Episode 1 of "Oz"
s01e01 The Routine

We're introduced to the newest crop of inmates to enter Oz, including Miguel Alvarez (who is promptly stabbed in the chest while waiting to enter Oz), Tobias Beecher, a naive, pale and hopelessly out of place lawyer accused of killing a little girl while driving intoxicated, Donald Groves, a cannibal who ate his mother (he was saving his father for thanksgiving) and Kareem Said an outspoken and much-respected Muslim leader who tells the warden and McManus upon his arrival that "as of today, I run Oz." The prison pecking order is in full display and almost everyone has a group to belong to whether it be the Aryans, Muslims, Gangbangers, Wiseguys, Latinos etc. Hill tells us that although violence is everywhere, it's the endless, orderly routine that will kill you. The word routine is said an awful lot, in case we forgot what the title of the episode was. Beecher has the unfortunate luck of having Dino Ortolani as his 'sponsor' to help him get acclimated to prison life. Ortolani has a wee bit of a temperment, and even the charasmatic Said can't save him from ticking off .. well, just about everyone. Ortolani's old nemesis, new inmate Ryan O'Reilly, along with Jefferson Keene and Johnny Post, two members of the gangbangers, set fire to Ortolani. Meanwhile, Beecher learns that being Aryan inmate Vern Schillinger's 'prag' (ie. his bitch) can be a real pain in the ass...