wawamouse | Oz Rewatch 3: S1E05: Straight Life

Originally posted to tumblr
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After watching this episode, I turned to Sister and said, "I feel like this was a filler episode."

"Which is strange," she said, "Because someone died."

If last week's episode 4 was the midseason finale, episode 5 was the start of the finale arc. A lot of time is spent getting pieces moved into place for the riot and season 2 plotlines—namely, Scott Ross comes to Oz and she and Diane get into smuggling cigarettes together. Meanwhile, Nino is isolated from his people (Sister: "Aw... they're breaking up the Mouse Crew...") and has to go into business with the Homeboys and conscripts Ryan O'Reily to break of Healy's drug business. The beginning of the end for Mr. Mouse, unfortunately! My Sister has been dismayed about that, of course.

In keeping with our watch-trends so far, Sister once again expressed much incredulity at the lack of vigilance by the guards and poor attempts at secrecy by the inmates. However, we made progress in this episode, as I think Sister is finally recognising that she must simply suspend her disbelief when it comes to security matters and Workplace Professionalism when it comes to this show (haha!)

Sister: Everyone's got main character syndrome in this show. They're all just like ♪ no one's looking at or listening to meeee! ♪

One thing that struck me as I was watching this episode was that there were a lot of extended tracking shots (especially during the scene where Nino and McManus paced the second tier while talking) and crane shots. I remember a behind the scenes video where McManus’s actor mentioned that directors would always come in with ideas about using cranes and dollies and that those ideas always disappeared once they realize how long it will take to set up and how short the shoot days were. But I think one of the reasons that season 1 has so many great moments is because there is some of that fancier camerawork and the more ambitious shot set ups. The long tracking/dolly shots, especially the over-the-shoulder ones I feel like season 1 is full of, really add a different, busier energy to the conversations between characters that isn't captured as well with the static camera or characters briefly walking forward/out of frame, which is what I think becomes more prevalent later on in the show. It's understandable, of course, but still.

While I'm running on this thought, I think another thing I wanted to say about season 1 is that I feel like Adebisi is a different-ish character here. Of course he already had his insane crime flashback, but at the same time, he's less out of control. I guess it was because for much of this season, he hasn't been the leader of the Homeboys—Keane was in charge and kept Adebisi in check. At least, he had someone he had to defer to.

Sister: I thought Hat Guy was going to take over after the Keane guy died and I thought that was going to be bad for the black guys because he's so unreasonable, but at least there's this guy to help run things.
Markstrom: (dies, turns out to be a narc)
Sister: Oh, no wonder he was so stable...

Not much commentary about this episode. As I said, a lot was getting set up for the finale, so it did feel a little filler-ish. Sister had a lot of amusing rants about McManus again—mostly in the vein of "Ewww" and "He's so cringe" and just constant gagging noises. She does not approve of the McManus-Diane match up, nor is she looking forward to what she perceives to be a future love triangle with Ross. She also kept sassing Said for not taking his HBP medication.

Stray Thoughts From Sister:

"When do they gang up on the White supremacists? Is this just not a thought in their head? 😐"
"Mr Priest didn't show up to his wise words of wisdom!" (She said she hopes the show will develop "the cracker stuff", i.e, the catholic conversion of our resident cannibal)
"I feel like that little fava bean (Rebadow) should become a therapist. He seems like he'd be pretty good at it."
Sister still hopes Ryan will die but doesn't have a lot of hope because she remembered the memes I showed her and knows he must be hanging around in later seasons

Sister: Does he have an amoeba on his back??