vulnerable on the inside because you are scared to death. Blink and that's sort of Dennis Duffy on 30 Rock. But then it takes a very dark turn.
Like I said, this show has no interest in making its characters in any way redeemable. You get the sense that they pretty much all deserve to be in prison for the rest of their lives and it's kind of a bold decision. The fact that the show was able to pull that off while still condemning the prison system successfully is something I'm not sure how they did. Because in theory, seeing that these are all evil sons of bitches would in some way prove the prison system works. These are bad guys. They are getting what they deserve. And yet, the show doesn't hold punches in the flaws of the system. Somehow it doesn't come across as hypocritical. This is actually the first time I'm noticing the contradictory nature of it in fact.
Anyway, O'Reilly ends up falling in love with Dr. Gloria Nathan. This seems innocent at first although he very quickly starts showing stalker tendencies. Stalker tendencies is one thing, but nothing prepared for me for when he has his mentally disabled brother Cyrus, kill her husband. (I have LOADS of problems with that character, but I'll get into that in season 3 when he's more prominent.) He does end up sacrificing himself for his brother so that his brother will get sent to Oz, which well that's like the bare minimum of having human decency. I mean he had his own brother, incapable of making decisions for himself or at the very least not in a position to say no to his brother, kill someone. So yeah he deserves it.
Said continues to be a compelling character, but looking over the season, he doesn't get a lot to do. That's a strange thing to say where I'm pretty sure he had something to do in each of the episodes, but he's still seeing what his purpose is after he orchestrated the riots. He provides legal counsel to multiple inmates, including Schillinger, and helps Poet get out of prison. The one false note to me was that Poet immediately got sent back to prison. As we've known him, I just don't really buy how quickly he got sent back.
Miguel Alvarez at first is clearly the leader of his gang, but he's threatened when Raoul Hernandez comes to prison and immediately takes control. Hernandez, played by the great Luis Guzman, challenges Alvarez and doesn't think he's tough enough for the gang. So he basically gives him an ultimatum where he has to rip out the eyes of a former gang member to guard or he himself will be out of the gang. So he does it. The ramifications of this are explored in the third season, but needless to say between that and when he withholds information about who raped Glynn's daughter, he was a pretty shitty person. (Side bar: Don't really like how they handled the rape. It's not shown, but it's clearly used as a plot device and it feels icky throughout)
Lastly, Oz's least interesting character, Scott McManus, who the show unfortunately finds interesting apparently has a bunch of "White Male Problems." God I hate McManus. Am I supposed to hate him? Terry Kinney is just a really shitty actor so I feel like that's where most of my hate is directed, but he just comes across as whiny and entitled. I think I was supposed to care when he lied for Diane, but yeah I didn't give a shit. He's such a boring character, no doubt to Kinney's performance.
In all, I don't think the quality diverged greatly from the first season and it managed to still remain mostly original. The storylines aren't stale and that remains true of just about every character. None of the characters feel the same and they haven't repeated anything yet. The only recurring elements of the first season - the Beecher-Schillinger feud and the power struggle for the prison - still don't feel repetitive or boring.
Still it's a bit of a case of diminishing returns. The show isn't exactly predictable, but you know what to expect at this point. I think originality and wow factor of the first season is lessened here. So while I don't think I liked the first a ton more than the second season, for whatever reason, I do think this season is marginally worse.
Grade - B
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