Killer Serials ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, Season 3, Eps. 4-6 June 23, 2015 J. Ryan Parker Tony and I are back with the second installment of Killer Serials and a look at episodes four, five, and six of the third season of Orange is the New Black. JRP So we got off to a good start with themes of motherhood, spiritual longing, and the tension between truth and confession. While those themes are still prevalent across the next three episodes, new ones take center stage, and I think two rise to the top. The first is the notion of identity or maybe identity ownership and who can be what and who can say what. The second is the privatization of Litchfield with the arrival of MCC and the Whispers Lingerie contract. Boo’s character drives Episode 4 and it’s a fundamental discussion of identity and how it functions. I found her teenage relationship with her father to be a breath of fresh air, but as an adult, when she visits her mother in the hospital, it turns into something that we’ve seen before, even in this series. Is her sexuality her true self or is it a costume she wears like her father suggests, or is it a combination of both? Her father tells her, “No one gets the privilege of being who they are all the time.” When Boo tries to “pass” as “evangeli-crazy” she can’t do it, because it has been a main source of her oppression for so long. In the kitchen, and across the prison, Norma is taking up her own spiritual practice and she is gaining popularity, much to Gloria’s chagrin. Gloria confronts Norma and tells her, “Santeria is some serious shit. […] This ain’t your culture. This ain’t your history.” Closely related to this in terms of spirituality is the popularity of Kosher meals among some of the prisoners. Black Cindy takes advantage of religious freedom and begins eating them even though she’s not Jewish. Nor is Lolly, the new prisoner who starts the craze. Finally, in terms of identity, as the women begin working in the “sweatshop,” Piper calls it for what it is, slave labor. Black Cindy and Janae hear her and promptly correct her. Janae tells her, “You don’t get to say that.” Black Cindy says the more appropriate definition is indentured servitude, which Piper wouldn’t know about either. But, in this case, Piper is right. She, like Black Cindy and Janae, is being exploited for pennies on the hour. TJ Identity is primary, as you say, but even now it’s tied to motherhood, which I think is emerging as the overriding issue of season three. Each character, it seems, has a tortured relationship with her mom, and that hangs over their desire to develop and mature. I really love that we’re getting backstories of the next ring of characters, including Big Boo. As you suggest, her parents’ rejection of her sexuality is redundant — that’s what drove Poussey away from her parents — but it’s surely common enough in the real world to merit that. I’m fascinated by the identity issues in episode six, “Ching Chang Ding Dong.” Before watching it, I’d been wondering if anyone at Litchfield is lonelier than Poussey, and I thought of Chang. Then this episode delved into her background, showing her as an acne-scarred Chinese immigrant, too homely even to be sold into marriage. But we also saw that she has a secret life at the prison that seems to bring her much fulfillment. If Chang’s appearance as a young woman shaped her identity, so does Piper’s. The conversations about beauty are fascinating around the Whispers Lingerie sewing tables. The women debate different racial standards of beauty, but they all agree that the standard white version is skinny and blonde. And they all look at Piper. But Piper is complaining about her looks, which is when a new character, Stella, calls bullshit on her. When it comes to identity, Piper may know herself least of anyone. Though Caputo may give her a run for her money. JRP The privatization of Litchfield Prison is a damning depiction of something we don’t often talk about in mainstream conversations. I know that many people refuse to watch the series and, for me, this is one of the more troubling aspects of this new season. It’s mining humor from one of the most inhumane practices in twenty-first century America. Not only are wages criminally low, new management looks to save money even on feeding the prisoners. MCC representatives complain that Caputo can’t get the per-meal-average down to the national standard of $ he’s 21 cents off. But the privatization of prisons doesn’t result in just slave labor, it exploits the guards and staff as well, whose benefits are cut to save money. Less strenuous hiring practices lead to ill-equipped guards, which are ineffective in keeping order. I I think one key aspect of the privatization of Litchfield is part of a larger theme food and its implication for agency and freedom. Red is literally devastated when MCC ships in bagged food to feed the inmates. Even though she was working with shitty ingredients in previous seasons, she was still preparing and cooking it. Part of Chang’s fulfillment comes from her ability to make and eat the type of food she likes. TJ I love that work that Chang does to create meals that are gratifying to her. But it’s also heart-rending because of the amount of work she has to go through to make it happen. And I agree completely about the privatization issue. I’ve read a couple pieces where commentators disparage OITNB because it makes light of prison and doesn’t show how difficult life inside really is, and I thought of that during Chang’s time in the shed, eating an orange and watching TV on a phone, wondering, Would she really have that much freedom? But in spite of these, I commend Kohan for raising the issue of privatization this season. Kohan is in good company in using comedy to shed light on our country’s moral failure — that’s exactly what Robert Altman and Larry Gelbart did with M*A*S* Check back next week for our dialogue on episodes 7, 8, and 9.

