60 Days In: In Or Out?

I am not sure if tonight is the finale, but I do know that some people’s time ends tonight. It does appear to be the finale because this is a two hour episode.

South Annex

Once again, the DART team is doing a full shakedown of the women’s jail looking for drugs. They find a few pills in one of the cells. Everyone gets a brief “drugs are bad” speech and that is that.

Mauri has been praying out loud for God to release her for days. As that time is approaching, a fight breaks out in the cell between two white girls. It appears they are fighting over deodorant, but Jessica explained to us before she tapped out that some of the girls keep their drugs in the deodorant bottles. Mauri decides to try to break up the fight. She got hit by an errant swing in the process. One of the girls in her cell that is close with her was not about to allow that to happen so she jumped into the mix and separated the girls. 

Mauri has a total breakdown when she was called for release. She did a whole farewell tour before leaving. She felt guilty for leaving a lot of the girls in there. I am so proud of Mauri. She had the longest personal journey of any of them I think. She is so proud of herself and says she doesn’t feel like anyone can bully her ever again. Oh look at her take the jail wig off, throw it away and put on a curly wig and some make up! You go girl!

Mauri talks about how crappy the COs are in there. No one came when there were huge fights. The women didn’t have much of anything to keep them occupied. There were tons of fights and hazing of new inmates.

Michelle has asked several times for an officer to come in and open their doors so she can take a shower. Apparently the COs were too busy making sandwiches to let the women out of lockdown on this day. Michelle doesn’t get to shower. Several hours later they let the ladies out to eat. Michelle asks if they are going to get any bread several times. One of COs says “Just let me do my job.” and Michelle replies with “Alrighty then.” The CO calls her to come with her and leave the common area.  Michelle says she was taken to a hallway with no cameras and the CO went off on her and got in her face. Then she told another CO “get her, I can’t deal with her.”  She had to sit in a chair in the hallway for hours until, she was eventually given a warning and put back into the pod. That is just ridiculous.

Michelle eventually gets called to leave. She is surprised by how close she got to the other inmates. I am so proud of Michelle I didn’t think she would ever make it the whole entire way. In he exit interview, Michelle confesses that she took something to help her sleep while she was in jail and she feels ashamed about that. Then she lets them know that everyone cheeks their meds and sells them for commissary. Colonel Mark tells Michelle there is no judgement from him and she helped them out a lot and she should be proud.

600 Zone

Calvin is still being Calvin and sharing his food in order to make “friends.” Calvin thinks letting the inmates eat his food and use his phone call access makes him a boss. Colonel Mark tells us in confession for the millionth time that he is worried about Calvin who the other inmates see as weak. From what I see, it’s working pretty good for Calvin. He seems happy enough and fully believes he is high on the totem pole. Whatever gets you through your time, I say.  Jon never figured out Calvin was in the program, and he said Calvin seemed to fit in well and was liked.

I am surprised that the giant mound of hot Cheetos that Calvin left behind didn’t start a full on riot. It was like Santa had come to the 600 Zone.  When Calvin gets to the drop off point, he walks off for a minute to cry.

Calvin dressed for his interview in an all black shirt and pants with a white bow tie with tiny polka dots. He seems to have found someone to shave up and braid his hair along the way. He is smiling from ear to ear when he sits down with the Colonel and Lt.Colonel.  Colonel Mark better not be a dick to Calvin. Calvin did great in there. Calvin said that when he came in he was on the prison employees/law enforcement side, but coming out he wants to advocate for the inmates. There is nothing in jail to motivate them to do better. He estimates 80% of the population doesn’t have a GED. Although there are counselors and GED courses offered by the jail, he never laid eyes on a counselor and no one seemed aware there was a GED program. Calvin says that he knows no one ever wants to hear it, but there is potential police brutality going on in the jail. He said during the mock fire alarm the officers were saying threatening things to the inmates talking about beating them up and such.

Calvin tells Colonel Mark that he did feel respected by the other inmates. Colonel Mark finally admits that he was impressed with Calvin making it all the way through the program. The female officers asks to hug him before he left, because Calvin is adorable.

