Oz Rewatch: S1E5 Straight Life

[vanillalime]

This was another one of those episodes where a lot of things happened that I really didn't remember. I'm glad I'm doing this rewatch!

— Okay, while JD Williams has a nice ass, I did not need to see Kenny get a cavity search, and I definitely did not need to see him pooping out a balloon of herion. Sometimes I'm in the mood for gritty realism and sometimes I'm... not.



— RE: the bare-bones special effects. The slo-mo used to simulate being high is one thing, but the voice distortion that sounds like the "wah-wah-WAH" of Charlie Brown's teacher is cracking me up.

— Is Tim just starting to realize that his guards have been doing a shitty job of watching the prisoners? Uh, where has he been? At least he has the awareness to feel sorry about Beecher's branding and Miguel's face-slashing.

— Love the cutaway to this shit-eating grin on Tim's face when he sends all of Nino's lieutenants away.



— Hmm, I have no recollection of this arsonist Ronald Poklewaldt character.

— Hee! I love how Nino and Markstram and Adebisi keep excluding Kenny from all the drug business dealings. BE GONE BRICKS

— OMG Toby grabbing Ryan's pec and squeezing it. There is so much sexual tension here! In a way, it's a shame that Keller arrived on the scene and sucked away (LOL) all of Toby's affections, because Toby and Ryan would've made a great slash couple. Well, except for the fact that, you know, Ryan CLEARLY is not gay IN ANY WAY.



— Whoops! Another Em City death! This time by hanging! That's rather unoriginal by Oz standards.

— WOW I DID NOT REMEMBER THAT MARKSTAM WAS A NARC. I don't blame Tim for being pissed.

— I love it when they do these scenes in the commons area where they zoom in on all the different characters' faces to get reactions. Word travels fast at Em City High School, doesn't it?

— Groves and Alvarez really are perfect for each other. Maybe Groves seems normal when he's viewed through an LSD hallucination. Heh.



— Has anyone ever written Schillinger/Ross slash? O_O



— Oooh, Tim and Diane... busted! Like I said, word travels fast at Em City High.

— And who are you? Where's Dr. Nathan and what have you done to her?!



— OH, listen to the Gov. Devlin gossip playing in the background on the TV! Apparently, he had a wife named Evangeline who left him over an affair? Somehow, this seems like important canon information, but I don't really know what to do with it.

— Healy got busted for being the drug runner? So that's what happened to him. I guess I'm OK with that, although it would've been nice if he'd suffered a little more.

— WOOT! O'Reily in the hole! The moment we've all been waiting for! OZ MAKES HISTORY

— Because, yes, while we get a nice butt shot...



— ... it's the FULL FRONTAL that's even better! :D



— (Did Tim really leave O'Reily in the hole for a whole month?)

— It's weird... clearly, Lee and JK didn't actually kiss when Vern asks Toby for his goodnight kiss (JK's back blocks the shot). I wonder why? They didn't want to "go there"? I guess at this point they didn't know all the things Fontana had in store for them.

— Toby has siblingS? As in plural? I wonder if Toby and Angus know that.

— Gee, do you think the fact that Beecher has a drug problem might be connected to that swastika burned on his ass? And the fact that he's clearly being raped on a regular basis by a Nazi sociopath? But, hey, why address it from that angle where you could easily make things better by moving Beecher to another pod or cellblock, when you can make him feel 10 times worse by guilting him with a visit from his mother? What a dumb strategy. And I blame Sister Pete and Tim equally here. I think this was the point when I started to not like Sister Pete so much.

— I love Toby's mother. Which is probably why I keep wanting to write stories about her. LOL

— Going off on a tangent here... I will forever be grateful to the Oz Fandom's original members Trasker & friends for writing and compiling the transcripts for each Oz episode. I refer to them ALL the time, whether I'm trying to understand a bit of dialogue, or I'm trying to track down a specific scene and can't remember what episode it's from, or I just want to see what happened when. I'm so glad they exist! But every now and then, there's a mistake (as you'd totally expect), and there's one for this scene with Toby's mother. When Toby tells his mother he'd prefer to hear about his "Grandmother's lumbago," it was transcribed as "Grandmother's Winnebago," and I probably laughed for a good five minutes the first time I read it. I mean, just imagine Toby's prim & proper blue-blooded grandmother driving across the country in an RV, staying at campgrounds and visiting the World's Largest Ball of Yarn. At one point, I wanted write an AU where Chris and Toby steal his grandma's Winnebago and do that just, but I never got around to it. (Which also reminds me that lisacali once wrote a great oz_magi story where Toby's grandmother hooks up with Chris's grandfather... I wonder what year that was... )



— Whoops! Continuity error! Here's Ronald Poklewaldt in group counseling looking healthy as a horse when a couple of scenes ago he'd had the shit beaten out of him.

