Season 11, Episode 4: And That's a Lesson Learned

Episode 4: And That’s a Lesson Learned

As the new head of the prison, Superintendent Weaver issued his first orders, revoking the inmates’ eating and sleeping privileges, plus ordering twice as much ass-raping for Rusty Trombonz and Dexter Dewey. When Corrections Officer Hoss Hardacre entered, Weaver chewed him out for helping Bruce Brüce to escape. Hoss wasn’t intimidated, since he remembered Weaver’s first day on the job as a guard, when Weaver pissed his pants in fear.

Arman Redder was in his cell, recording his Aryan-supremacy public-access show “Everything’s Going to Be All White” (this episode being devoted to demonizing the Irish), when his “special guest” Rusty Trombonz entered. Rusty had no idea what Arman’s show was all about.

Wayne Bo Casey came into the commissary and discovered ex-Warden Barker dishing out the whipped potatoes. Barker explained that he’d been demoted, but was still just as dedicated to this job as he’d been to his old one. Wayne suggested that he think back to the happy times, then shared a childhood memory of the time his father pushed him on the swing before abandoning him. Wayne then explained that even though the prisoners never respected Barker before, now that they’d had a taste of Weaver’s sadism, they wanted him back. (“So I’m slightly better than the worst-case scenario?”)

Dexter Dewey went to Weaver’s office to register a complaint. (“Wait, you’re filing complaints against me…TO me?”) Dewey angrily protested Weaver’s constant profanity and the ordered increase in anal rape, and then started kicking over the furniture.

As Hoss Hardacre gave Rusty Trombonz a makeover in the prison barbershop, Rusty told Hoss that his recent multiple stabbings by Dexter Dewey had made him realize he needed protection. In return, he’d give Hoss a share of the dublooms from his train robbery. As Hoss contemplated the things he could buy for his wife, Rusty reminisced about his own wife Stacy. In a flashback, young Rusty sang a love song to Stacy…at which point, Dexter’s grandfather rushed in and stabbed him.

Arman and Wayne were in the showers, practicing their smack talk for the upcoming basketball game. Wayne boasted that, once they win the championship and escape, they’d be scot free due to triple jeopardy: “You can’t be jailed if you’re a basketball champion!”

Ex-Warden Barker was tarring the roof over when Dewey arrived and remarked on the “retarred” roof. Dewey was immediately thrown into the hole for making such an awful pun, and Barker was thrown in as well after discovering that he’d been using human waste instead of tar. In the hole, Dewey told Barker a secret he could use to take down Weaver: Weaver was the one who turned Wayne Bo Casey from an ordinary citizen into a psychotic killer.

Wayne was rifling through Rusty’s cell when Hoss entered. Wayne explained that he was searching for the key to open Rusty’s trunk full of dublooms. Hoss asked Wayne what he would do with Rusty’s treasure, and Wayne explained that he would look up his friend on the outside, Dr. Cotton Fitzsimmons. Wayne launched into an ambitious monologue of his plan to have Dr. Fitzsimmons clone him and make a new Wayne who’d avoid all of his old mistakes. Hoss replied that Wayne didn’t need to clone himself to make a new start; he could do that by himself…without the dublooms.

Superintendent Weaver was going over some figures in his office when Arman Redder came in to talk with him. Weaver warned Arman that he would have no part of Arman’s racism. (“I hate everyone indiscriminately!”) They began arguing and throwing things around, actually breaking the telephone. Furious, Weaver cancelled the basketball tour, then broke Arman’s finger.

Released from the hole, Dewey was all by himself at the prison dance when Rusty approached him. As they danced, Dewey apologized for stabbing Rusty so many times, explaining that he just can’t stand it when old people sing. They made amends to the tune of “Making Love Out of Nothing At All.”

Ex-Warden Barker was cleaning up the officers’ lounge when Hoss came in. Appalled to see his former boss reduced to this, Hoss told Barker to stand up to Weaver…then reluctantly informed him that Weaver had revoked Barker’s not-being-beaten privileges. When Barker protested that Weaver was so much bigger and stronger than him, Hoss reminded him of the time the midget inmate Pepe Lopez killed a 6’8” opponent. Hoss then began spraying Barker with mace to build him up into a man.

Arman was in the library, consulting medical books to treat his broken finger. When he made an anti-Semitic remark about the medical establishment, Dewey indignantly called him on it.

ARMAN: “Why? What have the Jews ever done for you?”
DEWEY: “They gave birth to me.”

Dewey informed Arman that he needed to look at himself instead of blaming other groups for his problems. (“It’s not our differences that make us different!”) When Arman refused to give an inch on his bigotry, a fight broke out. Rusty and Hoss rushed in, but Dewey told them to stay out of it, insisting that it was his fight. After an intense struggle, Dewey strangled Arman with the telephone cord, but was critically injured himself. Gasping, Dewey told Rusty that he would find some vital information in his cell, but collapsed before he could explain further.

In his cell, Wayne was practicing his stand-up act, demonstrating the observational humor of a deranged mind. (“You ever notice that when you lick an envelope, it taste like shit? They used to taste like raspberries, but now they taste like sheeeeiiit!”)

Weaver was in is office when Barker stormed in, demanding his job back. Wayne came in to back Barker up, followed shortly by Arman, Hoss, Rusty, and even Dewey (in a wheelchair). They explained that they were holding an intervention for Weaver’s addiction to power. The shock was too much for Weaver, who immediately had a heart attack. Rusty performed his own brand of CPR…with a shiv.

TO BE CONTINUED…