Summer TV Binge: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

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.

MY MOVIE SHELF: A League of Their Own

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 209  Days to go: 210

Movie #168:  A League of Their Own

Hey, does anybody know if there’s any crying in baseball? No one’s ever said.

A League of Their Own, in case you were born yesterday or have lived in a cave the past twenty-two years, is the tale of Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) remembering the year she played for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She has a competitive relationship with her kid sister Kit (Lori Petty), takes on a leadership role within her team, the Rockford Peaches, builds a grudging respect and collaboration with their drunken manager, Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), and is seen as the best, most important and most dynamic player in the league.

I love stories about women and about their relationships, and this is a really well-told story. It’s the story of a women’s professional baseball league that is officially titled with “Girls” in the name and how it’s simultaneously freeing and objectifying. It’s about women lifting each other up and succeeding together. Some of these women have been put down all their lives, some of them have never learned to read, some are venturing out of their tiny little small-town existences for the first time, some are their families’ breadwinners, and all are finding camaraderie, companionship and a world of opportunity they never knew was there before. It’s such a refreshing change from lots of stories about women, that almost always involve a steep rivalry. Here the only real relationship rivalry is between Dottie and Kit (almost entirely on Kit’s side, since Dottie doesn’t know what Kit’s problem is half the time), and they’re sisters, so there’s more love than animosity, and always will be. If you focus on just the conflicts, you miss the part where Kit makes a plea to Dottie for her very well-being at the beginning of the film, begging for the chance to leave their hometown and to be someone, and Dottie gives it to her. You’d miss how supportive she is, how much she praises her. You’d miss how they come together at the end, mingling happy and sad over the result of the World Series, but with a love for each other that binds them together stronger than time or distance or even baseball can break. You’d also miss how they stick together in Fort Collins, Colorado, as Marla (Megan Cavanagh) is trying out for the scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz), and if you miss anything to do with the scout, you’ve done yourself a grievous wrong.

Ernie Capadino is the most perfect perfect perfect character in this film. He’s brash and cold and cuts to the chase, and literally almost every single line of his is hilarious. Whether he’s sarcastically cutting down the “milk maids,” as he calls them, and their naiveté, or offering to drum up a pistol for a man whose job is so boring Ernie would kill himself if he had it, or simply going home to “give the wife a little pickle tickle,” he’s fantastic. But the absolute best moment is when Marla lifts her head to show her face to him at, let’s say, not the most advantageous angle. He makes a face that is priceless in its shock and disgust, and it is my favorite face of all time.

There are parts of the film that feel clunky to me — the framing in the present, the silly earworm song about the league (even though it was the real song of the league, it’s still so oddly wedged into the film), and the casting of Madonna as a woman who liked to show off her bosoms named “All the Way” Mae Mordabito, to name a few. But so much of it is strong and moving (and funny), that the ill-fitting aspects are easily overlooked. Tom Hanks’s performance grows on me every time I watch it, always giving me a slightly greater glimpse at all the nuance he put into this role that initially struck me as just bluster. Yes, hitting Stillwell Angel (Justin Scheller) in the head with a glove is a perfect moment, but so is the time he wrestles away the telegram and solemnly delivers it to the player whose husband has just died in the war. (If you do not bawl your eyes out in that moment, even when you know it is coming, you’ve got a stronger constitution than I.)

One of the things that has always struck me about A League of Their Own, though, is the opening scene. A grandmother is preparing to go on a trip across the country to the induction of women (and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League) into the Baseball Hall of Fame. She’s reluctant, but her daughter is insistent and as they are leaving, the woman’s two grandsons are playing basketball. To the older, she offers a reminder that his younger brother is still smaller, no matter what he does, so give him a chance to shoot. To the younger, she says, “Kill him.” I’ve thought about this so many times, how this woman’s relationship with her little sister growing up (because we will soon find that this is an older Dottie Hinson, played by Lynn Cartwright in these opening and closing scenes) frames how she treats and encourages her grandchildren. It’s something we all do to a certain extent, of course. Our experiences inform our perceptions. But I find it infinitely interesting all the same.

It’s as if Dottie feels regret toward her relationship with Kit, as if it’s somehow Dottie’s responsibility that Kit feels inferior to her. And yet, being that older, protective sibling, she’s going to feel responsible for her younger sister. It’s fascinating how cyclical these patterns are, and I honestly can’t tell you if I think Dottie is justified or not in her regret (not that anyone has to justify regret, but you know what I mean — does she have a reason, something she did, etc.). I might be the only person to focus in on that, but I come across it a lot — in how my experiences have shaped by behaviors, how my kids are shaped by their experiences, and how much of an excuse that gives us, if any, for the way we act going forward. It’s a puzzle.

I also like the funny parts, I’m not a monster. I like the decorum classes. I agree that “avoid the clap” is good advice. I like the idea of calling someone Betty Spaghetti, and if I knew anyone whose name rhymed with spaghetti, I’d be on it. I like Rosie O’Donnell as Doris, but I love her dad and her admirers just a little bit more. I love “singing to Nelson.” I love thanking God for “that waitress in South Bend.” I’m a fan of an uncomfortably long pee joke. I like Ann Cusack learning to read “grabbed her milky white breasts,” because, after all, it only matters that she’s reading. I like Garry Marshall as fictionalized candy pioneer and league owner Walter Harvey, who keeps his socializing short and sweet. I like David Strathairn as Ira Lowenstein, who, until Jimmy scratched his balls for an hour in the 5th inning, didn’t know if he was drunk or dead. I like dirt in the skirt and “accidentally” hitting jerks in the stands with baseballs. I even like seeing Tea Leoni playing for Racine. And heaven knows I love all those really well-done baseball montages.

However, with only four teams in the entire league? There are way too many games in a baseball season. I will die on this hill.