Characters / Oz Homeboys

The Homeboys

General

• Arch-Enemy: The Italians, and to a lesser extent, the Latinos. In Seasons 3 and 4, it becomes anyone who isn't black as well as the Muslims.
• Being Good Sucks: Redding's attempt to reform the group, by switching them from selling drugs to working a phone bank for pay, is kind of an unpleasant experience for everyone involved.
• Gangbangers: Most of them fit into this archetype, save for Adebisi and Paul Markstrom.
• High Turnover Rate: After the Aryans, they have the highest death count amongst their members of all the prison gangs.
• Scary Black Man: Adebisi and Malcolm Coyle.
• Token Good Teammate: Jefferson Keane, Poet, Augustus Hill in Season 1, before he became part of The Others.

Leadership

Keane

Jefferson Keane

"I feel the fire."

Played By: Leon

Prisoner #97K186. Convicted May 14, 1997 - Two counts of murder in the first degree. Sentence: Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Later convicted of another count of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death.

The original leader of the Homeboys. A deeply troubled man, he converts to Islam after meeting Kareem Said.

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• Arc Hero: He's the main protagonist of the first half of Season 1, with his gradual Heel–Face Turn getting most of the screentime until his death in "Capital P".
• The Atoner: When he converts to Islam, he actively tries to work against the drug trade that he set up.
• Being Evil Sucks: His conversion to Islam is motivated by him finally getting sick of the thug life.
• Being Good Sucks: Though his conversion to Islam brought him inner peace, it lost control of his gang to the maniacal Adebisi.
• Big "NO!": He screams one after killing another prisoner in self-defense, breaking his vow of pacifism.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His love for his family helps drive his desire to turn his life around.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He is loyal to his men and refuses to sell Post out to Nino when Ryan suggests it.
• Face Death with Dignity: He faces his execution with grace, calmly accepting his fate and using his time to make amends with his family.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He does achieve a kind of redemption, but just as things are going well, he's manipulated toward a death sentence.
• Heel Realization: While he was having doubts beforehand, his beloved wife Mavis ending contact with him and running away is what triggers him to start trying to redeem himself.
• Heel–Face Turn: He goes from a cold-blooded killer to a devout Muslim.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He allows himself to be executed in an attempt to end the brewing war between the Homeboys and Italians. It works, but not for long.
• Large and in Charge: Towers over every other Homeboy as their first leader, Adebisi included.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Glynn feels denying his request to marry his girlfriend while in prison is this, since Keane was arrested for gunning down a couple on their wedding day. Either way, he does get married when Said bargains with him, and Keane gets his marriage after all, though he has to use Adebisi as a stand-in for his bride.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His decision not to rat out O'Reily to the Italians results in him masterminding Keane's execution.
• Noble Bigot: He starts expressing homophobic views after converting to Islam, but he still deeply loves his gay brother Billy and ultimately decides he doesn't care if his brother is gay or not.
• Not So Stoic: He starts out as The Stoic, but he grows more emotional until the stoicism finally slips after his Heel Realization.
• Redemption Equals Death: Immediately after he resolves to be a better person he's set up to be killed by the Italians.
• The Stoic: Especially when compared to Adebisi or Johnny Post, Keane is consistently cold and almost emotionless. He grows out of this as he starts to have regrets about his lifestyle.
• Villainous Friendship: With Adebisi, though it sours after Keane converts to Islam.

Wangler

Kenny Wangler

"I've been a man a long time."

Played By: J.D. Williams

Prisoner #97W566. Convicted July 6, 1997 - murder in the first degree (16 years old tried as an adult). Sentence: 20 years, eligible for parole in six.

A 16-year-old inmate who quickly becomes a member of the Homeboys.

