"Visitation" is the first episode of the fifth season and the forty-first overall episode of the HBO television series Oz.
Plot:[]
Narrations:[]
Oz. The name on the street for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, Level 4. Oz is filled with murderers, rapists, racists, drug dealers, with the most common of criminals. But what is it that makes a man common? Better yet, what makes him unique? Winning wars, winning awards? No. What lifts a man out of the ordinary is who he loves, and who loves him.
Over the course of history, many famous people have joined the infamous in prison. Extraordinary human beings with noble characters, who, for one reason or another, ended up on the wrong side of the law. Take Thomas Payne. He was arrested for treason. For fostering rebellion. Yet, without his firey writings, America might never have been free. Or Thomas Moore. The statesman, scholar and saint, who was sent to the Tower of London for being honest with his king. Moore's reward was to be beheaded.
Back in the day before the day, explorers would set out on ships to discover new worlds. Adventurers like Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus would sail into the horizon, not sure if they'd find a place to land or fall off the edge of the Earth. As a result of their journeys, both Polo and Columbus got fame, fortune, and a pair of leg irons. That's right. The man who "discovered America" was a con. Arrested for embezzlement. After a few months in a dank, dirty dungeon, I bet old Chris started wishing he HAD fallen off the edge of the Earth.
Rapists, pedophiles, male hustlers, we got all kinds of men in Oz. Men who turn sex into a crime, and for that, they belong in the deepest recesses of our Hell. But, as we also know, sex is not necessarily love, and there are times when love itself will get you incarcerated. Like Oscar Wilde, who loved and lost two years of his life sitting in Redding Jail. Two lips. Maybe a little tongue pressed against two other lips. A simple kiss can be more lethal than a gun.
Prisoner number 99M633. Martin Montgomery. Convicted March 16, 1999. 2 counts of assault in the first degree. Sentence: 8 years, up for parole in 5.
Galileo Galilei challenged the principle that had been accepted for over a thousand years, that the Earth was the center of the universe. That everything revolved around us. The mad monks in the Inquisition imprisoned Gelileo, and ordered him to repudiate his theory. Which he did. How much worse of a punishment is there, than being forced to publicy deny your deepest beliefs. To say that what you know to be true, is a lie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of fine people have sat staring at the inside of prison walls. Socrates, Ghandi, Joan of Arc. Even our lord Jesus Christ. He spent the last night of his life, not with holy men, but with scum. Like the kind we got in Oz. One of the last things Jesus did on Earth was invite a pisoner to join him in Heaven. He loved that criminal. I say he loved that criminal as much as he loved anyone. Jesus knew in his heart, it takes a lot to love a sinner. But the sinner, he needs it all the more.
Deaths:[]
Carrie Schillinger - Bus accident
Annette Osorio - Bus accident
Eugenia Hill - Bus accident
Sonsyrea Arif - Bus accident
Crime Flashbacks:[]
Martin Montgomery: 2 counts assault in the first degree