A riot breaks out in OZ when two men argue over a game of checkers, and the violence spreads. Various CO's and staff members are taking hostage by the prisoners. Tear gas is thrown into the Emerald City and the SORT enters with guns blazing.

Said has recovered from his illness and he orders all the Muslims to cast out Huseni Mershah from their group. To impress Said Groves decide to kill Warden Glynn, but he ends up stabbing another CO. Groves is sentence to death for his crime and he chooses a firing squad as his means of execution. Schibetta begins to hemorrhage from the effects of consuming ground glass. Beecher shows his bad side when he attacks Schillinger.

Alvarez, with the encouragement of Father Mukada, reunites with his father and grandfather who are also in OZ. After months of torture Beecher attacks Schillinger and the attack sends him to the hospital. Kareem Said has a heart attack after refusing to take medication for high blood pressure.

McManus attempts to slow the grug trade but only succeeds in getting an officer fired and an inmate killed.

Governor Devlin has reinstated the death penalty Jefferson Keene will be the first to be put to death in 34 years. Before he is executed Keane donates his kidney to his ailing sister. Serial killer Richard L'Italien is also executed by lethal injection

After two deaths (Ortoloni and Johnny Post)have occurred, in OZ Warden Glynn meets with gang leaders Said, Jefferson Keane and Schibetta, who tells them either the violence stops or he will lock the prison down. Keane converts to Islam.

Many prisoners are visited by wives and family members. Both Schibetta and the prison staff are searching for Ortolani's killer.

We're introduced to the newest crop of inmates to enter Oz. Miguel Alvarez is promptly stabbed in the chest while waiting to enter Oz, a harginger of things to come. Tobias Beecher is a naive, pale and hopelessly out of place lawyer accused of killing a little girl while driving intoxicated. Donald Groves is 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."