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• Asshole Victim: He literally becomes one to Adebisi. He later winds up getting killed by his bullying victim Guillaume Tarrant.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Explicitly in Season 1, where Said and Keane compete over what his path should be, and discuss how young and impressionable he is.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He tries to convince others to call him 'Bricks', acts like a big shot, and thinks he's a badass. In reality, he's a pathetic pawn of more powerful inmates.
• Boisterous Weakling: He's very prone to boasts, but nowhere near as skilled or tough as he thinks. The one time he gets into a fight, he gets his ass handed to him easily.
• The Bully: With the the weaker inmates, he acts like he's the big kid on the playground. Heck, the way he torments Guillaume Tarrant looks exactly like school bullying. Unfortunately for him, Oz is no playground, and all of the other kids are much bigger.
• Butt-Monkey: To Adebisi. Literally in some cases.
• The Corruptible: Wangler surrounds himself with bad role models and friends who encourage him to become increasingly depraved, resulting in him becoming a sociopathic monster.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His boxing match with Khan consists of Wangler throwing a few weak punches that don't even phase Khan and getting absolutely demolished shortly after. O'Reilly didn't even think of Wangler as worth doping as he'd done with others as he figured Kham would easily beat him anyway.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He has Poet publicly humiliate Said for his attraction to Tricia Ross because Khan had beaten him fair and square in a boxing match.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Insists that the other inmates call him "Bricks". Only O'Reily does, being the schmoozer he is.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His son is the only person he genuinely cares for other than himself.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Expressed a distaste for sex offenders in Season 2, though that's long gone by the time Malcolm "Snake" Coyle comes around.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He does seem to have some genuine affection for his mother.
• Evil Is Petty: Hell yeah, it is. He's in jail for killing another kid over his jacket.
• Hate Sink: Following his murder of Jara, he's depicted as a loathsome, sociopathic, and arrogant thug whose entire purpose in life is to hound and make things worse for far more likable and sympathetic characters.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: While he has a mild attempt at getting an education, he's one of the few inmates across the series to have nothing really close to a heartwarming moment. Even the one time we see him with his toddler son, he gets pissed off because the boy is crying and shakes him and tells him to be a man. He also tries to steal the money Rebadow collected to send his dying grandson to Disney World. Even Adebisi said no to that.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He starts off as a Jerkass, but there's hints throughout the first two seasons that Wangler isn't irredeemable, and he briefly bonds with McManus when he tries to help Wangler learn how to read. After his murder of Jara, Wangler is portrayed as a purely evil figure and one of the most unlikable in Oz.
• Karmic Death: He ends up getting shot by Guillaume Tarrant, the man he bullied mercilessly. Even better, he's killed over a pair of shoes, almost exactly the motivation for his original murder.
• Kick the Dog: Numerous times throughout the series, wheter it's assaulting Rebadow, accusing Mc Manus of sexual assault, his plan to steal the money inmates raised for Rebadow's grandson that even Adebisi is disgusted by and his bullying of Guillaume Tarrant that leads to his death.
• Lack of Empathy: Several examples but notably, laughing when Coyle talks about how he killed an innocent family for fun.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Twice over. In season 2, he murdered Adebisi's mentor Jara, thereby derailing the closest thing Adebisi ever had to a Heel–Face Turn. Cue Season 4 when Adebisi decides to set his Evil Plan in motion. He quite purposely gives the contraband gun to Wangler's bullying victim Tarrant, then sits back and waits for the inevitable.
• Mugging the Monster: Starts in on Guillaume Tarrant about his shoes yet again. Fails to realize Tarrant has been secretly given a gun by Adebisi.
• The Napoleon: He's a short dude, who talks tough and nicknames himself "Bricks" to try and compensate.
• Never Learned to Read: It's revealed in Season Two that he is illiterate which Tim helps to change.
• Papa Wolf: Has his wife and her lover murdered when he learns that they've been abusing his baby boy.
• Sacrificial Lion: He's killed in the Season 4 premiere to make it clear that Adebisi is playing for keeps in his scheme to take over Em City.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He carries himself like a tough gangster everyone should be in awe of and reverential towards when he's really just a low level thug without the brains or discipline to be anything more.
• Smug Snake: His default attitude is unjustified swagger. All it does is get his ass kicked. Repeatedly.
• The Sociopath: Despite the best efforts of the prison staff, he ends up being a monstrous little creature. His reaction to the murder of his wife (which he ordered from prison)? He fakes grief in front of McManus, and when he's out of earshot, he starts laughing uproariously like it was some kind of joke.
• Start of Darkness: His entire arc is his slide into true evil; Mc Manus tries and fails to save him from becoming just another psychopathic hooligan.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: A prominent recurring character for the first three seasons who's gunned down in the first episode of Season 4.
• Tagalong Kid: Literally, as he is only sixteen when he first joins the Homeboys.
• Teens Are Monsters: He's a murderer at the age of 16. And he only gets worse from there.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: While never a nice guy, Wangler shows potential for redemption and never seems entirely evil, right up until after he murders Jara for a cut of Nappa's drug trafficking. Following this, Wangler quickly descends into a cruel sociopath with no redeeming qualities.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Mc Manus is the only one who thinks Kenny can be redeemed, helps him learn to read, and consoles him after his wife's death. Wangler still happily goes along with accusing him of sexual assault.
• Unwitting Pawn: He's set up to be gunned down as part of Adebisi's plot to incite a race war in Em City.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: He seems to have a brighter future ahead of him once Mc Manus starts to make him go to class... Then Adebisi forces him to stop going and he becomes worse than he ever was before.

