"Oz": Ten Years Later

A love story emerges

Enter Chris Keller, a strapping, charismatic, blue-eyed, sexually ambiguous prisoner who became Beecher's podmate in Episode 2:4. Keller supported Beecher through the news of his wife's death, all while offering companionship, wrestling lessons and the apparent promise of a friendship with no agenda.

In a prison filled with cliques, power struggles and manipulation, Keller seemed like a godsend. The previously heterosexual Beecher was very quickly smitten — and within a few episodes, Beecher and Keller were exchanging declarations of love while kissing in the laundry room.

In reality, however, Keller was in league with Schillinger, and he eventually delivered Beecher over for a beating in which both his arms and legs were broken. About the men's relationships and the betrayal, which occurred at the end of the second season, Fontana says: “That was as far as I knew the story.” [laughs] “I mean literally, that was as far as ... So that what you discovered was that it was all a lie, that everything that Keller had done was a lie, and that was where in my head ... not that I was gonna leave it, but that's as far as I had in my head, about where it could go.”

He says that seeing Meloni and Tergesen in a fake romance was what inspired him to make it a real one: “The Keller/Beecher thing really grew out of the dynamic between the two actors, Chris and Lee, in the sense that my original intention was simply for Keller to be a classic sexual predator, using the Beecher character. But the chemistry between the two actors onscreen was such that I went, ‘Well wait a minute, there's more here and it's much more interesting than anything that I would have conceived of.' [...] It was exciting to see the dynamic between them, so that's why I stayed with that story in terms of Beecher 's development as a character.”

Part of the chemistry between the two actors came from the extent to which they invested themselves in their roles, so that even in their unscripted moments they were believable as two men in love. In fact, over the next four seasons, some of their most memorable moments would be wordless: Keller casually running his hand over Beecher's arm; the look in Beecher's eyes when he goes in to visit Keller in hospital after he has been injured; Beecher anxiously running his fingers through his hair before going in to see Keller for the first time after a long separation. The way Keller pauses for a moment before turning around when Beecher says his name.

Love, destruction, sacrifice

It helped that as the storyline unfolded it was less a story ‘about' sexual orientation than it was about the dual nature of any love: the desire to protect and care for someone versus the selfish desire to possess them at all costs. This conflict was particularly acute for the bisexual Keller, a prime manipulator whose relationships with men and women both inside and outside prison had been driven by a need to see if he could treat them badly and still get them to come back to him.

Aware of his own destructive tendencies in love, Keller struggled to attain the more noble aspects of sacrifice and selflessness. At the end of Season 4, he confesses to a crime that Beecher has committed in order to try and protect Beecher from Schillinger.

Fontana says: “What I thought would be interesting would be, if you take this guy who has been a sexual predator, and over the course of time, the lie of ‘I'm in love with Beecher' becomes the truth of ‘I'm in love with Beecher'. And how does that affect [Keller] and soften him and make him come to a different kind of place? I mean it's a classic love story in the sense that Beecher's genuine love for Keller changed Keller as a person, and kind of freed him to the point where, going from being completely selfish, he could then be completely selfless. But even so, was he [really]?”

In other words, can a leopard truly change its spots?

Sent to a different prison to await trial, Keller tries to push Beecher away - particularly since he knows that Beecher may be up for parole. But by the beginning of Season 5, after Keller's false confession has been discovered, Beecher is sent back to Oz. Throughout the sixth and final season, as Beecher once again has a chance at freedom, Keller becomes increasingly desperate and destructive in his efforts to keep Beecher with him.

Fontana says: “What I was going for was, what [Keller] said to [ Beecher ] in terms of ‘Run as far away from me as possible' [at the end of Season 4], was a genuine act of love. Because I think he knew of his own obsession. And he knew that the obsession would lead to a terrible outcome. So his impulse was to say ‘OK, I'm gonna push you away'. But ultimately, you know, the love becomes the thing that he knows he has to have. So hopefully it's about the complexity of love, because on the one hand, he loves Beecher enough to know that he's bad for him. And yet on the other hand, he loves him so much, he has to [try and] destroy Beecher, in a way, destroy his freedom, in order to possess him.”

Despite the increasingly dark turn taken by the relationship, Fontana says: “I do think that they truly did love each other. And in the way that love can be both blissful and brutal. They loved each other fully, it wasn't just hearts and flowers kind of love, it had all the bumps and grinds of a real relationship, and of an intense ... you know, kind of primal relationship.”