— Oh, Toby. *pets him*



— So, do we ever find out how Nino is getting the drugs into Em City? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

In Conclusion:
Episode Rating: 8/10
Lee Rating: 9/10 (I'm subracting one for the lame kiss-that-wasn't)
Lee's Hair Rating: 4/10 (Well, we got something different! I actually like the style, but that coloring is just ALL wrong for him.)

Comments

[jessrh.livejournal.com]

I’m loving reading your Oz re-watch recaps! It’s amazing how it’s been so long since I’ve watched them, but they hold up very well & I still get a thrill when I notice little things 😍 And the implausibility and continuity mistakes crack me up 😂

[vanillalime]

I'm glad to hear that! Thanks for letting me know. I've watched my favorite scenes (mostly B/K related) many times, and bits and pieces of the show here and there while getting screencaps to use at Oz Daily, but I've never done proper rewatch. I've been really surprised by how much I'd forgotten, and it's fun to pay attention to the little things that I wouldn't have bothered to notice the first time around.

Obviously, my rewatch is pretty slow-going, but I hope you'll stick around! :-)

[jessrh.livejournal.com]

Oh, don’t worry, I’m eagerly awaiting them! In conjunction with the Oz podcast and the 20 year anniversary last year, this is the most I’ve seen people talking about the show for ages which is just awesome. Did you ever read the TWoP recaps?

Agree- although I’ve seen it so many times, it’s been fun to pay more attention to the background action and extras this time around- I’m still finding new details to enjoy. Looking forward to the next recap!

[vanillalime]

You might find THIS POST I made at oz_rapsheet helpful-- it's a list of all the articles/interviews associated with last year's Oz anniversary/reunion. Maybe you've already read a lot of them, but there might be something new there. For sure, check out the Yahoo oral history if you haven't already.

For some reason I never read the TWOP recaps, although I used to read recaps for other shows there all the time. I think by the time I discovered Oz (2012-ish), TWOP was sort of on its last legs, and I just didn't think to look. Although oddly enough, I did read some recaps written by (I think) a TWOP forum user which I stumbled on HERE at this old forum for Oz fans. She only did recaps for Seasons 3 and 5, but they are OZSOME.

[jessrh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! As an obsessive Oz fan, I had in fact read most of them, but there’s a couple I didn’t know. How good is the Yahoo Oral History one? I wish there were more pieces like that out there because it was incredibly informative! It was great to see so many media pieces commemorating the 20 year anniversary.

Ah yes, I used to be active on the Unit Z board! It was a great place, especially after the TWoP Oz boards got condensed to a single thread instead of the original multi -page forum. Eliot’s recaps are great! I was just amazed that the board is still operational after all these years. Looking forward to the next recap!

[mazephoenix.livejournal.com]

I've only done one rewatch. Season 6 was baaad. Oh yeah Ryan's soo straight. I'm sure someone has done Ross/Schillinger..love the greeting.

[vanillalime]

Season 6 was baaad.

... which is (partly) why I've never watched it. But I will!

I looked for Ross/Schillinger fic on AO3 and couldn't find any. Not that I'm all that interested in it, I just wondered if anyone else was. :D

[mazephoenix.livejournal.com]

Poking around the web I found this..
http://unitb.slashcity.net/archive/0/thevern.html
Not quite vern/ross but kinda fun.

[cmk418]

That was so silly, but I liked it.

[vanillalime]

Thanks for the link, I always forget about Unit B (which I totally shouldn't, I know, because there's such a wealth of old fic there that you can't find anywhere else).

[cmk418]

Ryan O'Reily... definitely not a fag, but, boy oh boy, what a beautiful man Dean is. Thanks for the screencap.

Has anyone ever written Schillinger/Ross slash? O_O
I don't know and now it's out there, taunting me. It might have to wait a minute. I have skirted around the edges of Wittlesey/Ross though. I really don't like him. I think because he wasn't on the show long enough there really wasn't a moment where I thought "gee, this guy isn't a complete scumbag."