Poet

Arnold "Poet" Jackson

"It's kinda fucked up, leaving. Everybody else is staying. It's like waking up from a dream."

Played By: muMs the Schemer

Prisoner #96J352. Convicted February 15, 1996 - Armed robbery, attempted murder, possession of a deadly weapon. Sentence: 16 years, eligible for parole in nine. Granted early release in 1998. Returned as inmate #98J448, convicted July 20, 1998, on one count of 2nd degree murder. Sentence: 26 years, eligible for parole in 19.

A high-ranked Homeboy who writes and performs poetry.

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• Affably Evil: One of the few prisoners that is genial with pretty much everyone. He's still a murderer and thug however.
• Ascended Extra: Starts off as a bit character in Season 1 before becoming one of the principal cast members.
• Chronic Villainy: He's granted early release and gets his poetry published. Then he spends all of the money on drugs and gets shipped back to Oz after shooting his dealer.
• Deadpan Snarker: Especially when high.
• Excrement Statement: After Johnny Basil (a.k.a. Desmond Mobay) is exposed as an undercover cop and put in solitary, Poet urinates in his lunch as a sign of contempt.
• Faux Affably Evil: Zigzagged; He can be genuinely friendly and good-natured, but he gradually loses any real redeeming qualities.
• Greek Chorus: His main role in Season 1 before becoming Adebisi's Number Two.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": In the first season, he was only shown in cameos performing in the canteen, and credited simply as "poet" as a common noun. When he was ascended the writers decided that "Poet" was his street name.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Briefly leads the Homeboys after Adebisi's death. But is clearly not cut out for the job, and quickly bows knee to Redding when he takes over.
• Inspired by…: His brief period of freedom in the second season is inspired by the story of Jack Abbott, a real-life jailhouse writer who was paroled after a campaign by literary admirers, but killed a man in a trivial altercation after only six weeks of freedom and was returned to prison for life.
• Kill It with Water: He survives an attempt by Adebisi to kill him with boiling water.
• Ungrateful Bastard: To Kareem Said, who went out on a limb to get him released.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • He genuinely gets on very well with Kenny and is one of the few who is upset by his death. It makes sense as Kenny was the only one to accept him when he was sent back to Oz.
  • He is also the only prisoner to treat Omar with respect and defends him from Ryan when they get into a fight.

Markstrom

Paul Markstrom

Played By: O.L. Duke

A member of the Homeboys and Glynn's cousin who takes over the gang after Keane leaves. He's later revealed to be an undercover detective sent to stop the drug trade at Oz.

