Shillinger > Shilling

As I type this I’m sitting in the Dallas Forth Worth’s airport and my world just came to a crashing halt. Have you ever had one of those moments where there was a clearly delineated “before” and “after?” Y’know one of those momentous occasions where you know that your life is never going to be the same?

Well mine just happened. It was when I saw Cyril O’Reily as a shill for Goldline, one of those “invest in gold” companies.




I’ll save my undying love for Oz for another post, but I will say that I love Oz enough that I’ve got the entire show on dvd and I gave it to my mom, who was born and raised in Iowa. And I bought it for her for Mother’s Day. That’s how much I love Oz.

I can’t express how much it broke my heart to see Cyril O’Reily shilling for Goldline.



In fact the only thing more distressing was that he was an actual “Goldline client.” I know that times are tough for actors, what with reality tv and the internet and all, but has Cyril really fallen that low?

I mean hawking for some two bit company in an ad that had the production values of a webseries is quite the drop from making the rounds on one of the best television shows to ever deal with prison life. Ok, the best television drama set in a prison.



Plus ad presented quite a few questions. If Cyril had indeed been a long time Goldline client, would he have been in such a dire need for a paycheck? Did Goldline pay him in gold and if so was it coins, bricks or bullion? And perhaps most importantly; what does Ryan O'Reily think about all of this? I mean no offense, but Ryan was clearly the smarter of the O'Reily brothers.



Honestly when I saw Cyril in that commercial, doing his best to appear sincere while clearly in desperate need of a paycheck, I felt for him. It was more uncomfortable for me to see him in that commercial than it was that one time he got cornered and gang-raped of by Vern and the Aryan Brotherhood. That's how awkward the commercial made me feel.

In fact that ad made me feel so bad for Cyril that I almost decided to support the company in an effort to help Cyril out. But instead I decided to write a part for Cyril O’Reily. He’ll play a ghost in Oz: The Next Generation.

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