Cyril O'Reily

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the actor, see Cyril O'Reilly.

Cyril O'Reily is a fictional character, played by American actor Scott William Winters, on the HBO drama Oz.[1][2] He is also mentioned in the companion book Oz: Behind These Walls: The Journal of Augustus Hill.

Character overview

"Prisoner #98P284: Cyril O'Reily. Convicted July 1, 1998 - Murder in the first degree. Sentence: Life, up for parole in 60 years."

Cyril was a hoodlum like his brother

Aryan Brotherhood
. After Schillinger rapes Cyril, however, Ryan gets his brother transferred to his own cell.

In the last season of the show, Cyril is executed despite Ryan's multiple attempts to save his brother, and despite Cyril's intellectual disability. Although Cyril is normally placid, he is prone to violent attacks on people when enraged, often showing great strength, which has earned him the resentment, but also the respect, of many inmates.

Fictional history

Season 2

Cyril O'Reily is the mentally handicapped brother of Ryan O'Reily, an Irish American

Tim McManus
know that Ryan is responsible and demand that he confess, but Ryan says nothing and Cyril arrives in Oz.

When Cyril arrives in Oz he is put in Unit B, where he is approached by Aryan leader

Joseph Mineo
takes Cyril to Ad Seg, isolated but safely away from Schillinger. Ryan cajoles McManus to bring his brother to Em City, but McManus refuses the move unless Ryan confesses to ordering his brother to kill Preston Nathan. After his release Cyril suffers terrible flashbacks and nightmares of being raped by Schillinger.

Later, a guard

Eugene Rivera is blinded and needs a blood transfusion, and Ryan is the only person among both the inmates and officers with the same blood type. Ryan refuses to donate his blood unless his brother is moved to Em City. McManus arranges the transfer. Later, upon considering what Cyril's life in prison would be like without his brother to protect him, Ryan finally confesses to orchestrating the murder of Preston. Ryan's parole
date is set back 40 years, but he can still protect Cyril from the other inmates, especially Schillinger.

Season 3

Cyril starts off this season working in the kitchen and essentially shadowing his brother. The Aryan inmates, especially Schillinger and

Black Irish
like the O'Reily brothers and understands that Ryan is trying to protect him. Murphy also helps McManus start the prison boxing tournament where each competitor represents one prison group. Ryan enrolls Cyril, who used to box before his injury, in the tournament to show everyone in Oz that Cyril is physically powerful.

In the first round, Cyril goes up against Robson. Ryan spikes Robson's water with drugs to ensure victory. Cyril wins the first fight against Robson in a knockout, and the Aryans leave off their taunts and threats afterward. Ryan spikes other boxer's drinks as well, as there is a lot of gambling money to be won. Ryan sees another opportunity to get back at the Aryans when Schillinger's

overdose. Cyril then fights in round two of the boxing tournament against Italian inmate Chucky Pancamo
. Pancamo is the favorite to win, as he has more than 60 pounds on Cyril and is one of the most physically imposing inmates in Oz. Ryan spikes Pancamo's water, leading to a victory for Cyril, to the shock of the prison population.

Cyril is now in the championship round and must face

race riot breaks out, and Oz is locked down. Khan dies after his wife wins a lawsuit
to take him off of life support.

Season 4 Part I

The lockdown ends and Cyril is having nightmares over Khan's death. Ryan suggests

Sister Pete
demands that Ryan participate as well, as he ordered Preston's murder.

In the interaction sessions, Cyril expresses his remorse and the Nathan parents express their anger. Ryan, however, turns the tables on the Nathans when he suggests that Gloria Nathan cheated on her husband during a temporary separation. As a result, the relationship between Dr. Nathan and Ryan becomes increasingly hostile. In Em City, Cyril is later attacked by inmates

Haldol by an angry Dr. Nathan. Ryan and Simon Adebisi
, the leader of the Homeboys, then warn Tidd and Browne to stay away from Cyril. Dr. Nathan is raped in the meantime and she believes Ryan is responsible, punishing him by cutting off Cyril's treatment. With the help of Sister Pete, Ryan convinces Dr. Nathan that he wasn't responsible, and as a result she resumes Cyril's treatment.