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• Ambition Is Evil: He's the most in favor of expanding the Homeboys's drug trafficking, and eagerly accepts Nino's offer of a partnership so he can usurp it for his own ends. Subverted since he was an undercover cop trying to get as much information on Schibetta's operation as possible.
• Hot-Blooded: He's the most vocal advocate for taking revenge against the Italians for Johnny's death. It's later revealed to be an act.
• Killed Offscreen: After Adebisi and Schibetta discuss his status as an undercover cop, there's a Smash Cut to his corpse.
• Mole in Charge: He ends up in charge of the Homeboys for a while.
• Never Suicide: Subverted. Schibetta orders him killed in which Adebisi and Wangler hang him, but Schibetta notes that it was more to send a message, and Glynn and McManus immediately cotton on that it was murder.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: He's eventually revealed to be an undercover cop investigating Oz's drug trade.

Pierce

Junior Pierce

Played By: Malé-Lexington Alexander

A high-ranking member of the Homeboys.

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• Asshole Victim: He's gunned down by his bullying victim Tarrant.
• Flat Character: He has no real personality outside of being Wangler's friend and an asshole. He only really shows up when Wangler and Poet need someone to talk to.
• Jerkass: He's a bullying prick, much like Wangler.
• Kick the Dog: He aids in the murder of Jara, an innocent old man.
• Satellite Character: He generally only pipes up when Wangler needs someone to talk to, and is generally only seen accompanying him and Poet.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: He's a prominent recurring character in Season 3, but still gets killed during Tarrant's shooting rampage in the first episode of Season 4.

Redding

Burr Redding

"I take a shit in this world, I see reality and I make the best of it."

Played By: Anthony Chisholm

Prisoner #01R289. Convicted January 11, 2001 - Murder in the first degree, seven counts of attempted murder. Sentence: Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

A half-crazed Vietnam vet who ran the streets where Augustus Hill grew up in, and acted as a foster father to the boy. He eventually controls the Homeboys post-Adebisi. A lot of what befalls Augustus is Burr's fault.

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• A Lighter Shade of Black: While still a ruthless career criminal, he's shown to have more integrity than the likes of Schillinger, Adebisi, Hernandez, and Timmy Kirk.
• The Atoner: After Augustus is killed.
• Beard of Evil: Not evil, per se. But he is a career criminal and is responsible for Hill's drug addiction.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: He at one point uses LSD as a weapon against one of his rivals.
  Redding: It's a miiiiind-fuck!
• Hanging Judge: Burr Redding adopts this role for himself when he kills Tugg Daniels for conspiring against him with Supreme Allah, holding a mock trial before "sentencing" him.
  Redding: I believe every man deserves a fair trail... before the execution.
• Heel Realization: After Hill saves Redding's life despite the Homeboys all shunning him for snitching in order to avert a gang war with the Latinos, Redding comes to accept responsibility for the fact that it was ultimately his fault that Hill's life was ruined.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He was in love with Hill's mother, but she married Redding's best friend.
• Jerkass: Even to Hill, his surrogate son. He mellows out a bit over time, but not by much.
• Large Ham: Enough to turn most of his lines into either a crowning moment of funny or a demonstration of his badassery (and sometimes both).
• Laughably Evil: His snarkiness and hamminess is absolutely hilarious to watch.
• Papa Wolf: Redding's out for blood when he discovers someone has gotten Hill back on drugs.
• Parental Substitute: To Augustus.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Downplayed; he was pretty rough even before Vietnam, but killing women and small children certainly didn't help.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Adebisi, taking his role as the somewhat unhinged, badass, wisecracking leader of the Homeboys.
• Villainous Friendship: He has a sincere Odd Friendship with Colonel Galson.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His attempts to get the Homeboys to stop selling drugs are a bit... extreme, to say the least.

Soldiers

Omar

Omar White

"I ain't no drug abuser. Truth is, I treat my drugs better than most."

Played By: Michael Wright

Prisoner 01W711. Convicted January 4, 2001 - Murder in the first degree. Sentence: 75 years, up for parole in 20.

An unstable homeboy and drug addict.

