In the "Emerald City" experimental unit of Oswald State Penitentiary, we meet some of the diverse inmates who live within a pecking order of Homeboys, Latinos, Muslims, Irish, Aryans, and Wiseguys. No clear-cut leader emerges -- with the possible exception of Kareem Said, a Muslim author who preaches non-violence and abstinence. Said's arrival doesn't prevent a short-fused Mafia inmate named Dino Ortolani from ticking off just about everybody--a habit that ends up burning him.

Governor Devlin has reinstated capital punishment in the state; and the first Oz prisoner scheduled to die is Jefferson Keane, who killed a Latino in a skirmish set up by the Co's. Before he's executed, Keane donates a kidney to his ailing sister, then turns down lawyer-turned-inmate Tobias Beecher's offer to take up his defense. After Keane's death, Richard L'Italien -- slaughterer of women -- is executed by lethal injection after he makes a startling admission.

Three generations of Alvarezes--all prisoners at Oz--are united when the partiarch, Ricardo, is found face down in his cell, suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Meanwhile, Tobias Beecher, who as the neo-Nazi Schillinger's "girlfriend" has been forced to wear women's clothes, flips out after taking PCP and sends Schillinger to the hospital with an eye cut. Other inmates aren't exactly the picture of health, either. Mob boss Schibetta has stomach pains caused by ground glass intentionally mixed in with his food, and Muslim leader Kareem Said has a heart attack after refusing to take medication for high blood pressure.

A recovered Said ostracizes Huseni Mershah for turning his back on him when he was dying--and orders all the Muslims to cast him out. Impressed by Said's power, Groves decides to kill Glynn in his honor, but ends up stabbing and killing an officer by mistake. Condemned to death, Groves chooses the firing squad as his form of execution. Meanwhile, Schibetta is still being fed ground glass by O'Reilly and Adebisi, and ends up hemmorhaging. Beecher, transformed by prison life, finally gets revenge on his nemesis, Schillinger.