open/close all folders
Murphy
Sean Murphy
Played By: Robert Clohessy
"I didn't become a zookeeper just to behave like one of the animals."
An Irish CO, Murphy is the staff member most trusted by McManus. A fair and confident officer, Murphy maintains order to the best of his ability in Oz while doing what he can to support McManus' ideology. He is more honest and competent than the other guards and Warden Glynn also holds him in high regard.
- Commonality Connection: He and Ryan O'Reily bond over their shared Irish heritage. This cools a little bit when Murphy realizes that O'Reily's taking advantage of him, but Murphy remains one of the few people Ryan trusts in Oz.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Tim McManus. They rarely have conflict and trust each other pretty much unconditionally.
- Not So Above It All: After Morales has Brass injured, Murphy agrees to be part of the guard posse to cut Morales' tendons.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He's tormented by guilt over cutting Morales' tendons, subsequently confessing to Glynn.
- Only Sane Man: He seems to be the only character in the entire series who isn't dealing with personal problems, is overly ambitious, corrupt, selfish, cruel or moronic.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Without a doubt the most reasonable authority figure in Oz.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He's more than willing to skirt around the rules to give the prisoners a break when they deserve it, and openly rebels against Querns when he believes that he is ruining Em City.
Howell
Claire Howell
"Season's greetings, fuckwad!"
Played By: Kristin Rohde
"Rise and shine you little fucks!"
A female CO, she is extremely unstable and prone to sadistic sexual violence. She has sexual relationships with several staff members and inmates in order to dominate them.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Subverted. No one finds her attractive but she uses her position to get who she wants to have sex with her.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She initially starts out as being rather pleasant, but she drops the mask after McManus breaks up with her.
- Crazy Jealous Girl: The reason McManus broke up with her was because she started harassing him over the fact he comforted Wittlesey when her mother died.
- Dirty Cop: Aside from abusing prisoners, she kills Nikolai Stanislofsky on behalf of Ryan O'Reily.
- Does Not Like Men: She expresses misandrist views in some of her rantings.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Exploited. She knows that no one would believe a woman could possibly rape a man. She uses this to her advantage. She even tried to sexually molest the childlike Cyril O'Reily (earning her a beating in response) and blackmail his brother Ryan into forcing Cyril to have sex with her under penalty of her making sure he'd never see Cyril again if refused.
- All this is despite laws that state that all sex between an inmate and a guard is rape by definition.
- The Dreaded: Because of her violent, sadistic and unstable temper, in addition to her very off-putting wantonness and willingness to molest whoever refuses to have sex with her, she's a feared presence among inmates, even seasoned ones who will openly state just how wary of her they are.
- Electrified Bath Tub: How she kills Stanislofsky.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Ranks up there with Metzger as the most amoral of the guards, but she off-handedly mentions a brother who she is concerned might lose his job if the prisoners start importing all the menial work in the area.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She seems genuinely worried about the possibility of a war between the Aryans and the Muslims.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted. Howell is far from a 'good girl' and only avoids abortion due to her religious beliefs constraining her.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Howell is unstable at the best of times, and a simple comment can send her from a good mood into a murderous fury.
- Breaking up with her will also set her off. Just ask McManus and Ryan O'Reily.
- Hypocrite: See the abortion example above. Her "religious beliefs" don't extend to murder and rape, just abortion.
- Jerkass: Even when she's not raping inmates, Howell is needlessly violent, aggressive and crass.
- The Lad-ette: She makes some of the male guards look downright dainty by comparison.
- Pet the Dog: She saved Alvarez from his suicide attempt.
- Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: To McManus. It leads her to clash with Wittlesey repeatedly.
- Religious Bruiser: She may be a sadistic thug, but she does have religious beliefs and confesses to Mukada.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: She starts out as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. After McManus breaks up with her, she loses the Sheep's Clothing.
- The Vamp: A variant. Unlike most vamps, she doesn't lure men with promises of sex, she outright molests them.
- Villainous Friendship: She and Lopresti seem to get along well.
Lopresti
Len Lopresti
Played By: Carl DiMaggio
A death row CO.
- Asshole Victim: He's brutally mauled by Penders's guide dog when he sics it on Lopresti for shoving his face into dog shit. Unfortunately, he survives and recovers.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even he gets fed up with Miles'relentless dickishness.