In the midst of this, Em City is undergoing a demographic shift that worries Ryan,

Kareem Said
, they obtain videotaped evidence showing the prohibited behavior that the Homeboys are being allowed to commit, forcing Warden Glynn to fire Querns.

Season 4 Part II

In this half of the season, Cyril's violent behavior begins to worry the staff. First, reporter Jack Eldridge comes to Oz to do a news story. When Cyril and Ryan were younger, Eldridge wrote a story on Irish street gangs which depicted the O'Reily's gang as brutal and heartless. The story angered their mother Tess, who died of cancer shortly afterwards. Cyril recalls the incident and beats Eldridge severely; the story is subsequently quashed.

After Asian inmate Jia Kenmin arrives in Oz, disputes erupt between him and both the Irish and Latino factions. Kenmin provokes Cyril and Ryan to the point where Cyril loses control, beating the Asian man into a coma. McManus, angry and alarmed, considers transferring Cyril to the Connolly institute for the Mentally Unstable. Sister Pete, however, pushes him to send Cyril to Protective Custody for a while so that he can calm down.

Back in Em City, Ryan and new inmate

Padraig Connolly, an IRA
member awaiting deportation, plan to blow up Oz. The bomb is a dud, but Ryan leaves the gas leaking in the cafeteria which eventually detonates, destroying both Emerald City and the cafeteria.

Throughout the season, as Dr. Nathan finally falls for Ryan, she becomes somewhat more forgiving towards Cyril for killing her husband.

Season 5

Ryan's birth mother Suzanne Fitzgerald turned herself in after being on the run with a radical group for more than 30 years. Governor Devlin however reduces her charges to 2 years of community service at Oz where she can see Ryan and Cyril. While Cyril was in Protective Custody, it was determined that he and Ryan were half-siblings with different mothers but Ryan and Suzanne keep this secret from him. They enjoy seeing her on a daily basis but this is short lived when

Tim McManus
sends Ryan to the cage and Cyril to solitary but not before stating that Cyril will either be sent to the insane asylum or death row as he is growing tired of Cyril's behavior. As Ryan is in the common room cage, Kenmin informs him it was a set up in order to eliminate the two brothers. On trial for murder, Cyril is represented by
Len Lopresti
and is then sedated by three additional COs. After a long talk with Father Meehan, Ryan finally agrees to protest Cyril's death by any means necessary.

Season 6

In effort to overturn Cyril's death sentence Ryan, with the help of

Governor Devlin, in an attempt to make Cyril appear normal, orders electroconvulsive therapy to be done to him. This angers Ryan, Suzanne, and others concerned with Cyril's well-being but they have no legal means of stopping the ECT treatment. Meanwhile, the appeals of Cyril's death sentence are not having any success and though protests continue, his execution date moves closer and closer. Originally, Ryan stated a preference for lethal injection
as the means of execution for Cyril but, after speaking with Dr. Nathan, Ryan concludes that it will be easier for Cyril to undergo the electric chair and he explains this to Cyril in terms of having one last "Special" ECT session. At this time their father Seamus arrives in Oz for killing a man in a fight.

As Cyril's execution approaches, Oz's prisoners, led by prisoner

Martin Querns
watches, he throws up. After Cyril's death, Ryan and Seamus finally make peace.

Analysis

Merri Lisa Johnson explains that one "of the few scenes in Oz to deal gently with prisoner rape comes when Cyril O'Reily, a developmentally disabled inmate who was also raped by Schillinger, talks with Gloria Nathan, the prison doctor....Cyril's diminished capacity allows him to innocently ask Nathan if she was on vacation because she was raped."[3]

References

  1. doi:10.1176/pn.37.22.0020
    .
  2. Seattle Times Company
    .
  3. ISBN 978-1845112455
    .
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