"Obituaries" is the second episode of the first part of the fourth season and the twenty-sixth overall episode of the HBO television series Oz.
Plot:[]
Narrations:[]
Obituaries. A man or a woman lives their entire life. They work and love and dream and laugh and cry, then they die. And then somebody who they don't even know, who's never met them once, boils their entire life down to a paragraph or two in a local newspaper. And that's only if they achieved something. Something that the editor thinks is important. Now, if they're real movers, real shakers, maybe they get two columns. Maybe they get a photo from 1974. And if they've achieved nothing, they get buried at the bottom of the page or ignored completely.
I saw this obituary once of a guy I knew. And the newspaper had misspelled his name. They misspelled his goddamn, motherfucking name. And that's it. It ain't no going back. It's not like they gonna get his name right the next time he dies. No, that edition of the newspaper is going in the archives. And this guy I know, his name, which is probably the thing he's proudest of in life, it's gonna be wrong. Forever and ever.
You gotta pity the guy who had one thing go wrong in his whole life. I mean, other than that one thing that got fucked up, he led a good, average life. But some incident or other, some bad decision or bad behavior, which maybe gained him a moment of notoriety, that'll be the headline in his obit when he dies. You know, like Charles Van Doren, quiz show scandal. No matter what else he's done, that's how he'll be remembered forever and ever.
Prisoner number 97M573, Mark Miles. Convicted July 10th, 1997. Three counts murder in the first degree. Sentence: Death.
Prisoner number 98M232, Carlos Martinez. Convicted October 6, 1998. Two counts murder in the first degree. Sentence: Life without the possibility of parole.
Ultimately I guess it don't matter what they write in your obituary 'cause you ain't gonna be around to read it. Newspaper fades, paper turns to pulp. The mark you leave behind has to be deeper. The mark you leave behind has to be on another person's soul.
Deaths:[]
(2 Unnamed) - Family of Mark Miles shot with shotgun
(Unnamed woman, 2 children) - Family of Mark Miles shot with shotgun
(Unnamed elderly couple) - Beaten to death by Carlos Martinez
Ralph Galino - Murder by Jaz Hoyt
Crime Flashbacks:[]
Mark Miles: Three counts murder in first degree
Carlos Martinez: Two counts murder in first degree