- Jerkass: One of the biggest in the series. He's a racist, cruel, bullying thug with no redeeming qualities.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: At one point, he sticks up for Schillinger and says he's a great guy. When Wittlesey calls him out in it, he proudly proclaims that he agrees with all of Schillinger's views.
Wittlesey
Diane Wittlesey
"There's something in the air. And it ain't love."
Played By: Edie Falco
A CO, raised in poor conditions and uneducated, who is faced with managing several issues at home, a relationship with McManus, and being fair to the inmates.
- Blackmail: She winds up on the receiving end from Scott Ross. This leads her to kill him in the chaos of the prison riot, after he shoots McManus.
- Deadpan Snarker: Wittlesey has a very dry sense of humour.Wittlesey: What are we talking about?
Glynn: Drugs.
Wittlesey: My favorite topic. - Everyone Has Standards: She agrees with Schillinger about Robert Sippel the child molester, who they both find repulsive.
- Knight in Sour Armor: She's cynical and world-weary, but one of the only guards who's a genuinely good person.
- Nice Girl: While cynical, she's one of the few people to treat the inmates like people and is generally the most empathetic and compassionate of the guards.
- Not So Above It All: She's one of the more straight-arrow guards, but is blackmailed by Scott Ross into smuggling contraband. This ultimately results in her killing him during a prison riot after he shoots McManus.
- Put on a Bus: After the whole incident with Scott Ross and the subsequent investigation, Wittlesey takes vacation time with her child and goes to the UK. While there, she marries a royal palace guard and so never returns.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: After Edie Falco landed her now-
Star-Making Role on The Sopranos, Wittlesey was Put on a Bus rather suddenly. - Reasonable Authority Figure: Wittlesey doesn't take any shit, but she's fair-minded toward the inmates and behaves impartially (most of the time).
- Team Mom: It's not explored much, but when she calls McManus from London, she cheerily calls the members of Gen Pop "my boys" and asks if they're behaving themselves. This indicates she thinks of herself in this way.
Hughes
Clayton Hughes
Played By: Seth Gilliam
A young and conflicted African American officer, Hughes is very close to Glynn. Hughes' father was Glynn's best friend and was killed while working as a CO when Hughes was seven years old.
- Ax-Crazy: He slowly falls into radicalism and violent insanity, ultimately being consumed by his violent delusions.
- Black-and-White Insanity: He's only able to see in black and white, rather than shades of gray, which is a bad thing to be in Oz and makes it easy for Adebisi to corrupt him.
- Break the Cutie: He starts off rather naïve and nervous, but the job breaks him very quickly.
- Can't Take Criticism: One of the main reasons Hughes falls into insanity is that he refuses to take any sort of constructive criticism and thus doesn't learn from his mistakes. This gets worse and worse, until finally he murders Basil because he called Clayton out on being a Jerkass.
- Corrupt the Cutie: He starts off as naive and nervous, but he gradually loses it until he becomes a violent madman.
- The Corruptible: Adebisi's influence is what ultimately causes Hughes's descent into radicalism and insanity.
- Did Not Think This Through: Goes hand in hand with his other issues like I Just Want to Be Badass and Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. He pretty much never thinks about the long-term fallouts of his decisions. A particular example is the delusion that using a stun-gun on Hernandez in front of the rest of Emerald City will earn him the respect he's been craving. It of course has the opposite effect, with Wrangler and Pierce making fun of him with their own reenactment of the stunt. What Hughes only afterwards realizes is that using a stun-gun amounts to an admission he can't cut it as a CO without that "extra advantage".
- Disproportionate Retribution: He murders Johnny Basil because he called Hughes out on being a dick.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Spending too much time in solitary causes him to suffer a psychotic break.
- I Just Want to Be Badass: He desperately wants respect, but he's too nervous and incompetent to get it. This leads to a vicious cycle of him doing stupid things to get it, then blistering when this impacts his standing and he does something stupid again, and so on and so on.
- Irony: Despite being a black militant he's indirectly responsible for the murder of four black men by a white guy, and when given the opportunity to kill either a white man or a black one, he kills the black man.
- Jerkass: Hughes becomes increasingly self-righteous, bigoted and cruel as time goes on, until he finally becomes an insufferable jerk who constantly insults people just trying to be friendly to him.