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• Butt-Monkey: Omar somehow manages to get it worse than just about every other prisoner. He even gets his ass kicked by Said.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: He's a wimpy little bastard, but when he's backed into a corner, he can fight like a beast. Just ask Cutler, who gets his ass handed to him on his first day in Oz.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Ends up getting killed off-screen by Lemuel Idzik.
• Establishing Character Moment: Omar is in Oz for murdering a woman, however his flashback shows that he also had the chance to kill her daughter at the same time but refuses. Omar may be impulsive and violent, but he isn't downright evil.
• Hidden Depths: The man can really sing when he puts his mind to it.
• Informed Attribute: His singing is unanimously regarded as terrible, but he's actually really good at it.
• Insane Troll Logic: Frequently his default setting. His explanation of why he beat the crap out of McManus is a good example.
• Leitmotif: His scenes are frequently accompanied by a distorted guitar strumming.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Omar is one of the stronger inmates despite his rail-thin skinny frame. It mainly comes out when he is fighting.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers one to McManus while his hands are cuffed. Is on the receiving end of one by Kareem Said.
• Slashed Throat: By Lemuel Idzik.
• Talkative Loon: He is unable to stop talking nonsense for a single second.
• Uncle Tomfoolery: Way more goofy than any functioning human being should be. Then again, he does stretch the definition of "functioning human being".

Moses

Moses Deyell

Played By: Erik King

Prisoner 00D718. Convicted February 3, 2000 - Two counts of murder in the first degree. Sentence: Death.

An inmate on Death Row for killing his girlfriend and her husband after discovering she was married.

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• Affably Evil: Probably the nicest death row inmate you'll ever meet.
• Bald of Evil: He's not on death row for nothing, after all.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Rather than be executed, he jumps off of the truck bringing him to donate his organs in a failed escape attempt, killing him.
• Determinator: He digs through his wall for weeks just to get a shot at Mark Miles,not to mention he's willing to wait on death row for essentially a decade waiting for his appeal to come through. It's shown to be slowly wearing away on his already tenuous grip on sanity, however.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Gets the hospital staff to look at Nat Ginzberg as he doesn't want to see him endure the pain of a slow death from AIDS. He is also disgusted at Mark Miles' killing of his families.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Played with. Moses is a cold-blooded killer who murdered his girlfriend and her husband out of a twisted sense of morality of not wanting to get involved with someone else's woman. He's definitely not without sympathetic qualities however, as he befriends other death row inmates (with the exception of Mark Miles) and shows genuine concern of Nat Ginzburg's condition. However, he's perfectly willing to lie that he wants to donate his organs even though it was just a ruse to try and escape. Moses is definitely not a completely selfish jerk but is still far from Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Pet the Dog: He shows genuine concern when he sees how ill Ginzburg is and tries to get Dr Nathan to look at him. He also sincerely compliments Giles for his scam to save himself from execution. And despite al they'd been through, he even makes a genuine effort to relate to Miles after seeing his breakdown, sharing that he too is frightened of dying, even if Miles throws it back in his face.
• Where da White Women At?: His girlfriend was white, and her husband was Black.

Coyle

Malcolm "Snake" Coyle

"It's a thin line between love and hate."

Played By: Treach

Prisoner #99C122. Convicted January 17, 1999 - Grand larceny, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault of a police officer. Sentence: 50 years, eligible for parole in 20.

An intimidating and psychopathic prisoner.

