Character overview
"Prisoner #97P904: Ryan O'Reily. Convicted July 12, 1997 - Two counts of vehicular manslaughter, five counts of reckless endangerment, possession of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a weapon, parole violation. Sentence: Life imprisonment, up for parole in 12 years."
O'Reily is an Irish-American criminal with sociopathy, originally sentenced to 12 years to life imprisonment for killing two people while driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. His sentence was extended to 40 years to life after he confessed to a murder he and his brother, Cyril, committed. Before his initial arrest, he ran a street gang of Irish-American hoodlums called the Bridge Street Gang, with Cyril as his lieutenant and bodyguard. When his brother is permanently brain-damaged in a fight, Ryan, blaming himself, goes on a drug-and-alcohol-fueled rampage.
O'Reily is intelligent and ruthless, surviving in Oz by manipulating those around him and working with dangerous inmates and various gangs to get what he wants. Series creator Tom Fontana has compared him to Iago, the villain of Shakespeare's Othello . [5]
Fictional history
Season 1
In the first season of Oz, Ryan O'Reily proves to be one of the most cunning and dangerous inmates in the prison. From the very beginning, he manipulates people and situations to his advantage. In the pilot episode, he bribes prison guards to let another inmate, Johnny Post, attack Dino Ortolani. After the attack, O'Reily turns on Post and gets him in trouble with the Italian gang.
Later, he tries to get Jefferson Keane killed, but the plan doesn't go as expected. Instead, Keane ends up on death row for killing someone in self-defense.
One of O'Reily’s most ruthless moves is teaming up with Simon Adebisi to slowly poison mafia boss Nino Schibetta by feeding him ground glass. Schibetta eventually dies from internal bleeding, leaving a gap in the prison drug trade that O'Reily quickly fills.
O'Reily also introduces Tobias Beecher to heroin, which leads to a serious addiction. Under the influence of drugs, Beecher loses control and attacks another inmate, Vernon Schillinger, blinding him in one eye.
Throughout the season, O'Reily pretends to be friendly with different groups, like the Italians and the Homeboys, but he’s always looking out for himself. He often uses racial slurs and dirty tricks to stay ahead and keep others off balance.
Season 2
In the second season, O'Reily is enjoying his new status in the Oz drug scene when he is diagnosed with breast cancer and is helped through treatment and chemotherapy by Dr. Gloria Nathan, Oz's chief physician. O'Reily falls in love with her and, overcome with jealousy of her husband, orders his mentally handicapped brother, Cyril, to kill Dr. Nathan's husband.
Cyril is arrested and sent to Oz, but is placed in a different unit from his brother, where Vernon Schillinger and his Aryan Brotherhood gang rape him. Enraged, O'Reily asks the manager of his unit, Tim McManus, to transfer Cyril into Em City. McManus agrees in return for O'Reily's admission of guilt in Preston Nathan's death, which O'Reily refuses.
Later, when a guard is blinded by Miguel Alvarez and needs a blood transfusion, O'Reily is the only prisoner in Oz with a matching blood type. He uses this leverage to secure Cyril's transfer to Em City, then admits his guilt in Preston Nathan's murder so that he can remain in Oz to protect Cyril. McManus then informs him that he will be charged with ordering Preston Nathan's murder.
Season 3
Still seeking revenge on Schillinger, Ryan manipulates Jaz Hoyt into attacking him, but Schillinger escapes unharmed. O'Reily joins forces with Tobias Beecher and Chris Keller, two other inmates seeking revenge on Schillinger. When Schillinger's son Andrew arrives in Em City, O'Reily tortures him when he stops selling him drugs, forcing Andrew to buy them through non-white inmates. Because Andrew has been trained as a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, he initially refuses to buy drugs from them. After Andrew (having befriended and received counseling from Beecher and becoming clean from drugs) publicly humiliates his father, Vern Schillinger, by renouncing his racist beliefs, his father gives him enough heroin to cause an overdose when Andrew is sent to solitary confinement as a test – which he "fails" by dying.
