James Robson (Oz)

File:JRobson.JPG

James Robson.

James Robson is a fictional character in the television series, Oz, portrayed by R.E. Rodgers.

Character overview

A sadistic racist, Robson is imprisoned for murdering a white man whom he saw walking home with his black wife. In Oz, Robson acts as Vernon Schillinger's main lieutenant and is one of the most forceful members of the Aryan Brotherhood. He is highly regarded by Schillinger until a dental operation implants the gums of an African-American into his mouth and consequently forces Schillinger to cast him out of the Brotherhood. This dental operation puts Robson into complete disarray, worsened when he lets himself being raped (in order to get protection for his life from the rapist) and contracts HIV.

Season 2

In 1997, Robson was forced to bunk with his current cellmate as well as Tobias Beecher and Bob Rebadow, since Emerald City transferred all of its inmates over to his cellblock after the riot. The prison was under lockdown until things could be resolved, but until then, the cellblock was overcrowded. Robson tried to force Beecher to perform oral sex on him, but Beecher turned the tables on him by biting off the tip of his penis.

Season 3

Robson reappeared, this time as a full-fledged member of the Aryan Brotherhood inside of Oz. He served no other purpose other than follow Schillinger's schemes and encouraging him to do whatever he needed to do to keep the Brotherhood afloat in power. He also participated in Oz's boxing tournament, as the Aryans' representative. He would face Cyril O'Reily, but unbeknownst to him, his older brother Ryan had spiked his drinking water with Chloral Hydrate (stolen and smuggled from the prison hospital) to make sure Cyril wouldn't lose. Thus Robson was unable to focus on the fight and lost it. When the racial tension within Oz grew especially fierce, Robson sided with all of the white inmates against the blacks.

Season 4

For the first half of the season, Robson served no other purpose other than to side with Schillinger and the rest of his Aryan brothers through thick and thin, aiding in whatever plot he could. In the latter half, however, he slowly evolved into his own character. When Schillinger began to spend more time with Christian leader Jeremiah Cloutier, Robson temporarily ran the Aryan Brotherhood's business, gradually becoming disenchanted with his former mentor. He was thrown into the isolation unit after getting in a fight over a racist joke the Muslims overheard. Robson blamed Muslim leader Kareem Said, and formed an alliance with black inmate Leroy Tidd, who also hated Said for killing his friend, Simon Adebisi, in order to kill Said. Tidd would pretend to convert to Islam to get close to Said. However, when Tidd's conversion became genuine, he pulled out of the plan. Robson then bullied a younger inmate named Carl Jenkins into killing Said by promising to initiate him into the Brotherhood, and threatening to sell him as a sex slave to the Black inmates if he fails. Jenkins killed Tidd instead when Tidd protected Said, and was thrown into solitary confinement. Cloutier, on Said's behalf, went to Jenkins and convinced him to give up Robson as the man who ordered the murder. He did, but Jenkins later committed suicide for fear of the Aryans' retaliation. Thus, prison authorities had no testimony against Robson, and he was released from solitary and cleared of the charge. He then enraged Said who then beat Robson unconscious, which only fueled the war between the Aryans and the Muslims further. By this time, Schillinger had resumed running the Brotherhood, much to Robson's relief. The war worsened when the Muslims protected Beecher, Schillinger's longtime enemy, when he was up for parole. When Robson and Schillinger taunted Beecher for losing his parole, Said shanked both of them. They both ended up in the hospital with severe stab wounds and unbelievable hatred.

Season 5

Both Robson and Schillinger came back to Oz after recovering from their wounds, ready to take revenge. The war was put on hold, however, when Schillinger participated in interaction sessions with Said, Beecher, and Sister Peter Marie to help prevent more violence. When Schillinger found out that Chucky Pancamo, leader of the Sicilians, had his son Hank killed, he went after them, and Robson himself shanked Pancamo, putting him in the hospital. Later, when Peter Schibetta made an unsuccessful attempt on Schillinger's life, and was raped by Robson, Schillinger, and a third Aryan, berating him with ethnic slurs in the process and reminding him about being raped by Adebisi.

