Kenny is far from a sympathetic character – he’s a hot-tempered thug and bully – but the brief glimpse of the boy he could’ve been had his life and the world around him been different makes it difficult to feel anything towards his plight but pity, shame, and anger. The inmates act against each other, viewing any attempt by their peers to escape the system, or any sign of change or betterment, as a betrayal of some sacred “them and us” code. Of course it isn’t just polite society or its authoritarian instruments that act against the inmates. McManus’ belief in the restorative powers of education, his thirst for social justice, his emphasis on rehabilitation over retribution, and his humanizing philosophy all frequently attract the ire (and apathy) of the warden, the guards, the state governor and the great American public, but opposition also comes from within from the inmates themselves, who see McManus as either a hopelessly (perhaps even dangerously) naive and idealistic fool, or an arrogant, condescending suit who’s just as much a part of the system that oppresses them as people like the governor – even if McManus is too blinded by his own hubris to realize it. While the wider penitentiary is governed by the callously pragmatic and soullessly bureaucratic warden Leo Glynn (a post- Ghostbusters Ernie Hudson), the prison-within-a-prison of Em City is presided over by Tim McManus (Terry Kinney), a man who wants to change for the better not only the lives of the prisoners in his charge, but also the world that made them that way. Oz is the story of life within “Emerald City,” an experimental wing in the Oswald State Penitentiary. He did this with the full support and blessing of the suits at HBO, who allowed the show to unfold and evolve with almost zero interference: The end result is brave, beautiful and brutal. When series’ architect and show-runner Tom Fontana built Oz from the ground up he took the TV show rule-book and hurled it into the stratosphere.

Oz was there first, kicking ass and taking names.

Join Amazon Prime – Watch Oz and HBO Series – Start Free Trial NowĪ little history lesson here, perhaps: The Sopranos, The Shieldand Breaking Bad weren’t the first shows to feature sympathetic and interesting, yet unlikeable and morally abhorrent protagonists Game Of Thrones wasn’t the first show to feature such a sprawling, ever-expanding cast of characters, any one of whom could suffer any one of a thousand senseless deaths at any given second The Wire wasn’t the first show to explore a cold, corrupt and unforgiving system that stacked the deck against its less fortunate members from birth, a system locked in place by an endlessly repeating cycle of birth, death, violence and re-birth.

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