Fandoms I Have Loved 8: Oz
I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to Oz, I know nothing. But when has that ever stopped me before? Roll on with the FIHL, and if I get it wrong, hey, just tell me so.
Oz is a TV show. About a maximum-security prison. That did its damnedest to show prison life the way it really is. And it was written by Tom Fontana. This is all ( Read more... )
Oz is a TV show. About a maximum-security prison. That did its damnedest to show prison life the way it really is. And it was written by Tom Fontana. This is all ( Read more... )
Let me tell you what I know.
1. Keller spends a lot of time in the hospital, including when Toby shanks him in the back. B/K is tough on all involved. (And it's *really* tough on those peripherally involved, but that's a whole other story.)
2. One of those hospitalization incidents occurs when Keller is shot in the chest. He lines out on the operating table, twice I think, and has a vision of the afterlife that does not feature white light and a sense of peace. (It's probably more like burning hellfire and his relatives, including the one he definitely, definitely never wants to see again: his stepfather.) We're actually never told what he sees, but that vision of hell scares the holy shit out of the unflappable Chris Keller.
3. However. In the last season, which I myself choose to reguard as an AU by a particularly unskilled writer, and which I therefore discard without the slightest hesitation, Beecher kills Keller. Murders him. And it sticks. If you watched the vid, I believe the last shot of it comes from this evil, reprehensible, and totally lame plot point. (I don't reject it because Keller dies, or because Beecher kills him. I reject it because of the *reason*, which is so out of character for Keller I can't buy it at all.)
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Okay.
So why am I watching this again?
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And, seriously, my understanding is that this is not happy viewing. If you watch it, I will worship you even more than I already do, but I will be on close, close watch for breakdowns. Because I don't think Oz is exactly the cheeriest of places. So I expect regular emails letting me know about your progress with Oz.
On the other hand, you are reading the fic because some of it is pretty damn hot and most of it is pretty damn good. And you won't hear about the darkest fic here, so that's fairly safe.
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Okay, Coach, I'm goin' in! Um, as soon as my DVDs arrive from Netflix...
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No. I want emails during the episodes. Because, you know, I fear for your sanity.
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Bleah. Not something I like to think about.
(so I amuse you with my Ronnie Barlog memorial icon. Because we are a sick, sick lot. *g*)
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Can I be in the Oz fandom at all if I'm in permanent denial about the entire chain of events that led up to Keller's manipulative suicide? Can I be anywhere near the Oz fandom if I'm in permanent denial about all of Season 6?
(The icon's great, though. Made me laugh.)
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*pfft!* Girl, you'd be in the majority. I mean, I'm like the world's biggest canon slut, and I still haven't really made my peace with it. I'm definitely in no hurry to write about it -- plenty of other facets to explore, ya know?
So yeah, I think you can exist quite comfortably in the fandom (certainly in the B/K end of the pool) without running up against S6 too often. Unless it's an alterna-6, which I predict shall become an increasingly popular genre. We just had a new-to-the-fandom writer, geneticallydead, post a quite excellent "alterna-6" story this week.
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Not that the facts you told me were any worse than the facts I previously believed, no, it's just - my Oz pattern. I think I know what went on in a tiny part of Oz canon and I accept it and get used to it and stop obsessively searching for lockdown fic (oh, shit, should've included a lockdown fic in my FIHL; that's the classic porn fic in this fandon, is it not?) to protect me from the horrible truth, and then I learn either a) everything is not as I thought or b) all that is true and this new horrible thing, too.
This isn't a fandom. It's a fan abuse practicum.
So, allow me to wave at you from the shallow end of the B/K pool, where I will remain forevermore. And glad to be here, let me tell you.
(Next FIHL is going to be Sports Night, though, I swear. In other words, thefourthvine returning to her happy place.)
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You have to stage an intervention ALREADY, and I haven't even SEEN IT YET!!!
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And it's sick and twisted and abusive and co-dependent, yeah. But there's advantages to watching it:
1. There's no relationship on Earth that B/K doesn't make look good. You could be marrying a guy who wants to eat your ex-husband's brains, and you'd just think, hey, could be my brains he wants to eat, so that's not so bad.
2. It's also gay in canon, and sexy, and even...cute. (Actually, I lied. I don't know if they're ever cute, exactly; that link is to the actors, Lee Tergeson and Christopher Meloni, being seriously kissy at the 2000 GLAAD awards. But I just found it on my flist, and I thought you'd like to see it.)
See? Watch, little fangirl, watch!
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God.
I don't have the words.
I cannot thank you enough for sharing that with me.
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Watch it, watch it, watch it! You have to be a bit of a sick bitch to get through Oz anyway.