Meanwhile, the prison administrators hire a new CO supervisor, Sean Murphy. Murphy and O'Reily bond over the myth of the Black Irish and develop a friendship. When Murphy organizes a boxing tournament, O'Reily enters Cyril and ensures his victory by slipping chloral hydrate into his opponents' water bottles. Cyril beats James Robson in the first round, resulting in Ryan winning money in bets and the Aryans leaving Cyril alone. From there, Ryan spikes Miguel Alvarez's water and tells Alvarez's opponent, gay inmate Jason Cramer, that the Latinos will rape his lover if he loses. Alvarez loses, the Latinos look worse, and Carmen Guerra grows suspicious of O'Reily's winning streak. In round two, Cyril must fight Italian inmate Chucky Pancamo. O'Reily arranges the death of William Cudney, who threatened to expose his cheating, and spikes Pancamo's water with heroin, allowing Cyril to easily beat him.
Murphy discovers O'Reily's cheating through a tip from Nikolai Stanislofsky and tells O'Reily to stop to prevent a riot. To give Cyril an edge and win the final fight against Muslim inmate Hamid Khan, O'Reily invites their abusive father to visit them and encourages Cyril to think about the abuse during the fight. Enraged, Cyril beats Khan into a coma, causing brain death. The resulting racial tension forces Oz into lockdown.
Season 4 Part I
O'Reily and Cyril participate in an interaction session with Gloria Nathan and her deceased husband's parents. Nathan wants to condemn O'Reily for killing her husband, but O'Reily accuses her and McManus of having an affair. She is later raped by Irish hoodlum Patrick Keenan, and she suspects O'Reily of orchestrating it. Although he didn't, he tells her that he did so she can feel whole again, and then kills Keenan. Nathan takes a leave of absence shortly after.
O'Reily also has a dispute with Nikolai Stanislofsky over a contraband cell phone, which results in Stanislofsky's death at the hands of Officer Claire Howell, a CO with whom he begins an occasional sexual relationship that he quickly tries to end.
In Em City, white and Latino inmates and guards are being traded for black guards and inmates who support Adebisi, so O'Reily and Keller unite to turn the tables. They murder inmates Nate Shemin and Mondo Browne and frame Supreme Allah, resulting in Unit Manager Martin Querns being fired and McManus being rehired.
Season 4 Part II
A television crew comes to Oz to film the prisoners' daily lives, led by Jack Eldridge, a reporter who once reported on Irish gang activity, specifically the O'Reilys'. This report exposed them as criminals to their mother, devastating her. In his interview with Eldridge, O'Reily refuses to provide any information about Adebisi's death as revenge. Meanwhile, Dr. Nathan returns to Oz and admits to prison psychiatrist Sister Peter Marie that she had feelings for O'Reily, which Sister Pete encourages her to dismiss.
Supreme Allah is released from solitary and tells O'Reily that he knows who framed him, so O'Reily and Keller ask Burr Redding to eliminate him. Redding then has Tug Daniels stab Supreme Allah, who was in Oz for murdering Daniels' brother.
A woman named Suzanne Fitzgerald (played by Betty Buckley) visits, claiming to be his birth mother. O'Reily initially disbelieves her, but accepts it after his father confirms it. His mother is revealed to be a 1960s radical on the run who is looking to settle down.
Asian inmate Jia Kenmin offers to teach Cyril karate, resulting in a fight that puts Jia into a coma. Remembering Hamid Khan, the staff threatens to send Cyril to a mental institution. Meanwhile, Provisional IRA member Padraig Connolly arrives and plans with O'Reily to blow up Em City. At the last minute, O'Reily decides against it, fearing harm to his brother and Dr. Nathan, but Connolly tries to detonate the bomb early. The bomb fails, and O'Reily goes unpunished since he tried to dispose of it.
