Episode 3 "God's Chillin"

Season 1
Episode 3 -God's Chillin
Original air date July,21 1997

"God almighty creator of all things,including the loophole" -Tobias Beecher

Its interesting to see the early cast of Oz and how they branched off in their careers after the show. Some of them went on to do Law and Order SVU including Christopher Meloni,BD Wong,J.K Simmons and Dean Winters;and Kathryn Erbe and Rita Moreno both starred in Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Of course we saw Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje in Lost and Harrold Perrineau as well. And who could forget Edie Falco in The Sopranos? Most of these actors were from the New York area and some were working on other projects simultaneously during their time on the show.

Ryan O'Reilly at the scene of his arrest.

Kirk Acevedo was written off the show twice due to conflicting projects and was brought back on again.The first was in early 2001 when he was working on Band of Brothers then he disappeared again at the second half of the fourth season due to landing a role on Third Watch.


Christohper Meloni was also written off the show and sent to another prison,effectively ending the love affair plot thread between him and Beecher. This was during his early tenure on Law and Order SVU in 1999. According to IMDB Christopher decided that working on two great shows simultaneously was worth the physical and emotional toll and the character made a return in a later season.

Back in Oz though..The scene opens with yet another prison funeral,this time Johnny Post. The rivaly is very obvious at this point with the Homeboys and the Wiseguys glaring at each other across the tables. War is in the air and everybody knows it.Beecher turns jailhouse lawyer,as he attepts to use his past legal expertise to help Ryan O'Reilly with his case. Then he lands a job in Sister Pete's office because of his knowledge of office software. This could be a good thing for Tobias,Sister Pete takes on a bit of a motherly role on the show and,her presence could have a theraputic effect on him.

Kenny Wangler a 16 year old tried as an adult.

Beecher really starts his downward spiral here in this episode. He starts doing Heroin with Ryan to escape his daily hell,and hes now openly submitting to Vern's advances.
Kenny Wangler arrives in Oz. Played by JD Williams another veteran of the NY acting circuit. Hes 16 annd tried as an adult for murder,his flashback is spoken with a hilariously exaggerated hip-hop slang by Augustus.
The fact that Kenny is only 16 and is in Oz among grown men is never mentioned.

Kenny at first decides to find a group to belong to,and chooses Said and the muslims but decides that the strict Islamic lifestyle is not for him.He falls in with the Homeboys and starts dabbling in Heroin use,leading to an explosive scene when Said finds out and takes measures to protect the 16 year old from the dealers. After a lengthy chat with Keane,Said seems to have converted him to islam and he denounces all his vices leading to an internal rift now within the Homeboys.

Governor James Devlin.

Jeffersons new found morality conflicts lead to him and Ryan having a heart to heart about the murder. Ryans self preservation mode kicks-something that would become his crutch later on-and he immediately goes to Nino saying Keane ordered the hit. Keane is set up in a prison fight by the correctional officers and ends up killing his opponent.
And thats it. We have murder number 4. LOCK DOWN.

This episode also fleshes out the slimy Governor James Devlin for the first time. And he does not disappoint,he comes off as a smug prick in a heated scene with McManus,demanding the death penalty for Keane. He played this scene with such smarmy glee that Devlin would become one of the shows villians later on and a character everyone loved to hate.

And that ends disc one of Season one. we still got 6 more episodes this season, how will things turn out? Keep watching and reading.

DEAD Julio Martinez