Oz Rewatch 3: S1E01 & S1E02

[wawamouse]

(originally posted to tumblr)
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I actually got my sister to rewatch these two episodes with me, just so I could get some fresh eyes on it, haha. My sister doesn’t really watch live action media outside of crime procedurals, but she makes constant guesses when watching anything, so I knew she’d have a lot of impressions on the characters.

Sister had nonstop guesses about things that were going to happen in episode one. While some were surprisingly right on the money, others were not;

Beecher

• First impressions: “…This some white collar dude?”
• Later, when Toby’s crime flashback started: “He’s a serial killer!” (car swerves on the scene) “He killed a child!” …I suppose anyone can be gifted with foresight if you just make enough guesses!
• When episode 1 ended and I asked Sister what she thought so far, she did mention that she had originally assumed Beecher (identifier: “that one white guy”) was the main character. She was puzzled when Ortolani took center focus instead, which I found interesting. I feel like this is the opposite of what most people assume.

Ortolani

• Perhaps the most impressive assumption Sister made in the entire episode was to ask, as Dino awoke at 6am: “Is he gonna die?”
• I later asked her what she thought about Dino dying in episode 1: “Called it”. I asked her how she knew and she shrugged and said “he just seemed like he was gonna die”.

Ryan O’Reily

• First impression: “He should put on some pants…” Later, she would continue to misidentify him as “the Menace” (“Mayhem”). Once she realized his name was O’Reily, she kept singing the O’Reilly Autoparts jingle.
• Other remarks included: “maybe he’s an undercover cop”; “He’s probably gonna die from trying to make all these moves”; and (annoyed sigh) “He reminds me of [mildly annoying high school classmate]”

Schillinger

• The fact that he was a nazi went right over her head for most of episode 1. She thought he was a C.O at first.
• Later, when I also I tried to explain the concept of Em City to her (it was also going over her head), she said (full skepticism): “…[McManus] thinks J.K Simmons nazi guy is redeemable?”
• However, midway through ep 1, when I asked her who her favorite character was, she answered "J.K Simmons, because he's the lion in Zootopia".

Stray thoughts from Sister:

• (watching the episode 1 title sequence, seeing Groves’ brand) “Does that say ‘wow’ or ‘mom’?”
• About Hill: “he’s an undercover cop” (this came after Hill’s line in the dress factory: “I hate cops”)
• About Rebadow: For some reason, Sister was very set on the idea that Rebadow was a serial killer; “did he eat a bunch of children?” “Does he kill sinners?” “ Does he kill sinning children?” When at last I informed her no, Rebadow was not a religious serial killer, she then turned her attention on Beecher; “Oh he’s the serial killer”.
• Much time was spent on trying to figure out who The Serial Killer was until I put my foot down and told her there was no serial killer (yet).
• About the hacks: (dripping with sarcasm): “Wow… them cops are really doing a top job”; “I think it’s funny when they keep going ‘it’s out of our hands… we can’t do anything’…. like you guys are literally in charge of this place.”
• Keane: “Post, you’re up. Go to the hole and wack that wop”; Sister: “I got no idea what he just said...”
• Called Mukada “Mr Dinosaur Eggs” and would not stop comparing Alvarez’s responsibility for “bringing a life into this world” with “bringing dinosaurs into this world”
• Had a continued conspiracy across episode 1 & 2 that Schillinger and Whittlesey were in cahoots/in a secret relationship
• Thought Nino was Joe Pesci at first
• Thought McManus was Mark Pellegrino at first
• Thought Said was "weird" and "doing some weird kind of fetish play" (when he kept getting slapped)
• "Kinda weird that she had a picnic basket....." (lots of judgement was passed on Genevieve's picnic basket and also her raw spaghetti)

Takeaways

• Sister's favorite characters after the 2 first episodes were Jefferson Keane ("he has sad eyes") and Nino Schibetta ("he looks like the mole from Zootopia and he has sad eyes")
• When asked if she would watch the third episode, she said "I guess... feels like they're just going to wrap up the trilogy, though.." (me: "you think there's only three episodes?"; Sister: "Uhh yeah. Seems like.")
• My own takeaways after watching the two episodes back to back is that I like episode 2 more than episode 1, but that episode 1 still has a really nice dizzying feeling that becomes less and less prominent as the show goes on. It really set the vibe!