OZ chronicles the attempts of McManus (Terry Kinney) to keep control over the inmates of Em(erald) City as well as the drug trade and the violence.

There have been many groups of inmates during the run of the show and not everybody makes it out alive. There's the gangstas (Adebisi, Wangler, Redding, Poet, Keene), Muslims (Said, Arif, Supreme Allah), Italians (Pancamo, Nappa, Schiebetta), bikers (Hoyt), Aryans (Schillinger, Robson, Mark Mack), Christians (Cloutier, Cudney), Latinos (Alvarez, Morales, Guerra, Hernandez), gays (Hanlon, Cramer) and a whole pile of others (the O'Riley brothers, Keller, Stanislovsky, etc.).

And there's a great "everyman" character called Beecher who gives a good look at a normal man who made one tragic mistake.

Besides the regular inmates, there's guest stars such as Method Man, Luke Perry, Master P, Treach, etc. and a bunch of prison staff doctors (Dr. Nathan), a nun/psychologist (Sister Peter Marie), a bunch of guards some honest, some crooked and of course the warden Leo Glynn.

The whole thing is narrated and held together by inmate Augustus Hill, who provides the show with some context, some sense of theme, etc. and ties everything together really nicely.

All these men packed together with nowhere to go. There's something bound to happen. And it happens, frequently. Some have sex with love but most just because of their hormones.

There are several inmates who are openly gay as well. But they are at the bottom of the ranking. They are considered to be inferior.

A raw and harsh tv-series with lots of violence, slang and curses. Not for the faint hearted. But underneath all this rough exterior is a good story worth watching.

It tells the complexity of a group of people who are condemned to live together without any consent from any of them. Even the prison personell isn't to pleased to work here.

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