- Kick the Dog: Yood and Basil are nothing but friendly to him when he's sent to Cop Block, which Hughes rewards by continuously berating them and repeatedly attacking Yood at the slightest provocation. It culminates in him killing Basil when he calls him out on being such an asshole to them out of sheer spite, then laughs about it to Glynn's face.
- Large Ham: After going crazy, he starts chewing the scenery like no one's business.Hughes: I NOW DECLARE THIS UNIT THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF HURU! HURU! HURU! HURU! UNTIL SUCH TIME AS WE CAN HAVE FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS, I! HAVE ASSUMED COMMAND! YOU WILL NOW, HEREBY AND HEREWITH, REFER TO ME AS 'YOUR EXCELLENCY!''
- Malcolm Xerox: After being manipulated frequently by the likes of Adebisi, Hughes becomes a black militant who tries to kill Devlin.
- Naïve Newcomer: To Emerald City. He wants to follow in his father's footsteps, but Hughes lacks the backbone or thick skin needed. Neither the guards nor the inmates respect him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Hoo boy, where to begin...
- Giving Adebisi a gun in a misguided attempt at racial solidarity sets off a series of events that gives Adebisi control of Em City for half of Season 4.
- If not for Clayton going all John Hinckley on the governor, Devlin probably would have lost his re-election campaign.
- Sanity Slippage: After trying to kill Devlin and ending up in Oz as an inmate, Hughes goes completely off the rails. He becomes a deluded, ranting lunatic who imagines himself the president of the fictional 'Democratic Republic of Huru'.
- Ungrateful Bastard:
- He dies trying to murder Glynn, who treated him like a son after his father died and did everything in his power to help him, even after his actions forced Glynn to drop out of the run for lieutenant governor.
- He constantly antagonizes Yood and Basil despite them making an effort to be friendly with him.
- He grows to hate his loving mother because she sheltered him.
- Who's Laughing Now?: His story arc as a whole; pulls a nasty version of this on Johnny Basil specifically.
- Wrong Line of Work: He's completely unsuited to being a CO, thinking of it as a way to be regarded as tough and intimidating when it's precisely his desperation to be seen as such that gets him into trouble and causes inmates to not take him seriously. He doesn't even seem to like the work, getting into it solely because of his father, and Leo and his mother can both see that he isn't cut out for it.
Brass
Dave Brass
Played By: Blake Robbins
- Dung Fu: Gets a bucket of a prisoner's waste and other bodily fluids hurled in his face. Realistically, he has to be thoroughly checked for diseases in the aftermath.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: His performance in the Oz basketball tournament is strong enough to attract a basketball scout. Then Morales has his Achilles tendon cut in retaliation for Officer Robinson and Johnson injuring Vahue.
- Kick the Dog: He goes from sympathetic Butt-Monkey to unmitigated asshole when he steals Rebadow's winning lottery ticket — which Rebadow only bought because he desperately wanted to help his grandson who was dying of leukemia. Even Murphy, who's otherwise sympathetic to Brass, has a massive what the hell reaction.
- Playing the Victim Card; Tries to make Rebadow pity him.
- Pet the Dog: Unlike Howell he accepts that being punished for what he did to Morales was his own fault and makes a point of telling Murphy there isn't any hard feelings between them.
- Sanity Slippage: Goes from victim of horrible luck to jerkass to attacking Jackson Vahue offscreen after both have left Oz, with the final shot of Brass heavily implying he's just finally snapped.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Pulls this after discovering he has Rebadow's winning lottery ticket.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Becomes bitter and jerkish due to the aforementioned I Coulda Been a Contender! situation, along with some other humiliations heaped on him in the aftermath.
Rivera
Eugene Rivera
Played By: Nelson Vasquez
"You know what I want? To look at him in the eye, just for a second, to have him see me, what he did, and to find out why. Why?"
A CO blinded by Alvarez on El Cid's orders.
- Armour-Piercing Question: When he asks Alvarez what he ever did to deserve being blinded by him.
- Driven to Suicide: He contemplates killing himself after Alvarez blinds him so that his wife can have a normal life again.
- Earn Your Bittersweet Ending: He's still blind, but he gets a bilingual guide dog Alvarez trained that allows his wife not to spend all of her time taking care of him, alleviating his fears of being a burden to her.
- Eye Scream: We don't actually see Alvarez putting his eyes out but we do see the immediate and gory aftermath, and later his sewn-up eyelids.
