Oz: The Complete Third Season

If you're reading this, you've probably watched all seasons of OZ, or at least a few of them so I won't have to tell what it's all about. All I can say is, I'm in love with OZ. Tom Fontana is a genious, what he has created is magical, the characters are so alive and realistic, you feel for them, you start to love them no matter what crimes they've committed, you understand why they do what they do, you realize that everything they say and do is a part of survival, they have to survive in Em City, in OZ, no matter what it takes...

O'Reily, responsible for pretty much every murder in OZ, including the riot, Beecher, the extreme transformation, rivality with Schillinger and love for Chris Keller, Said, always keeping his faith, at least in this season, Hill, Rebadow, Schillinger, Adebisi, Pancamo..... I could go on and on.

My favorite characters of the inmates are Toby Beecher, Chris Keller - I find their love/hate relationship interesting. You don't have to put a label on it saying "Beecher and Keller are the two gay guys", it's far beyond that. As Tom Fontana said: "It's two men or two people struggling to find and maintain love in an environment that completely works against them." There are sad moments, good moments, Schillinger who constantly tries to get between them and destroy Beecher. And no matter what happens in Toby's and Chris's relationship, even if they're not together at the time, you know that they love each other, more than they'll ever love anybody.
Tobias "Toby" Beecher goes through the most extreme transformation I've ever laid my eyes on, it's amazing to watch him, from the beginning of his time in OZ until he finally makes his revenge on Schillinger in season 1, lands in the hole and comes out as a new man.
Chris Keller who first came to OZ as one of Schillinger's men, making friends with Toby, making Toby fall in love with him, then broke his bones and totally ruined everything they had togehter. And when Toby lands in the hospital, you see Chris back in their pod, his hands on Toby's bunk, touching Toby's pillow with a remorsefull look on his face - a 5 second sequence that makes me chill, no words can describe that scene.
In season 3 we follow his attempts to make Toby understand that he really does love him.
The chemistry between the actors, Lee Tergesen and Christopher Meloni, is brilliant, sparkling and convincing. And perhaps since they're good friends in reality, they know how to work so well together.

My other favorite is Ryan O'Reilly, the man nobody can trust. Always up to something and usually gets what he wants, O'Reilly is one of a kind. Played by Dean Winters, who I think is a very talented actor. The way I feel when I watch Winters is, he doesn't seem to be acting at all, and I mean that in a good way. He's tough, he's smart, he doesn't trust anyone, he is responsible for many of the murders commited in Em City, and since he's got a great brain he manages to stay out of trouble during the investigations. Also, there's not only a cold hearted side of O'Reilly. He backs up the weaker inmates, he stood by Beecher's side when he just got to Em City, and even though he made Beecher addicted to heroin, he was there when no one else was. And there's always Ryan's love for his brother Cyril, who he'd do anything for.

For the OZ fans that yet don't know - Season 4 will preliminary be out October 5 2004.

The cast is a good one. Standouts for me are Lee Tergesen as Beecher, Chris Meloni as Keller, Eamonn Walker as Said, Terry Kinney as MacManus, Edie Falco (in a role she did before the Sopranos) as Wittlesey and the guy who plays Adebisi (won't even try to spell his name!) But the other cast members all seem to fit well and there are usually 4 to 5 stories going on at one time.

My only qualm about this show is that some of the story lines are just hard to believe. For example, if you were a female doctor at a prison and a prisoner fell in love with you and arranged to have your husband killed so that you would be free to give your affaction to the prisoner, would you still want to work at said prison? This doctor barely lets it bother her. There are many others that have made me say "Yeah, right", but all in all, the freshness makes it worth it.

I wish HBO would issue these shows faster.

As I watched the power struggle on "Oz: The Complete Third Season" I kept thinking that the machinations among the inmates was like a metaphor for international politics. Vern Schillinger (J.K. Simmons) and Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen) are still trying to get the better of each other, but with Cyril O'Reily (Scott Winters) still having nightmares about being raped by Schillinger, Ryan O'Reily (Dean Winters) has his own plans for revenge. Kareen Said (Eamonn Walker) proves his power in Oz when he starts a hunger fast after McManus rejects his request for food in his cell while he fasts during the holy season. But the most dangerous one of all turns out to be the inmate everybody is dismissing as crazy, Simon Adebisi (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje), who finds a way to bring down Antonio Nappa (Mark Margolis) and is eyeing people even higher up the food chain. Meanwhile, prison psychiatrist Sister Peter Marie Reimondo (Rita Moreno)'s sessions with various prisoners, including Chris Keller (Chris Meloni), are having repercussions and the prison sponsored boxing tournament continues and you just know the finals are going to end badly.

For me the key character on "Oz" has always been Beecher because he was the one I most identified with at the start (i.e., the person who would be sent to prison and would be dead meat the minute he stepped through the gate). Of course, Beecher has gone places I would have never been able to go and the third season offers up some of the twists and turns we know to expect from the series as the character manages to go too far in two completely different directions. Meanwhile, McManus has become just another player in the big game, which is a major development because his character reflected what idealism there was in the Oz experiment (which is long gone by this point).

The third season is also marked by a more creative use of Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau) as the show's narrator (my favorite was as pharaoh), which involves a bit more metaphor to go along with the necessary exposition. By now we are deep into this world and there are plans within plans within plans. Adding to the power of these stories is that by now you know that any of these characters could end up dead (I was going to say that this adds to the realism of "Oz," but with the body count from this season alone I would think that in the real world the warden and a lot of others would be long gone). With the completion of the third season, we are now halfway through the series. But it is a good thing that HBO is spacing out these seasons on DVD because you really need to spend some time in between to feel clean enough to want to descend back under the rainbow.