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• Animal Motifs: Snakes. He is very formidable and hopes he will slither away from his true crime.
• Asshole Victim: When all the inmates and the staff finds out about Coyle’s horrendous crime, he is sent to death row. There he is brutally stabbed to death by the Italians, and nobody, including the staff, gives a shit.
• Ax-Crazy: Extremely so. When we know what his dark true crime really was: killing an entire family, including the kids, just for fun.
• Bald of Evil: It somehow serves to make him even more intimidating.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He likes to brag about how he killed an entire family, including the babies.
• Child Hater: Refers to the baby he murdered as a "li'l fucker".
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He's tied to the bars of his cell and stabbed numerous times, giving him a slow and painful death. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
• Dead Guy on Display: His corpse is stripped naked and hung on cell bars.
• Dirty Coward: He loves carrying himself with swagger and bragging about killing victims who couldn't fight back, including kids, but when his own life is in danger when other inmates are disgusted with his crimes, he becomes genuinely frightened and goes into protective custody.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Not himself but he gets hit hard with this trope when he finds out that even drug dealers and murderers have nothing but contempt for people who hurt children, with even Schillinger willing to offer the protection of the Aryans to Hill and Nappa having him brutally murdered for no reason than sheer disgust at his crimes. Truth in television as those who harm or kill children are considered the lowest of the low in prison, to the point that many have to go into solitary for their own safety.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: His Fatal Flaw. He brags about killing an entire family to Augustus, hoping that he is as horrendous as he is and that he will gain his "respect". Instead, Augustus spreads the truth, causing everyone to want Coyle dead.
• Evil Is Petty: As if killing an entire family including infants wasn't bad enough, Malcolm filmed the entire thing on video.
• Faux Affably Evil: He comes across as fairly charming and seems about as normal as other inmates but he eventually reveals he's much worse than even Adebisi.
• For the Evulz: Why he committed the murders.
  Hill: What did this family do to you?
  Coyle: Not a thing.
  Hill: Then why did you kill 'em?
  Coyle: For fun!
• Hate Sink: Coyle committed what is undoubtedly the vilest and most disgusting crime in the series, which is no small feat, and is not only remorseless but proud of it. It's telling when even Schillinger is disgusted by him (well, for the right reason, anyway). In a series of complex characters with sympathetic stories and humanizing moments, Coyle stands out as nothing but a purely evil monster.
• Hidden Depths: He doesn't seem like much, and the crime he committed was relatively minor. Then we find out he's a deranged killer.
• I Love the Dead: We don't know if he's actually a necrophile but he did rape a woman while she was bleeding out and didn't seem to mind her being dead.
• Inappropriate Role Model: Becomes one to Wangler after Adebisi is temporarily out of commission and definitely the worse of the two, actively making himself embrace his more depraved side. And as horrible as Adebisi was, even he called out Wangler for wanting to rob Rebadow of the money he collected for his sickly grandson. None of the few virtues Adebisi have, such as intelligence, charisma, respect and even moments of sincere kindness, apply to Coyle though as he has no redeeming qualities or standards whatsoever. It's telling that only Wangler is angry and wants revenge against Augustus and even he is willing to look past it by the end of the season.
• Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: Subverted. He's doing 50 years for what is ultimately a trumped-up robbery charge but he actually deserves much more than that, having brutally murdered an entire family just for fun.
• Kick the Dog: He brutally kills a family, including a baby, for no reason beyond sheer sadism.
• Lack of Empathy: Part of what makes him so repulsively evil even by the series' standards is his complete lack of remorse over the murders which was his idea of having a good time.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Is strung up and stabbed to death. It's implied his death wasn't quick either. An appropriate send off for possibly the most genuinely evil person in Oz.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: At first, he seems like simply a brutish thug; not exactly pleasant, but fairly average as far as inmates go and incarcerated for a relatively minor crime. It isn't until he's alone with Hill that Coyle reveals how much of a monster he really is.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He raped the woman he killed after slashing her throat.
• Sadist: He brutally murdered an entire family for no other reason than enjoyment.
• Scary Black Man: On par with Adebisi no less when it comes to having an intimidating, hulking physique but infinitely worse in terms of being a deranged killer.
• Shirtless Scene: Almost constantly walks around without a shirt, showing off his ripped torso and tattoos.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: When recalling the gruesome murders of the family to Augustus, he speaks with a soft, almost gentle voice that barely hides the stone cold sociopath within.
• Smug Snake: Like his nickname suggests. He takes a great pride in his horrendous murders and brags about it to Augustus while hoping the truth won't come out. It eventually does.
• Snuff Film: What makes Coyle stand out as especially heinous even by the standards of the setting is that he brought a friend with him to capture his atrocities in a videotape for his own amusement.
• The Sociopath: Rivals Kirk in the regard.
• Too Dumb to Live: Bragging about being a disturbed child murderer in a maximum security prison is already an extremely stupid move but it's even worse to point out that there's a videotape displaying said crime in gruesome detail. Especially so when the one who Coyle told about the videotape was Augustus who had already showed visible signs of disgust for Coyle and was obviously trying to get him to tell the full story, even "encouraging" him to turn himself in.
• Truth in Television: Child killers do NOT last very long in maximum security prisons. He's no exception.
• Would Hurt a Child: Has killed two. Even Kenny calls him a "sick motherf-cker" when he proudly reveals it.