Season 5
O'Reily's mother turns herself in, and Governor James Devlin reduces her charge to a two-year community service sentence at Oz. Inmate Li Chen arrives shortly afterward, and Jia Kenmin plots with him to put the O'Reily brothers on death row. He pays inmate Glen Shupe to lie to Cyril about Chen planning to rape Fitzgerald. Cyril and Ryan attack them, and Cyril stabs and kills Chen while defending his brother, and stands trial for murder. The O'Reily family decides that Cyril is too mentally scarred to live, so they do not oppose his trial.
O'Reily, in the meantime, shares a cell with Father Daniel Meehan, an Irish-American priest imprisoned for his part in a violent protest, who helped prison psychiatrist Sister Peter Marie Raimondo fight for Cyril's life. After finding out that Shupe was paid to lie, O'Reily plots revenge. Capitalizing on the grudge between Kenmin and Enrique Morales, O'Reily makes a deal with the Latinos. The Latinos agree to horribly injure Shupe, ensuring it won't be traced back to O'Reily; in return, O'Reily agrees to murder Jia. The Latinos cut off Shupe's arm, and O'Reily provokes Kenmin into a fight, helps the guards restrain him, and convinces officer Robinson that Kenmin spoke badly of the guards, resulting in them killing him in the solitary confinement ward.
Motivated by O'Reily's previous animosity with the Aryans, O'Reily and Poet announce in the cafeteria that Aryan James Robson had the gums of a black man surgically implanted, with O'Reily stating aloud that he "went to the dentist, and got himself a nice pair of dirty ghetto gums," inciting laughter throughout the cafeteria. Robson is kicked out of the Brotherhood for his "black blood", leaving him defenseless.
With Meehan's guidance, O'Reily opens up about his childhood traumas and joins the effort to save Cyril, whose sentence to death nonetheless stands. O'Reily vows to be there in the appeal process.
Season 6
O'Reily forces Shupe to tell the truth to Cyril's attorney Arnold Zelman, who is unable to get him to testify. Shortly afterward, Meehan dies from a brain embolism. O'Reily washes his body in the morgue, reading a passage from the bible out of respect for Meehan. Peter Schibetta, the son of Nino Schibetta (the former leader of the Italian gang, who was killed by O'Reily in the first season), is rumored to have killed him by giving him "the evil eye" as revenge, since Schibetta had vowed to curse everyone O'Reily loves. O'Reily tells Chucky Pancamo that Schibetta plans to use the evil eye on him as revenge for his failure to protect him from Adebisi's brutal rape. Enraged, Pancamo and the Italians have Schibetta killed, notably removing his eye. Zelman's appeals to save Cyril are unsuccessful.
Jahfree Neema, a former Black Panther member, is sent to Oz and develops a romantic connection with Suzanne. He initially hates O'Reily, who tries to get Redding to murder him. Neema, however, tells O'Reily that he wants to save Cyril and organizes every inmate to protest the execution, resulting in a stay of execution. As a result, Ryan gains respect for him and believes God saved Cyril because of his sincere prayers on the night of Cyril's scheduled execution.
Meanwhile, their father, Seamus, arrives in Oz and tries to kill Neema, but ends up in the hospital instead. Eventually, Cyril is executed despite Ryan's efforts, and Ryan is seen walking the maze in the gym unsupervised and visibly upset during the execution. Dr. Nathan enters the gym, and she and O'Reily kiss passionately, culminating the five-season narrative arc initiated by O'Reily's unrequited love. The screen then fades to black, leaving the two.
Seamus O'Reily, regretting how he treated his sons (after a stern speech from Suzanne), asks Ryan if he can see Cyril. Ryan tells him it's too late, and the father and son reconnect through their grief.
Ryan O'Reily is last seen wheeling Seamus onto a bus during an attack involving a mysterious contaminate orchestrated by Keller.
ZO (spin off)
20 years after the evacuation of Oz, the police officer who testified at O'Reily's trial is charged with shooting a minor and is revealed to have a history of corruption. All his cases are thrown out, and Ryan is subsequently released. He later tracks down Beecher's number and address and starts threatening him, vowing to hurt his family.
