Max Sands

Max Sands, played by Mike Arotsky, is a Biker inmate on the HBO drama Oz. A background member for the most part, he appears as one of the Bikers in Emerald City throughout his stay on the series. He is known for having colorfull tatooes over his cheeks, a long black beard, wearing a black bandana over his head and black sunglasses all of which gives him an intimidating look.

Season 4

Sands is seen in Em City at the beginning of the season as the racial tension is high and a shooting in Oz occurs. Shortly afterwards, Tim McManus is fired as Unit Manager and replaced by an African American named Martin Querns. In the meantime, the Bikers are paid cash by inmate Nikolai Stanislofsky to murder Ralph Galino over a cell phone dispute. Shortly afterwards, Querns empowers Black inmate Simon Adebisi and his followers and begins transferring the White inmates out of Emerald City starting with the Bikers and the Aryans. Sands goes to Unit B where he, Hoyt and the other Bikers reside until Tim McManus is rehired in Emerald City. When back in Emerald City, the Bikers are allied with the Aryan inmates to destroy the Muslim inmates led by Kareem Said. As this is happening, several of the Bikers such as Jim Burns are converting into Reverend Jeremiah Cloutier's Christian flock. This angers Hoyt who with the help of Timmy Kirk has the Bikers seal Cloutier into a caféteria wall. From there Sands spends the rest of the season helping the Aryans try to destroy Tobias Beecher's chances of parole until they are warned by Kareem Said not to interfere. On a lighter note when Agamemnon Busmalis proposes to his lover in the visiting room he nods in approval.

Season 5

The Aryans and Bikers are still allied but the war with the Muslims is called off. As a result, the Bikers are more concerned with the issues pertaining to Reverend Cloutier, as he was still stuck in the wall during a gas explosion that took place destroying the cafeteria. Jim Burns then gets a vision to kill the other Bikers and Timmy Kirk proposes his murder to Jaz Hoyt. Hoyt kills Burns then gets similar visions to kill Kirk and then after a murder attempt, he confesses to a series of murders that the Bikers committed as a means of saving his own soul. Kirk lives though and Hoyt now on death row testifies that Kirk proposed the murder to him. When Kirk sets up a murder attempt on Father Mukada, Warden Glynn takes it personally and works with the Bikers to send Kirk to death row. Sands corroborates Jaz Hoyt's version of the truth to give Glynn hard evidence of Kirk's involvement in Burns' murder successfully moving him to death row. In the interim, Sands leads the Bikers in Emerald City and helps Vern Schillinger try to lure inmate Adam Guenzel into one of the Aryan's traps.

Other appearances

Sands appeared in the Saturday Night Live sketch "Seinfeld in Oz". He is seen as fellow inmate Vern Schillinger is planning an attack on Tobias Beecher in front of a group of Bikers and Aryans when Jerry Seinfeld approaches.

Trivia

While in a conversation (season five, "Variety"), Guenzel tells Sands that the woman he raped was an ex-girlfriend. Sands responds "You know, I never raped a woman I knew", implying that he might be serving his time in Oz for a rape crime himself (although this could have been a ruse to gain Guenzel's trust). Although this could simply have meant that he had committed crimes before his trial and subsequent trial which were not rape, i.e. assault, possession of drugs etc.

References