Soon afterward, two new white inmates, Franklin Winthrop and Adam Guenzel, arrived in Oz. Neither one of them were fit for prison in any way and the Aryans used this weakness to their advantage. In Unit B, the Aryans saved Winthrop from an overweight black inmate named Clarence Seroy who tried to rape him — only to keep him as their sexual slave. After parading Winthrop in drag, Robson told Beecher he would rape Guenzel. Beecher then enlisted the Italians in protecting Guenzel. In the gym, Robson tried to rape Guenzel, but Frank Urbano defended him and put Robson in the hospital. Schillinger manipulated Guenzel against Beecher, leaving him open to become their slave. Robson then killed a young Muslim named Ahmad Lalar with the help of another Aryan inmate.

When Robson went to the infirmary complaining of hurting gums, prison dentist Dr. Tariq Faraj told him that they were extremely recessive and in need of surgery, which involved grafting gums from a cadaver onto Robson's. Robson hurls racial slurs at him, but agrees to the surgery. During a checkup, however, Faraj took revenge by telling him that his new gums could have been from anyone — a homosexual, Jew, Latino, or even a black man. Panicked, Robson asked Schillinger for advice, and Schillinger asked the outside leader of the Aryan nations how to deal with this situation. The two leaders concluded that if in fact Robson received these gums that he was to be cast out of the gang. Faraj secretly paid black inmate Arnold "Poet" Jackson to spread the word about Robson's gums, which were in fact those of a black man. In the cafeteria, Poet and Ryan O'Reilly, who hated Robson, announced to the entire prison population that Robson had "ghetto gums." Furious, Robson demanded to know whose gums were in his mouth and ambushed Faraj, but the guards took him to the isolation ward. After he was released, the rest of the Aryans abandoned him. Desperate to get back in, he bought heroin from the black inmates for use as an anaesthetic in an attempt to personally remove his new gums with a razorblade. The heroin he took turned out to be woefully inadequate as a painkiller, with Robson being almost immediately overcome with severe pain and bringing guards to his cell with his loud screams. After being thrown in solitary, Robson was next seen with the gums fully attached.

Season 6

In the final season of Oz, Pancamo recovered from the shank wound Robson gave him and got out of the infirmary. With no allies to back him up, Robson was suddenly in very grave danger with the rest of the Italians. When he asked for protection, the Aryans refused - all except for one named Wolfgang Cutler, who said he would only protect Robson in return for being his sex slave. After a talk with Sister Pete, Robson revealed that he was raped by his father when he was six years old, and asked if it was ok to do "anything" as long as it was necessary to survive. After the talk, Robson accepted Cutler's offer, and was immediately sodomized with a dessert spoon. Cutler then forced him to dress in drag, perform bizarre sexual favors, and be a complete slave to his new master. In return, Cutler kept up his end of the bargain and defended Robson from Pancamo. Pancamo and the Italians then offered Robson a deal: They would call a truce and become his allies if he killed Cutler. Robson persuaded Cutler to try auto-erotic asphyxiation and told Sister Pete that Cutler was suicidal. The next morning Robson alerted the guards to Cutler's body, which was held upright by a noose tied to the bunkbed. The authorities ruled his death a suicide.

Robson was now a free man, and even accepted back into the Brotherhood, but his rape still haunted him. During a visit with his wife, he violently manhandled her to the point where she called him a "cocksucker." Angered, Robson assaulted her. Remorseful, he went to psychotherapy, and even a rape support group. At the support group meeting, he learned from the other inmates, who all finish their stories of being violated with the phrase "I had no choice." He briefly recovered, but soon learned that he was HIV-positive. Department of Corrections standards mandated that he had to be transferred to Unit F, the AIDS ward. Before he went, he thanked the support group for helping him through the trauma. In the extended version of "Exeunt Omnes", Oz's last episode, Robson is shown once again letting himself being raped, this time by black inmate Clarence Seroy (as Robson knows his HIV virus will be transferred to the rapist). Later on, he was transferred out of Oz onto a bus when the prison was infected with an unknown contaminant (while meanwhile, Clarence Seroy learns he was infected with with AIDS due to raping Robson).