If you’d like to know why I was behind on Orange is the New Black, I blame my husband. He might not technically be the reason I still hadn’t watched season 2, much less season 3, since I watched season 1 with him, I figure he should’ve stepped up to the plate for us to watch the subsequent seasons as well. (Or, really, by the time I decided to watch it myself, I was finishing up My Movie Shelf, so I just waited. NBD.)
Orange is the New Black is the story of Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), a spoiled upper-middle-class WASP who courted drama in her young twenties by getting involved in a lesbian affair with a drug trafficker (Alex Vause, played by Laura Prepon) who, after their breakup and Piper’s return to the staid comfort of her expected (heterosexual) role in society, named Piper as a participant (which she was, once) in a smuggling operation which led to Piper being charged and sent to prison. The first season of the Netflix original delved somewhat into the lives of other inmates at Litchfield Correctional minimum security prison, but the focus was still largely on Piper and on her fish-out-of-water status in this new society.
Thankfully, the second season started drifting away from this, first by delving into it deeper. The second season started with Piper being shipped off to an unknown destination for unknown reasons, which she feared may have meant she killed Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) in the first season finale. But since none of the officers would communicate with her, she was left in fear until she found out from fellow inmate Alex that they were in Chicago to testify against Alex’s drug boss. Alex had every intention of lying under oath, and Piper vowed to tell the truth, so of course they both did the opposite thing, resulting in Piper being sent back to Litchfield while Alex was set free. But then, while Piper still remained a prominent face of the series, focus expanded to a lot more of the ancillary characters (inmates and guards) to become a lot more thoughtful, and more insightful, than it ever had been before.
We blissfully said goodbye to Larry (Jason Biggs) and Polly (Maria Dizzia) as the two had an affair and ran off together, and Piper’s world outside the prison was reduced to her brother and occasionally her parents (her furlough episode in the latter half of the second season, in which she attends a combination funeral for her grandmother and wedding for her brother was a bright spot that helped tie up a lot of her outside associations), meaning season three could really move on to bigger and better things.
The very first episode of season three sets a new tone, as the backstories are not focused on one inmate, but several, and their relationships with motherhood, as the prison hosts a special Mother’s Day visitation that of course goes wrong in that depressingly inevitable way things at Litchfield always seem to go. But in that moment, too, the show seems to transform much more into a feminist vehicle — an exploration of the ways in which women are often cornered into situations, either by class or by circumstance or by the people who surround them, that more often than not take advantage of them. They are looked down upon for being sexual or for not being sexual, for being spiritual or for not being spiritual, for mothering or for not mothering, for being bold and for being meek. Litchfield is a world in which the double standards of society come into sharp focus and the lives of these women are laid bare to our eyes in a plea for compassion and empathy.
Yes, they’ve all committed crimes, and some of them have been violent ones. But others have been committed out of sacrifice or desperation, and most of the sentencing seems distinctly biased against minorities and drug crimes. And in this way (not to mention the new privatization of the prison) OITNB criticizes the prison system as a whole, while not directing any real indictments toward most of the staff who are just trying to do their jobs. Indeed, we get humanizing stories over these two seasons for both Caputo (Nick Sandow) and Fig (Alysia Reiner), and we even look deeper into the issues that haunt Healy (Michael Harney). Bennett (Matt McGorry) is revealed to not be as perfect as we thought, and Pornstache (Pablo Schreiber) is revealed to not be as evil. Even the guard who rapes Pennsatucky, and who deserves her ire, she instead reveals only to have made her really sad. These are human beings, with strengths and flaws, who are capable of greatness and of horrors in equal measure, but who one and all think of themselves as good people.
Nicky (Natasha Lyonne) might be the one true exception to the rule, as she realizes she’s sabotaged herself yet again and is moved over to Max, where perhaps she feels she belongs. But Morello (Yael Stone) who sics her new pen pal love on her former obsession, seems to feel justified in her actions. Suzanne (Uzo Aduba) justifies her violence of the previous season against Poussey (Samira Wiley). And Piper is out for her own gain in her panty smuggling operation, which she rationalizes as not stealing from the Whispers corporation at all since she’s reallocating what would have been unused scraps of fabric, while also excusing her cheating on the re-incarcerated Alex with Stella (Ruby Rose) because of Alex’s paranoia over Lolly (Lori Petty). Even Aleida (Elizabeth Rodriguez) thinks she’s doing the right thing for Daya (Dascha Polanco) and her baby. It’s a world of blurry lines and murky values, that reveals how impossible it is to ever really label anyone as good or bad.
Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) was a formidable villain and she injected season two with much-needed life, but she always knew what she was doing, and in that sense was more of a true bad guy than anyone else on the series. Her death at the end of that season was welcome, because her villainy had outlived its usefulness both for the prisoners and as a plot device. (That it came from Rosa, played by Barbara Rosenblat, going out in the blaze of glory she’d always dreamed of, was incredibly satisfying as well.) The gray areas of season three had no place for someone as clearly driven as Vee, being much better suited to nuance and subtlety. And I found it far more thought-provoking and revelatory as a result.
Orange is the New Black is available exclusively on Netflix.
Viable Option 