If you rent it for Beecher/Keller, keep in mind that Keller doesn't enter the picture until about the middle of season 2.
Season 1 Beecher is brilliant though because you get to see Schillinger utterly destroy him and then you get to see him go completely batshit crazy. Good times.
Also, Beecher/Keller is just a fraction of the Oz universe (though it occupies 90% of the fandom's collective brain power). There is ALL kinds of weird fuckery going on in that place. Lots of great characters. Ryan O'Reily is a particular favorite of mine... I think he can be tied to most (if not all?) the murders that happen in the first season.
I could gush about other characters, but are we just supposed to keep it to Beecher and Keller here?
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I could gush about other characters, but are we just supposed to keep it to Beecher and Keller here?
No, you're welcome to bring up any characters you want.
I kept the FIHL to B/K because:
1. I am a pervert.
2. I assume, given my recs and all, that most folks who read my LJ are also perverts.
3. They will therefore be most comfortable with porny goodness.
4. And I want them to be comfortable, because the point of a FIHL is to suck in new - meat sounds wrong, and fellow-sufferers is a little too honest, so I'll go with fans. To suck new fans into the fandom in question. Basically, I try to keep things super, super simple, to start people off easy.
So the *FIHL* is limited to just B/K.
But the comments section exists for you to tell me how wrong I am - how I totally misunderstand Beecher, how I fail to appreciate the beauty of a given unmentioned character - Alvarez and O'Reily being two I myself would like to see mentioned - how there's this really excellent story that I inexplicably failed to rec, thus proving I don't know Keller's ass from ff.net, whatever. In other words, the comments section is for other people to say everything I edited out of the FIHL or didn't know in the first place.
So get your gush on, girl. I will read with great pleasure.
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As we know, Fontana can write amazing characters (bastard!).
My favorite regular Oz characters (as regular as Oz characters can be... so people who lasted more than one season, let's say):
Beecher, Keller, and Schillinger: the triangle of neverending pain and suffering has already been covered.
Ryan O'Reily: The craftiest of them all, the lord of the fucking dance. Watching O'Reily plot is like watching a chess master. His strategy is basically, why get my hands dirty when I can have someone else do it (and thus take the heat if it doesn't work out)? He pits people against each other, sits back, and watches as things play out.
In other news, O'Reily's approach to love isn't much better than Keller's. Ryan gets cancer and falls in love with Dr. Gloria Nathan for seeing him through it. He is so in love, he divorces his wife and then has his own brother, Cyril, murder Dr. Nathan's husband, which lands Cyril in Oz for life. She naturally, hates him. But when she is raped and Ryan murders her rapist (one of the few, maybe only? murders he does with his own hands)... she gets confused about what she feels. Oh the angst! And all the while, he has to protect Cyril, who is braindamaged and very childlike, but is not above using Cyril. Watching Ryan scheme is lots o' fun (in a sick way, of course).
Miguel Alvarez: Broke my heart more than any other character. As much as I love Beecher, at some point I stopped holding out much hope for him, Miguel I always had hope for. The thing is, he genuinely tries to better himself and just when you think he has succeeded, it all comes crashing down. He is not as clever as many of the other characters so I think that puts him at a disadvantage. The very last episode of Oz, you can just see Miguel utterly giving up (as he gives himself to another character, Alonzo Torquemada, who got introduced very late in the show and who I would have killed to see more of). Ahhhh, so bleak. *sniffles* *points at icon* *mad Miguel love!*
Kareem Said: I loves me some Said. The actor who plays him is just so INTENSE, you love listening to everything he says. Said is a devout Muslim and political activist who waltzes into Oz intent in overturning the system (this great scheme leads to the riot). Interestingly, in the fourth season, the system does get turned upside down, but it is completely fucked up because Simon Adebisi (Teh Scary! Like Schillinger, Adebisi is one that you love to hate) basically gets to run amok with drugs and sex so long as there is no violence. So Said is not at ALL happy about that and in one of the shockingest things ever on Oz, he kills Adebisi (totally unexpected, Said does not believe in violence, I was so surprised when this happened). I also love Said's interactions with Beecher because no matter how much he disapproves of Beecher's actions, they still have a very strong connection. I think it is the unlikeliest friendship in Oz, but one of the few geniune ones. SAID's FATE IN SEASON 6 IS THE REASON TOM FONTANA IS GOING TO HELL*.
The end.
* He may also be going for what he did to The Box in season 7 Homicide.
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And Miguel Alvarez I've always kind of liked, at least in fic -again, no personal experience - but I always hoped that his downfall was all fic and not canon. I take it is?
Finally, I don't know what happened to Said in Season 6 (or to The Box in Homicide 7). Tell, please? I'll never watch either show, so you're not spoiling me.
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