- Foreshadowing: During roll call one morning Alvarez gets his attention and creepily mentions the old saying about the eyes being the mirrors of the soul. He shrugs this off, much to his detriment later.
- Heel–Face Turn: Apparently used to be part of a gang but in present day he doesn't seem like a bad guy. Unfortunately for Rivera this gang were rivals of El Cid's and leads directly to his blinding on El Cid's orders.
- Happily Married: He loves his wife, and his decision to forgive Alvarez and accept Julie, the guide dog, as a gift is partly so that she doesn't have to spend all her time taking care of him.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's one of the few guards who never abuses the inmates at any point, and is pretty fair-handed and reasonable. It makes what ultimately happens to him even worse.
Healy
Mike Healy
Played By: Steve Ryan
A disgruntled and corrupt officer, Healy has a very low opinion of both the prisoners and Unit Manager Tim McManus.
- Dirty Prison Guard: He's in Ryan O'Reilly's pocket, and a key part of his drug operation in the first season.
- Hate Sink: He's a corrupt prison guard and a thoroughly unpleasant person which is bad enough but what drives him into this territory is his constant bullying of McManus and Whittlesey for their relationship. It gets to the point where McManus gives Healy a well-deserved punch in the face and it is satisfying.
- Jerkass: He absolutely hates his job and takes it out on whomever is in reach.
- Noble Bigot with a Badge: His farewell rant when he's arrested suggests that he sees himself as such.
- Put on a Prison Bus: He's arrested for his corruption and last seen being dragged off while protesting it. The last time he's mentioned is when O'Reily refuses to testify against him, though the odds clearly aren't in his favor.
- Villainous Friendship: Thinks he has one with Ryan who only views him as a disposable lackey.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Ryan finally turns him in for his drug trafficking, to distract the authorities from the Mafia's larger scale drug racket.
Metzger
Karl Metzger
"All I am is a highly-trained, underpaid member of the Correctional Officer's Benevolent Association. But if I am what you think I am, you should tip-toe."
Played By: Bill Fagerbakke
A white supremacist guard who took over Wittlesey's position in Emerald City after she was transferred to General Population.
- Asshole Victim: A brutal white supremacist that causes numerous issues and injuries for enemies of the Aryans, including Busmalis and Beecher. His death at the hands (literally) of the latter is mourned by absolutely no-one other than the Aryans.
- The Big Guy: He's 6'6" and quite possibly the tallest person on the show.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He seems like a takes-no-shit-gives-no-shit type when he first turns up; tough but fair. In reality he's a white supremacist who helps the Aryans.
- The Bully: It becomes increasingly clear that he loves throwing his weight around and bullying prisoners who can't fight back, especially the ones who've pissed off the Aryans.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Beecher gruesomely slices up his face and throat with his sharpened fingernails, and Metzger chokes to death on his own blood while vainly trying to call out for help.
- Dirty Prison Guard: He has Aryan ties and works for them in Emerald City. Unsurprisingly, his command is the high point of the Aryans' status in Oz.
- Faux Affably Evil: Metzger can be creepily polite while threatening people.
- Meaningful Name: He's named for real-life white supremacist Tom Metzger. Metzger is also German for "butcher." His first name "Karl" gets the Germanized spelling to further drive the point home.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Being a white supremacist and all.
- Slashed Throat: Courtesy of Beecher, who grows his nails and sharpens them. When Metzger gets him alone to kill him, Beecher claws out his throat.
- Smug Snake: He's cunning and menacing, but too self-assured to avoid threats from the people he underestimated.
- Underestimating Badassery: He underestimates both McManus and Beecher, which proves lethal in the latter's case.
- Villain with Good Publicity: He's popular with his fellow COs.
Hunt
Eddie Hunt
Played By: Murphy Guyer
An irritable CO with a hatred of McManus.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Upon feeling guilt after being part of Groves' execution.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Attacks random inmates after one of his friends is killed by Donald Groves.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: He's killed offscreen during the raid at the end of Season 1 and never mentioned again in spite of previously being one of the most prominent guards.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He genuinely cares for his fellow C.O's as he is angered by the setup on Healy and vengeful for Smith's death.
- Hidden Depths: He does express guilt over killing Groves, despite being pretty gung-ho about being part of the firing squad initially. He's also savvy enough about prison life to not blame Alvarez for letting Father Mukada get beat up, knowing he'd be killed if he tried to help.