Johnny

Johnny Post

Played By: Tim McAdams

A loyal homeboy henchman of Jefferson Keane. He unintentionally sets the events of the first season in motion.

• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Wiseguys cut off his penis and several of his fingers, then stab him multiple times in the heart.
• Defiant to the End: Confronted with torture and death, he remains defiant and angry.
• Groin Attack: When tortured to death by the Wiseguys, the first thing they do is cut off his penis and mail it to Jefferson Keane.
• Kill It with Fire: How he killed Dino Ortolani.
• Mauve Shirt: His actions have an effect that lasts about half of the series, but he doesn't make it past the third episode.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He dies early on in the series, but his murder of Dino Ortolani drives much of the plot of the first season.
• Undying Loyalty: to his fellow Homeboys.
• Villainous Valor: He stupidly shows no fear about the Wiseguys retaliating for Dino's murder, and remains completely unrepentant and defiant when they enact said retaliation on him.

Mondo

Raymond "Mondo" Browne

Played By: Gano Grills

Prisoner number 00B563. Convicted April 10, 2000 - Murder in the first degree. Sentence: 27 years, up for parole in 11.

An inmate imprisoned for murdering a pregnant woman.

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• Asshole Victim: Offed by Keller offscreen. Is a total prick to basically anyone not black so his death is not exactly tragic.
• Ax-Crazy: Possibly, given the grisly, torturous nature of the murder he was convicted and for being nicknamed after mondo films, a genre of movies featuring graphic scenes of real violence. However, we never see a particularly vicious or animalistic side of him, instead being just another hooligan in a prison full of unsavory people.
• Beard of Evil: He has a beard and is not a pleasant guy.
• The Bully: He takes great pleasure in taunting and mocking other, weaker inmates, particularly the new guys.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After serving as a recurring Mauve Shirt throughout Season 4, he's abruptly killed offscreen by Keller.
• Killed Offscreen: Keller shanks him offscreen to frame Supreme Allah for it.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He and Tidd do antagonize Goergen, however, given that they're only doing it because Goergen was a racist, arrogant asshole who mouthed off further inciting them, it's hard to cry over.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Wangler, somewhat. Mondo appears shortly after his death, and promptly takes his role as the resident Jerkass member of the Homeboys who spends his time bullying other inmates. However, unlike Wangler, he doesn't have much characterization as seen with his status as a recurring character above.
• Those Two Guys: With Leroy Tidd until Keller kills him.

Tug

Carlton "Tug" Daniels

Played By: Method Man

Prisoner number 01D251. Convicted February 20, 2001 - Attempted murder in the first degree. Sentence: 28 years, up for parole in 14.

An enforcer for Burr Redding.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Zig-zagged. At his mock trial he defiantly insults Redding but mostly pleads with the other Homeboys to kill Burr instead of him.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He thinks that, because Redding let Hill live for snitching, he's gone soft. It earns him a crushed throat. He also seems to think the Homeboys will turn on Burr at his urging when he's the one caught plotting treachery and helplessly bound to a chair.
• It's Personal: Subverted. It seems like he has a personal vendetta against Supreme Allah for killing his brother, but he quickly allies with him to overthrow Redding.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After he gets uncovered as a traitor, Redding puts him through a humiliating mock trial that ends with his execution.
• The Starscream: He plots to overthrow Redding alongside Supreme Allah.
• Villain Respect: He decides to ally with Supreme Allah because he survived getting near fatally shanked by him, in addition to perceiving that Burr went soft.