C.O. Scott O’Neill (portrayed by Joel Marsh Garland), or “Panda,” is a senior prison guard at Litchfield Penitentiary. He perhaps best known for dating C.O. Wanda Bell and remembered for playing crude songs on his banjolele while assigned to nun-sitting duty during the season two finale. We learn at Morello’s wedding that he and Bell plan to get married in the near future.
At the start of season three, he and Bell argue over which route to work saves the most time. His argument for taking Maple speaks to the kind of person he is: the houses on maple “mak[e] you think the world is a nice place. I’d take that thought over three minutes any day.”
When the two stop for breakfast at the local donut shop (where C.O. Charlie Coates works), they discover that Litchfield has a wanted ad in the local paper for new prison guards, which tips them off to the prison’s privatization. Upset about the fact that he learns about his job’s endangerment through a newspaper ad, he launches a diatribe against Coates for offering him red velvet donuts, which are “bullshit.”
While his and Bell‘s jobs are safe despite the change over in administration, their revoked healthcare compels them to work with the other senior prison guards to unionize and eventually all sing Les Misérables together.
However, when Joe Caputo is promoted, it seems as though their organized efforts to reunionizing are going to be squashed by the very man who supported them. When he and Bell walk out on him, it seems as though the two are not coming back.
We see O’Neill for the last time when he and Wanda Bell are leaving the parking lot. When he sees that the women are getting loose, he regrets the fact that they’ll never be able to use the riot gear that they received in order to deal with the inmates. However, Wanda reassures that they’re “done,” which seems to satisfy him.
We hear from Wade Donaldson that shortly hereafter, he ended up on dialysis, which is an especially scary diagnosis considering the fact that he no longer has health insurance.
Literary Litchfield 