Line #31 Headscratchers/Oz


1	* How could Nino not feel the glass, no matter how finely ground, at some point like between his teeth or when he swallows? And I get that he had to get in bed with O'Reilly and Adebisi after his Italian thugs got transferred out of Em City, but why would he ever trust those two with his food? Why not keep himself safe by eating the same food as everyone else? And I get that "Nino was smart, Nino was watching", but he couldn't keep his eyes on them the whole time they were in the kitchen? Why not just poison him during a moment he isn't looking?
2	** This is extra unrealistic as it's safe to consume glass that has been ground that fine.
3	* Why was James Robson let back in the Aryan Brotherhood? I got the impression that he was being let back in for killing Wolfgang Cutler. But him being Wolfgang's prag wasn't what got him kicked out in the first place - it was him having a black man's gums. Vern didn't want to kick him out, but according to the gang's charter, he had to. Sure, James tried to cut them out, but he pretty much failed. Why would anything be different after Wolfgang's death?
4	** Schillinger had a soft spot for Robson, hence him trying to get one of his white power superiors to give him a reason to overlook the whole transplanted gums thing to keep Robson around. Plus, Robson didn't fully rejoin; killing Wolfgang simply restored Robson to his role as Verne's go-to assassin; his standing within the Brotherhood is left vague, though I would assume that Verne simply used his power as leader to give Robson protection from any future reprisals from his fellow Aryans.
5	* How the hell do the prisoners get/stay so beefy? Sure, they have the gym for the actual exercise part but their lunches always consist of a piece of fruit, a small sandwich, a carton of milk and a small fruit drink. No way is that enough nutrition to pile on the muscle...
6	** Especially since they're only allowed 30 minutes at the gym.
7	** They could always train in their cells, push-ups and the like. They have the time.
8	** Don't you need to do proper compound exercises like deadlifts and squats i.e. requiring proper equipment to be built like characters like Adebisi and (in later seasons) Said?
9	** Look at real prisoners. They manage to get quite built with only crude exercise equipment and prison food.
10	** We also see a prison canteen in a few episodes. They can likely buy snacks there, as well as having them smuggled in.
11	** This is actually TruthInTelevision. Many prisoners can't do much other than exercise as activity with food and drugs being in limited amounts which means many especially drug-addicts having beefy bodies when they exit the prison due to the limited amount unhealthy stuff can be obtained.
12	* Kinda curious how Bradford Winters was a major writer/producer on the show, and his real-life brother Dean played ManipulativeBastard Ryan O'Reily, who almost never failed to twist everyone to his will, and even got the girl in the end, and other brother Scott played Cyril, who while retarded, was able to fight off and even ''kill'' men far bigger and stronger than he was (Hamid Khan, Jia Kenmin). Plus, the two of them got some of the beefiest acting parts in the series, in addition to getting tons of screen-time. They were good in their roles (Dean ''nails'' the role of Ryan dealing with Cyril's impending execution), and O'Reily ''did'' end up screwing his brother in the end, but it really came across as nepotism.
13	** I thought Dean Winters did an amazing job playing Ryan. As for Cyril harming people bigger and stronger than him, first take into account that he is a Golden Gloves boxer. Add in that people with mental retardation (as well as people on psychoactive drugs) have far less control over themselves in a rage. The standard brain will instinctually prevent the muscles from using their full possible strength in order to keep you from damaging yourself.
14	* Dr. Prestopnick gets quite a few mentions over the seasons. But has anyone ever seen him?
15	** Actually, we see him when [[spoiler:Doctor Nathan is on leave following her rape]]
16	** He's also seen in Season 1 discussing blood pressure meds with Said
17	** And again in Season 2 when Ryan introduces him to his wife
18	* How does Beecher see after he smashes his glasses? What, does he just get contact lenses or something?
19	** And if he did get contact lenses, surely something like that would be pretty easy to steal in the cutthroat environment of Oz? Get one of the Bikers to sneak into his cell, it's something Schillinger would [[EvilIsPetty definitely do]].
20	** Not everyone who wears glasses/contacts strictly needs them. A person's vision can be below the norm but still good enough to function without corrective aide if necessary. Then, there's people who only need glasses for one specific thing such as reading/driving but get into the habit of always wearing them.
21	* He's probably nearsighted; replacing them every time someone breaks them is a pain in the ass, and he doesn't see trees in Oz, so why bother trying to see well enough to see individual leaves?
22	* Why would someone like Guillaume Tarrant be sent to a maximum security prison for a crime like destroying a statue? The guy was soft, introverted, and unlikely to cause any problems.
23	** It's Devlin's corrupt "tough on crime" campaign victimizing a weak, unstable white man based on criteria that unfairly target defendants of color. He's an immigrant who brought a concealed deadly weapon into a public space and destroyed/vandalized valuable property. On paper, that's the same crime as an undocumented Hispanic man getting caught with a gun in his belt when he was arrested for putting graffiti on the courthouse steps, which Devlin's office would happily punish to the maximum extent. The only difference is that he's white, Tarrant's personality is no more suited to prison or any less dangerous than Omar White's, for example.
24	** Short answer? "It's Oz." The show never even pretended to be realistic.
25	** Two notes:
26	*** 1. It's likely that the harshness of his sentence would have been a result of his "concealment of a deadly weapon" charge rather than the vandalism.
27	*** 2. The statue seems like it would have belonged to someone with the right amount of money/influence to organise Guillaume's charges to be trumped up. It's not unthinkable.
