Oz Rewatch 3: S2E03: Legs

[wawamouse]

Originally posted to Tumblr
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This week, leading up to the midseason finale, we have another episode that felt a little filler-y. A lot

I'll just bullet point them first to refer back to:

Resolved/continuing from last episode:

• Miguel refuses to name Glynn’s daughter’s rapist after learning who it is / Glynn refuses Schibetta's help in getting the name
• Diane returns to Em City and gets the cold shoulder from McManus
• Kenny's rehabilitation progress regresses after Adebisi interferes
• Schillinger out of Solitary, charged with Conspiracy to Murder
• Augustus + Beecher tension resolved through extended fart joke lol
• Ryan gets his breast tumor surgery

New storyline introduced:

• Augustus’s retrial w Said
• Giles’s babbling and Sister Peter
• The Aryans kill Alexander Vogel, Schillinger starts his revenge plot against Beecher
• Busmalis starts digging a hole
• Cyril is introduced
• Shirley is introduced

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Of course, we started out the episode with Sister tittering gleefully over Glynn and Mukada's "lover's tiff". She would be disappointed to realise as the episode progressed that her little soap opera from last week's episode had basically come to an end, though.

[No words; I hear a soft, dejected sigh from Sister over my shoulder]

Unfortunately, Giles is introduced this episode. As I have made clear in my posts in the past, I don't really care much for his storyline or that fact that this is the only real storyline Sister Pete has that is disconnected from many of the other characters she usually deals with. Thinking it over, I believe what might've improved this arc would've been if the lack of resolution over Sister Pete's husband's dead had been introduced earlier on as something affecting her, with the story revolving more around Sister Pete's lingering feelings on the matter and less on Giles and the mystery his babbling presents. I just don't think Giles is that compelling as a character, and if he is really only supposed to be there to unlock some of Sister Pete's back story, I would have liked the whole plot to actually focus more on her.

 

I sorted of tipsily ranted about it on my Season 1 finale post, but once again something about this bugs me. I don't really have any problem with Said being characterised as arrogant and somewhat foolish, but on this third viewing, I'm starting to see more flaws with the way Said is written. I'm still not sure how to explain it necessarily. In my season 1 rant, I chalked it up to the fact that the writers don't seem familiar with any of the concrete viewpoints a character like Said would have, and therefore he's always just saying vague things about black liberation or prison abolition or revolution or what have you. At the same time, my suspicion that maybe Said is actually sort of just dumb (to put it bluntly) seems like a viable option; Sister mused while we were watching Said boast about Augustus's chances that maybe he was just supposed to be daft about the law... After all, if he understood how things actually worked in the world, maybe he wouldn't be in prison. I think the "Said is actually just that dumb" theory falls flat, though, because in-universe he seems like a pretty highly regarded thinker (except by Querns? lol).

I sort of forget how Said's arrogance plays out in the long run in this season (beyond failing Augustus), so maybe this is a thought I'll put a pin in for now... But I do find it a little 🤨🙄 how he is painted as so delusional in this particular arc. I did sort of think he had been coming down to earth at the end of season 1 after his heart problems but season 2 has him back to doing Too Much. Having Busmalis as the voice of reason, telling Said that he couldn't overthrow the system felt very much like a moment where the writer was speaking to those who Said is meant to represent. Maybe I'm reading too much into that one, but I just feel like it's a cheap move. Of course Said's vague and radical views are going to look preposterous! He hasn't been written from a concrete understanding of any particular ideology or framework! Idk. They should've made Said a communist or something 💀

Anyway.

Moving on, we have a continuation of Ryan's cancer storyline.

I must say, me and Sister were very ???? about Ryan's story to Gloria about how he knew his wife since high school, they impressed their friends by fucking like bunnies minus the babies and then he married his wife because he felt bad she was barren, before cheating on her "a lot" and somehow, the conclusion of this story was... that he didn't want to die in prison? And somehow this monologue earned sympathy points from Gloria? Lol? GIRL? Were you even listening?

Sister: Aw, he does actually love his wife... [long, dubious silence]... I think.

Sister: Ummmmm... what about SHANNON...?

Takeaways & Stray Thoughts:

Sister: I only remember Shannon
Me: You only remember her name because she’s pretty
Sister: [cackling wildly] That’s true! You know me so well… I don’t even remember the brother’s name—I just remember Shannon saying “what are we going to do about your brother?” 😜… I don’t remember the commissioner’s name… or the girl whose legs we were looking through in that one scene (Diane; there was a scene where McManus was doing sit-ups and the camera was shooting from ankle level behind her) 🥴… I don’t remember the commissioner’s name (Glynn)🤣, or the priest (Mukada)🤨. I remember Sister Peter Marie’s name, but she’s pretty, too... I also remember Miguel’s name but that’s because I’ve become his guardian angel 😌…… Hm, the fiancee (Said’s ex-fiancee) was pretty too… Is Shannon coming back? [sighing, flopping around] Probably not... I bet she'll be too busy supermodeling to be on this show again... 😭

• Let it be known that between our episode viewing/discussion and me making some decaf to type this up, Sister kept musing about prison health insurance premiums, at one point saying something about "...She™—Shannon. You know, Shannon?"
• Sister: I feel like Mr Religious Guy (Said) is becoming crazy...
• New nicknames earned: Miguel, "the rat king" (due to how he tends to hunch his shoulders when he's walking "like a little rat, scurrying around", according to Sister) (frankly "the rat king" is just what she has been calling me all week due to a sweater I have been wearing so I think the name was already on her mind)

The Rat King in motion

• I noticed that there were a lot of amusing background details happening in this episode. I wonder if different directors for episodes pay particular mind to having extras do stuff in the background (does the 2nd AD change between episodes? Maybe I should start looking up the crew, too...) Anyway, this episode seemed especially rife with extras amusing themselves in background scenes and moving around more to look busy. Likewise, I feel like this episode had a couple more fun little character/interaction moments compared to past episodes... Augustus and Beecher bickering, Agamemnon "Mm, me too" Busmalis, etc...

Arm wrestling, basketball, reading and walking—all in one shot; Adebisi terrorising Fiona and Tony; McManus keeps ketchup in his important looking cabinet, it turns out; a push-up contest, possibly

• Sister: Faces smushed this episode.... two

• Why was this episode titled Legs? Besides Diane's leg?

• Sister is not a fan of Peter Schibetta so far
• During Hanlon's scene with Mukada where he was talking about how he loved to take it up the ass, Sister mistakenly thought I said he was one "one of the gang" instead of "one of the gays", which led her to thinking he was one of the Italians
• ...Immaculate side eye....