- Jerkass: Hunt is irritable and often clashes with McManus, who he strongly dislikes.
- Karmic Death: When Devlin sends troops to deal with the riot, the inmates make Hunt stand still at the front door with a blindfold on so that he's killed via friendly fire. The entire exercise is very reminiscent of a firing squad.
- Never My Fault: He blames the riot entirely on McManus, in spite of this having been one of the risks of the job from the beginning. Wittlesey and Mukada are entirely baffled by his finger-pointing.
- Revenge: The reason he volunteers to be part of Groves' firing squad.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: The first episode of Season 2 reveals him to be one of the casualties of the raid at the end of Season 1.
Burrano
Lenny Burrano
Played By: Skipp Sudduth
A CO supervisor placed in charge of investigating Dino Ortolani's death.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He just disappears from the series after Season 2.
- Dirty Prison Guard: He intimidates O'Reily into giving up Post to the Wiseguys with barely veiled threats. He's later revealed to be working for the Italians.
- Only Sane Man: For the Italians after Peter Schibetta takes over, having the unenviable task of stopping the overconfident Schibetta and the blindly loyal Pancamo from getting themselves killed.
- Smug Snake: He clearly enjoys watching the prisoners he interrogates squirm.
Nowakowski
Anthony Nowakowski
Played By: Matt Ross
A rookie CO.
- First Day from Hell: His first day in Oz starts with the riot, and ends with him getting killed by SORT team friendly fire.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: The first episode of Season 2 reveals him to be one of the casualties of the raid at the end of Season 1.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He's in Oz a total of one day before he's killed in the aftermath of the prison riot.
Mineo
Joseph Mineo
Played By: Philip V. Scozzarella
An elderly CO.
- Jerkass: While he isn't flagrantly corrupt, he's still kind of a dick and prone to mocking the prisoners.
- Kick the Dog: He talks Lopresti out of giving Carlo the letter from his sister.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Alvarez significantly beats him during the riot for having made a joke about his baby's death.
- Put on a Bus: He's transferred out of Em City by Querns in Season 4, and while he's still around in Unit B, he disappears for the rest of the season until Querns is fired.
- Recurring Extra: Mineo mostly remains in the background, though he eventually ascends into being a Mauve Shirt by Season 4.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: He's an old man and one of the more mean-spirited guards.
D'Agnasti
Vic D'Agnasti
Played By: Douglas Crosby
A SORT team officer.
- Action Survivor: He's one of the only hostages during the riot to get out alive and unscathed.
Wood
Gordon Wood
Played By: Wood Harris
A CO sympathetic to the Muslims.
- Dirty Prison Guard: He's secretly working with Said, and slips him a gun to aid him in the riot.
- Small Role, Big Impact: His slipping Said a gun plays a massive part in how the riot goes and causes McManus getting shot and Ross's death.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: He completely disappears after slipping Said a gun, and his fate is never acknowledged.
Armstrong
Jason Armstrong
Played By: Timothy L. Brown
A CO.
- Doomed Hurt Guy: Subverted. He's beaten to a bloody pulp during the riot and spends the duration of it unconscious, but he manages to survive against all odds.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: While corrupt, he still tends to be one of the more even-handed COs and dutifully carries out his orders.
- Recurring Extra: Armstrong's main purpose is to stand in the background and take orders from Glynn and McManus.
Heim
Rick Heim
Played By: Paul Schulze
A SORT team member.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Disappears after Season 2.
- Dirty Prison Guard: He covers for Wittlesey stealing his gun and using it to kill Ross.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While he's hateful of the inmates in general and views them as less than human, it's hard to deny he's right in his assessment of Scott Ross.
- Odd Friendship: Heim is as hateful of the inmates as most COs, but he gets on well with McManus and the two regularly play poker together.
Brese
Roger Brese
Played By: Ray Iannicelli
A CO who guards the entrance gate.
- The Alcoholic: He's eventually revealed to be an alcoholic. Idzik is only able to sneak a gun in because Brese was drunk while on duty.
- Put on a Bus: Glynn fires him for letting Lemuel Idzik sneak a gun in.
- Recurring Extra: He generally stays off in the background unless a guard is needed to show up at the gate that isn't Wittlesey.