And McManus had a plan work! Wonders never cease.

[vanillalime]

When I watched that scene of Dean's this time, one of the things I thought of was the story he told at the PaleyFest reunion-- how the show's prison consultant told him prisoners were thrown into the hole naked, so Dean did the scene naked. Then, years later, the consultant told him he'd just been joking. I loved that story. :D

I think because he wasn't on the show long enough there really wasn't a moment where I thought "gee, this guy isn't a complete scumbag."

That's funny to think, every character's starting point is basically "complete scumbag" then he hopefully, gradually moves up the ranks to "only kind of a scumbag." LOL

And McManus had a plan work!

Although, it ultimately lead to the death of Markstram, so... ;P

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

In a way, it's a shame that Keller arrived on the scene and sucked away (LOL) all of Toby's affections, because Toby and Ryan would've made a great slash couple. Well, except for the fact that, you know, Ryan CLEARLY is not gay IN ANY WAY

I was always a little bit sad about that as well! I know that Ryan had his own angles to work as ever in befriending Beecher lol, but they did have some cute moments as well in season 1. I remember a few times it came off as a genuine friendship on both sides (Ryan turning away and looking like he felt bad for Beecher when he’s forced to appear in drag by Schillinger, Beecher having Ryan’s back in the riot), and then the show just completely drops that friendship :( :( The show did have a tendency to do that though I suppose, it was the same with Alvarez and Father Mukada having a very close relationship in the beginning, and then later seasons never following up on it...


— It's weird... clearly, Lee and JK didn't actually kiss when Vern asks Toby for his goodnight kiss (JK's back blocks the shot). I wonder why? They didn't want to "go there"? I guess at this point they didn't know all the things Fontana had in store for them

I don’t think the actors would have protested, they seemed to be up for anything on that show! I wonder if it was Fontana who was unsure at that stage of how far he could go without losing the majority male audience, Oz was promoted as a gritty prison drama after all, and tv was airing in a very different climate in those days. Possibly there was more hesitation about how much you can show without turning off your audience, and they thought that viewers would be switching off if they actually saw two men kissing, although thankfully they got over that by season 2 and the arrival of Keller!

[vanillalime]

RE: Ryan & Toby--There were so many characters on the show, each one was probably limited to only a certain amount of screen time. So when Fontana decided to link Ryan with Gloria, and put Toby with Keller, maybe there just wasn't enough time to pursue any kind of meaningful relationship/storyline between Ryan and Toby. It was nice while it lasted, though. :|

I wonder if it was Fontana who was unsure at that stage of how far he could go without losing the majority male audience

That is a really good point. It's also possible that it was a decision by the director. I remember a story that Lee and Chris have talked about, where there was one director who was uncomfortable with the sexuality between them and their characters and cut one of their kissing scenes short because of it (I believe it was the S4 "kissing the wound" scene). I don't know if it was the same guy who directed this episode (probably not), but clearly some people working on the show were not as open-minded as others.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I remember a story that Lee and Chris have talked about, where there was one director who was uncomfortable with the sexuality between them and their characters and cut one of their kissing scenes short because of it

Oh that’s interesting, I didn’t know that!

And also I’d add that they never showed anything that graphic between Beecher and Schillinger thinking about it, it seemed like the show wanted to leave it more up to our imaginations how Beecher was being raped and abused, so maybe everyone involved shied away from getting too into showing the physical side of that and thought that was something that the audience didn’t really need to see?

It wasn’t until season 2 that we actually saw a rape onscreen with Adebesi, but most of the time it was always more implied with Schillinger, i.e when the camera cuts away after Cyril is cornered by his gang, or Adam in season 5 when we only see the aftermath of the rape. And those incidents have more power because we are left to imagine how awful they were, and we don’t actually see for ourselves what went on

[vanillalime]

I remember a story that Lee and Chris have talked about, where there was one director who was uncomfortable with the sexuality between them and their characters and cut one of their kissing scenes short because of it

Ahh, I couldn't rest until I tracked that story down! :D In case you're interested, it was from the Advocate, and you can read it HERE. It was a great little interview with Lee and Chris from the show's last season.

Then Lee talked about it again briefly in response to a fan's question at his website. It's on THIS PAGE, about halfway down in a reply to "Becky".

It's interesting how so many of the horrific things Schillinger did were implied or happened off-screen. And, yeah, sometimes "less is more." O_O