Hey, let's talk about this guy

KIRK ACEVEDO.

I could probably talk about this man all day. But I'll settle for some highlights, starting with his most famous role as Miguel Alvarez on Oz, back when he was young, frequently shirtless, and smoking.

There were lots of characters with tragic stories on Oz, but ultimately, Miguel was probably the most tragic of all of them. He got stabbed in the very first episode, and during the first season his infant son died shortly after birth due to all the drugs he and his girlfriend had taken during her pregnancy. Needless to say, Miguel was not very emotionally stable. He resorted to cutting multiple times, and on one occasion he smeared his own shit all over the walls of his cell while in solitary confinemint. His grandfather and father were also prisoners in Oz, and Miguel was clearly trapped in this cycle. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, tried to kill him at one point or another. Yet Miguel made it through all six seasons of Oz, an impressive feat. The show's narrator didn't even survive six seasons! And when he was finally defeated, it was by his own demons; by his impulsiveness, his inability to control his temper, his despair. Miguel wasn't a sociopath, but he was clearly incapable of functioning in normal society. A sad ending for a character who generally meant well but was too deeply invested in the system that destroyed him.

That said, Miguel was great. Check out that swagger, that sneer. He had this lean, muscular look that I find absolutely irresistable, and those big, brown eyes. His fashion sense was pretty awesome as well:

After Oz, Kirk Acevedo then showed up as Italian mobster Nicky Cottero on the ill-fated yet fabulous The Black Donnellys. Nicky was very different from Miguel in a lot of ways (and not just because he was Italian). For one thing, Nicky wore a lot more leather than Miguel. He never lost control; everything he did was carefully calculated, whether that meant extorting money from Tommy Donnelly or poisoning his pesky mob boss. Not only that, he genuinely seemed to enjoy his job, and he was a real trooper. In one episode he got whacked in the head with a shovel for killing a few Irish he wasn't supposed to kill. Nicky didn't even get knocked unconscious! He just found a way to get even.

But Nicky did have a few things in common with Miguel, like excellent survival instincts. He also had a great sense of style; he completely renovated Sal Minetta's restaurant to include a snazzy bar and a strip club in back. He also had a special relationship with the strippers; on one occasion he sent his subordinate Vinny out to do surveillance work so he could screw one of the girls for the rest of the episode. Finally, Nicky had more swagger than any of the other characters on The Black Donnellys. I mean, just check out the body language in this picture! Nicky ruled.

So what is Kirk Acevedo up to nowadays? He has a role in Fringe as Agent Charlie Francis (no, really), ethnicity undetermined. As we can see, he's also adopted a more corporate look, though I do think he needs to wear snappier ties.

Fringe really, really wants to be a cross between CSI and X-Files, which would be a cool concept if the show itself wasn't kind of dumb. I made it about halfway through one episode; the premise was that some dude created an Internet pop-up in which a glowy hand comes out of the computer and somehow liquifies the brain of the person downloading it (the episode title was "The No-Brainer," har har). Seriously. Agent Francis is mostly involved in the police work on Fringe, not the CSI component. There was this one scene where Agent Dunham comes home to find her niece Ella downloading the file and pulls her away from the screen just as the glowy hand thing emerges. She later describes the incident to Agent Francis: "There were flashes on the computer screen...like bursts of images...and they affected Ella in some way, like she was hypnotized." He gives her this long suffering look...

...and then after a pause, says, "I'm going to call Computer Forensics..." and then leaves.

God, Kirk Acevedo is amazing. And not just because he has the best ass I've ever seen on TV or in real life.

Oz, "A Game of Checkers"

There's a scene in Arrested Development in which poor innocent George Michael Bluth accidentally stumbles across the HBO prison series Oz because he mistakes it for The Wizard of Oz and is forever scarred as a result. I too discovered Oz accidentally, and my poor fifteen-year-old mind was both fascinated and traumatized by the experience. For all its faults, I do love it, and so I've decided to recap one of my favorite episodes: the season one finale, "A Game of Checkers." Let's go!

We begin with both Schillinger and Beecher getting sent back to Em City. Schillinger convinces McManus that he'll stay out of trouble and not kill Beecher because his parole is coming up soon. Meanwhile, Beecher is mentally unstable: not mentally unstable like Adebisi, but mentally unstable in a kind of wacky and annoying way. "I shit all over a man," he tells McManus, "It's not normal."

Yeah, whatever, Beecher. You know what's really not normal? The total lack of ass shots in this episode. Zero. Ass. Shots. And Oz is usually so generous in this regard! On the other hand, this does mean that we're spared the sight of Beecher's pasty ass as he's being let out of the Hole. Small mercies, I supposed.

Here's Adebisi calling Schillinger an asswipe, just because he can.

Things are heating up in Oz. McManus has figured out that Scott Ross, new head of the Aryans, has been extorting cigarettes from Diane and makes her promise to stop. Scott Ross is not pleased with this development. There's been turnover among the Latinos as well; Miguel is the new leader. Comfortingly, some things always stay the same. Such as Kenny getting smacked around by Adebisi:

Also, there are rumors circulating that the Muslims are going to riot. These rumors are not inaccurate.

Although the Muslims don't start the riot, though they sure as hell end it. The riot starts for real when these two random guys get in a fight over a game of checkers, and it just devolves from there.

And so we learn, definitively, that Said really does rule the school. Having waited on the sidelines during the entire riot as the prisoners take over Oz, he takes control of the prisoners with a single gunshot. He then gathers the leaders of the major respective gangs to divide responsibilities and draw up a list of demands that the governor promptly ignores, deciding it would be better to send in SWAT team to sort the whole thing out.

But in the meantime, Scott Ross and the Aryans control the gate, Miguel and the Latinos get the hostages, and Adebisi's homeboys are in charge of all comings and goings. Ryan also gets a vote on the council, even though he only has Beecher backing him up. Factions quickly begin to form, with Ryan holding on to an uneasy alliance with Scott Ross and Adebisi, while Miguel sides with Said.

Hey, you know who I really don't need to hear a lecture on responsibility from?

Hill. Thanks anyway, though!

McManus decides to trade himself for two of the wounded hostages. He also brings sandwiches. As tension between Ross's and Adebisi's gangs start to erupt over the food, an exasperated Ryan steps in to distribute one sandwich to each prisoner. "Okay gents, line the fuck up! One...one...I said one, Wangler!" The other members (Said, Miguel, Adebisi, Scott Ross) on the short-lived council were there because they had lots of manpower. Ryan managed to get a place on the council because he was smart.

Meanwhile, it turns out that McManus and Said have major philosophical differences regarding the justice system! Who knew?!

The situation begins to unravel further as the prisoners start to run out of drugs, and Adebisi and most of his gang are tied up to keep them out of trouble as withdrawal begins. We are treated to one of the most insane flashbacks to ever grace this fine show:

Adebisi straight up cuts off an undercover police officer's head with a machete. Do not mess with this man.

At last, the season, episode and riot end with Devlin sending in the SWAT team to straighten things out, hostages be damned.

There really never was a dull moment on this show. Everything about it was so gratuitous and over the top, from the violence to the sex and nudity and insane storylines and characters. Oz wasn't a realistic prison show by any means, but it sure as hell was an entertaining one.

Prepare yourself.