switchbladeeyes

Episode 3 has a strong emphasis on religion: finding it, feeling betrayed by it, doubting it, using it.

( In Oz, sometimes the things you can't touch are more real than the things you can. For instance, fear, hatred, loneliness, are more real to me than a shank. And a soul, every day, can grow into something you can almost hold. How fucked up is that? In a shithole like this, to first and finally see the face of God. - Augustus Hill )

I’m starting a rewatch of Oz. I’m bringing the spouse along for the ride. He’s never seen it. He’s been suitably warned lol. I’m only planning to watch season 1-5. I can’t recall a ton of details about season 6 and, to be honest, I prefer it that way because I remember it really pissing me off.

Running from 1997 to 2003, Oz was HBO's first dramatic series. In so many ways, it set the landscape for what could be done for all the premium cable and, later, streaming dramas that would follow in its wake.

Oz pushed and, frankly, trampled every boundary for dramatic television that existed at the time. Maybe it won't be as sensational to watch now against the modern television landscape that it pioneered. We'll see. But even just thinking of some of the things that I remember going down on the show gives me a visceral punch to the gut.

The very first episode, "The Routine," was relatively mild for Oz (I mean, I say that of an episode with one shanking and two murders). It's just setting the table for the kinds of things the audience can expect from the show.

Let's do this.

( Oz. That's the name on the street for the Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary. Oz is retro. Oz is retribution. You wanna punish a man? Separate him from his family, separate him from himself, cage him up with his own kind. Oz is hard times doing hard time. - Augustus Hill )