28	* Considering that Em City's main philosophy seems to be built around rehabilitation, what was the point of Burr Redding being placed there? He was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole... Not much reason for self-improvement when you can't move, is there?
29	** [=McManus=] mentions at some point in the first season that he likes to have "lifers" (like Adebisi, Hernandez, or Ortolani) in Em City to try and get them to find some purpose in their incarceration.
30	*** It's actually the very first episode- I think it's when he's talking to Glynn about why he wants Groves in Em City. But it's the first ep.
31	*** Burr was also specifically placed there to stop the rest of the Homeboys from degenerating as they were under Poet's leadership.
32	** Most of the characters were doing "hard time," and some even had no possibility of parole. [=McManus=] was trying to give the characters purpose while in prison, to create an example from the program that might be applied to other prisoners. A lot of funding for programs is based on being able to show funders some "success." Of course, the success rate in Oz varied.
33	* The Padraig Connelly plot. Just what the hell?. It might've just worked in the early seasons, but it really doesn't fit in 2001. Connelly and O'Reily talk about The Troubles as if it's still ongoing, when the Good Friday agreement in 1998 put an end to it, and even before then hostilities had gradually wound down for the majority. And building the bomb in Emerald City? Just what was it supposed to accomplish? I DON'T UNDERSTAND!
34	** Northern Ireland's status wasn't settled for everyone by the Good Friday agreement. The bomb was probably introduced as something crazy enough for even O'Reily to say "let's take it down a notch" and look halfway reasonable (see Bradford Winters headscratcher above).
35	** This was one of the plans for the end of the show. Fontana wasn't sure if HBO was going to renew the series after season 4. The cliffhanger was intentional. It was also used as a {{DeusExMachina}} to explain why the prison looked different, the show having moved to a new filming location for seasons 5 and 6.
36	* Why are the Oz books linked here from literature? :o
37	** AWizardDidIt.
38	* Why, in the name of Adebisi's gravity defying hat, are there no security cameras in the popular murder spots? The gym and the kitchen for example. People keep getting killed and otherwise assaulted in there, having cameras in place would at least narrow the suspects down. Or how about the showers in Emerald city? Violence, sex and violent sex goes on there all the time too. And sex between prisoners is supposed to be a big no-no in EM city, so why not actually supervise the prisoners properly? It can't be because of prisoner privacy, they are already forced to change clothes and take shits in glass pods where the [=COs=] can plainly see them.
39	** In-universe explanation is most likely because they have no money. But Oz seems to be a magical place (pun intended) where all sorts of things happen yet are rarely commented on (Luke Perry's very high profile prisoner is walled up and no one seems to care, Beecher kills a guard with his fingernails and the other [=COs=] act like he just never showed up to work, visitors are shanked, people are set on fire and so many other things that would have sent the place on permanent lockdown).
40	** Most of the guards are corrupt, and just let murders happen if you bribe them or whatever. It stands to reason that if there were cameras in those areas that the same corrupt guards either turn the cameras off, or delete the footage.
41	** There's no budget, and this was the late 90's/early 00's, when we didn't have WiFi and ''everything'' had to be laid down with cable. They probably installed as many cameras in as many places as they could when the system was first set up, and the spaces without cameras are the ones that didn't make the budget cut.
42	* It's sort of handwaved in the series, but seriously, Shirley Bellinger? Why was she in Oz at all, when she should have been in a women's prison, death row or not?
43	** Female prisons rarely have the facilities for Death Row (women have been less than 1% of all executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976).
44	* Why are the prisoners, in most cases dangerous criminals, allowed access to lighters? Shouldn't they be contraband? Or is this a 90s thing where that was allowed and the rules are different now? Although I still don't see why they would be allowed access to fire.
45	** Just because prisoners have them doesn't mean they're not contraband, but they're only allowed in Emerald City, which has less restriction in general but especially when it comes to little quality-of-life improvements. Em City used to allow smoking (the show characterizes Governor Devlin as a complete asshole right from the start with the ban) and the staff don't enforce unless they need an extra reason to be a dick at any given moment.
46	* Why was Miguel Alvarez up for parole? He killed two people, blinded a guy, and escaped from prison. In real life, parole wouldn't even be a consideration after only five years.
47	** Because the parole date had been set with the original sentence, and he's already a ways into it at the start of the show. The date of the parole hearing is set in stone because it's attached to the sentence that put him in Oz, so the blinding and the escape can't change it, they can only influence the parole board's ruling when the hearing is scheduled. I'd imagine in real life, everyone would understand there was no chance in hell and there'd be a perfunctory phone call or email about it, but artistic license being what it is, Alvarez gets the dramatic benefit of the hearing's existence. It's also a matter of continuity either way: in Season 1, Episode 2, Father Mukada mentions that he'll be up for parole in 2 years.
48	* Why wasn't Beecher killed on sight for killing a child? Admittedly, he did it by accident, and it wasn't a sexual crime, but my understanding of the Aryan Brotherhood in US jails is that child killers are marked for immediate murder as soon as they go into jail?
49	** It's people who ''intentionally'' hurt children that draw the ire in prisons. Beecher was drunk, but killing the girl was still an accident.
50	** Might be why Schillinger singled Beecher out the way he did, instead of somebody like Shupe.
51	** Except Schillinger willingly had a child murdered.
52	*** Schillinger's kind of a hypocrite (See: Robert Sippel in Season 2 Episode 8, but my read was that Schillinger just saw a timid, out-of-his-element newbie and went for the easy prey. He used the same page of the playbook with Cyril in Season 2 before Ryan got him transferred to Em City.

Context Headscratchers / Oz