SPOILER ALERT!!! (I gotta figure out how to do the nice one)

The first few times Id watched Oz, by the time I got to the sixth season I had kinda lost interest and was ultimately disappointed; I felt like the plethora of unfinished plotlines, Alvarez and Pancomo seeming to give up and throw in their lots with Torquemada and the "Fags" by default (Alvarez alot more graphically, to say the least) and Kellers "anthrax scare" to be unworthy of capping of such a great and groundbreaking series.

But having recently watched it again...wow. I see. I see how in a way, it does "close" a number of plotlines. O'Reilly and Gloria actaully make-out following Cyril's execution, thereby "confirming" his longtime unrequited love; Claire Howell finally gets pregnant off one of the "dinks", and has to face her reality. After all McManus's work, a dick like Querns ends up with his baby. And of course the number of chief pro/antagonist's throughout the series that are simply killed off in the sixth. Said. Schillinger. Guerra just fuckin' loses it, which at first I felt was contrived and stupid but can now understand within the context.

Alonzo Torquemada infuriated me the first time I watched it, a few years ago. After all we'd been through, after everythng, this guy was the gonna be the new "boss", so to speak? Especially the scene where Torquemada asks Pancamo (after securing a "business" deal with the Sicilians) "Have yor boys ever tried D-Tabs? Here..." and passes a handful to Chucky. Of course the wiseguys aren't actually going to take the drugs, but by moving them see how D-Tabs and other synthetic "happy" drugs are the way of the future in a shithole like Oz. Even though it was 2003, it seems to reflect the "club kids" scene and cases like Michael Alig's around the turn of the century.

So in retrospect, I see how Fontana was trying to say that "just because we dont see them no more, doesn't mean shit isn't still going down in OZ:, which is how he leaves it. The thing is, anything could happen, we just aint there to see it. Beecher's back in Oz. Arif, and by default, the Muslims, are disgraced. Burr Reddings could go either way. Jeffries, Reboadow, Poet, etc, etc, etc....

Bravo, Fontana (not only the writer and creator, but the guy that actually got the "Oz" tattoo in the opening credits too) The guy, and every one involved in that series, did a great job.