Jon is one day away from leaving and is already talking about missing Dashaun. When they call them to leave, they get really pissy with the inmates when it takes them more than two seconds to pack their stuff. They also assume the inmate knows what exactly they need to do with their stuff. Jon is being escorted out by a female CO and she seems angry that the didn’t remove the cover from his cot and put it in his bag. So she handcuffs him. Somehow Dashaun was in the outtake area when Jon was leaving so they got to say good bye. Oh, actually Dashaun was being released as well. These two came in on the same day and left on the same day.

In his exit interview, Jon says that he felt like the inmates treated him well. He gives a lot of insight on the medical situation. He says the medical hold is the dirtiest part of the jail and that is unacceptable. He says that when he finally saw medical, one of the personnel tried to send him back to his cell untreated because the cut had stopped bleeding. There was a doctor who overheard the comment and vetoed that idea saying that he needed stitches. He said it took 8 hours to be treated.  He gave a lot of good feedback, and I presume there is more that we didn’t see.

500 Zone

Matt’s cellmate tells him the other guys think he is an FBI informant. Matt just shrugs it off. He plans to just coast through his last few days. Matt goes through all of the same emotions as everyone else once he is release.

Matt says that while most of the officers were decent there were some that really threw their weight around. He talked about all of the fights and the beatdowns. The a group of guys would beat up one person. Never once did an officer come to the door to stop the fight. Then Matt tells them about the pot. Both the Colonel and Lt. Colonel said  that they can’t condone that behavior exactly, but if he had turned down a joint with his cover story being he’s was in there for growing pot, his cover would have been totally blown. I hope he asked for immunity for his cellmate who seems like a good kid.

Don seems to have come around and figured out that Officer McKenzie has a tough job and is doing it fairly well.  They do not have  remote control for the TV so Too Tall had someone stand on his shoulders and reach up to flip the channel and he got locked down. Officer McKenzie had to practically carry Too Tall to the lockdown room where he basically dropped him on the floor and struggled a bit to get handcuffs on him.

Don is the first to be released. He lets the inmates take whatever they want of his stuff. Don’s exit interview seems helpful. He explains that he often went a whole week with to rec time. It seems crazy to me they don’t have rec everyday. He tells the story about his altercation with Officer McKenzie and the lady is not having it. He doesn’t even want to answer her question about whether or not he was in or out of his cell when he got locked out. He does say that Officer McKenzie was actually the best officer in there.

With just Matt and Nate, who know about each other, left in 500 things start to heat up a bit. With Too Tall in lockdown, the other bloods are angling for the second in command spot.

It’s just not the bloods that love Nate. Colonel Mark does too. I cannot believe he is going to ask him to stay for another 60 days. But they do. I’d like to go on record saying I think this is a bad idea. Nate says he needs a day to think about it. He goes to the door in between 500 and 600 and tries to talk to Calvin, only to find out that he had gone. He has been trying to reach his girlfriend all day and she is not answering. I’m quite sure that is because she is on the way to see him. Production is going to do anything to keep Nate there it seems. Kayleen, like every other woman in the world watching was upset that Nate’s face got a stitch or two in there. I don’t think she is really going to advocate for him to stay. As I was typing that she says, “You better not do this ever again.” Nate responds with,”Ahhh….”  She is incredulous when he tells her he is going to do sixty more days. She doesn’t think he understands how hard it is for her. While he is peacocking around as the new pod boss and putting hits out on other participants, she is worried sick about him and missing him. Like she said, she didn’t sign up for this. She might just take that pretty engagement ring off her pretty little finger.

A new inmate, Alan, has arrived in 500 and he really wants some shampoo. He asks around and the guys suggest he ask Nate and he will help him out. The guy goes into his cell where Nate is sleep and wakes him up. This is a bad idea but Nate gives him some shampoo anyway. Then Nate starts running his mouth in confessional about this nobody comes to wake him up asking for shampoo. It appears Nate is the new Too Tall because he calls one of the bloods to the door and tells them to talk to the new kid.

Later we find out that Alan is part of the phase two. Which sucks because on the preview it looks like Alan gets his ass kicked.  On his first interview he says “Did you forget I was here?”  He has been having a really hard time. I think they need to move him to 600. Alan is a cop and the first person from phase two to arrive.

We see everyone go home and reunite with their families. I imagine they filmed the reunion first, or perhaps they flew everyone back for that. I am still not sure how all of these people who are not from Atlanta weren’t viewed as suspicious in there.

Next Week: We have a reunion.