Sam Brooks reviews the final season of Orange is the New Black and finds a fitting end to the series’ tremendous legacy. Light spoilers for the final season of Orange is the New Black. “It was maybe four percent of my life, but it was enough to change absolutely everything, and I have no idea who I am now.” Piper Chapman utters this about halfway through the last season of Orange is the New Black, and it’s a line that distills everything about the show in a few quiet, sad moments. Even Piper, one of the most privileged characters on the show, is irreversibly changed by her 18 months in prison. Even though the show fell out of critical favour in the latter half of its run, a result of some daring formal choices and cultural fatigue, Orange is the New Black has never stopped committing to what it set out to do. It showed us how systems constantly victimise people to maintain themselves, and the ways that the system transforms those victims into tools, into weapons, into resources to be drained. Even better, and more importantly, it gave us one of the most diverse and frankly tremendous casts on television. In its final season, Orange is the New Black doubles down on everything that made people love it in the first place, and even some of the things that made people turn off. Firstly, the tone is a masterclass in balance – this is probably the heaviest season of the show since the second season but there’s enough humour and warmth spread throughout that it never becomes unbearable. Considering that it tackles both ICE America’s much-reviled Immigration and Customs Enforcement service and MeToo – the latter with just the right amount of humour and the closest thing to an acceptable redemptive ending – that’s an achievement. Morello Yael Stone, Red Kate Mulgrew and Nicky Natasha Lyonne are part of the tremendous cast of Orange is the New Black. Secondly, OITNB knows how to use the massive cast it’s accumulated over seven seasons. Characters like Maritza step in and out of the spotlight as needed, and it’s wonderful to see that character develop from a comic relief role – the ditzy image-obsessed Latinx girl – at the start of the show’s run to delivering one of this season’s gut-punches. It’s taken seven seasons for OITNB to realise the kind of gift they were given when they cast Natasha Lyonne, basically whiskey-and-coke in human form, in a relatively small role in season one. Lyonne’s Nicky gets the chance to figure into several plotlines this time around, and the show’s all the better for it – she enlivens whatever scene she’s in without ever stealing focus. On the other hand, the show has never figured out what to do with Alex Vause. Laura Prepon, who plays her, is one of television’s most uniquely inexpressive performers, and the season’s only dud moments are when she unnecessarily takes the spotlight. We’re lucky that most of her scenes are with Taylor Schilling, delivering an underrated, high-wire performance as Piper Chapman, but at times the gulf of humanity between the actors makes it difficult to appreciate the romance. Which brings us to the elephant, or the Trojan horse in the room Piper. One of the hardest things that OITNB has had to do in the course of its seven seasons is figure out how to use its central character. On one hand, she could be one of the most irritating people on the show a white woman from an upper-middle-class family who is only nominally aware of her privilege. On the other hand, she’s a necessary gateway into the show. Piper Chapman, the Trojan horse of Orange is the New Black. When Orange is the New Black began in 2013, it was at the forefront of many conversations about race, gender, sexuality, privilege and how all those things come together at an intersection with no traffic lights. Piper was, for the majority of the audience, the gateway into these conversations. The fact is, if you’re watching this show, and you have a Netflix subscription and 13 spare hours a year to spend watching it, you and your privilege are probably closer to Piper than you’d like to admit. The past two seasons have done an incredible job of de-centring and re-centring Piper as the narrative requires. These final episodes see Piper learning how to live her life after prison, the constant battles against a system whose aggressions leave scars well after her sentence. The show’s already shown us what happens to people less privileged than Piper after they leave prison Taystee doesn’t know how to live outside the system so intentionally reoffends, Aleida ends up dealing drugs out of desperation. By showing us Piper’s struggles to keep a part-time job and attend constant parole meetings, while trying to keep up a relationship with her still-incarcerated wife, it’s the final twist of the knife. The system’s damage is like an oil spill it doesn’t care about your privilege, it’ll contaminate you anyway. After 91 episodes, it’s inarguable that Orange is the New Black is one of the most significant shows of our time. It changed the way we watched television more than any other show of the streaming era, and in an era where streaming giants seem to be cutting off series at the two-or-three season mark in order to achieve maximum profits, that we got seven seasons of a show like it seems a miracle. It was never a subtle show, but subtlety is overrated – when you’re hitting marks as deeply necessary as OITNB is, you better make sure you’re leaving a bruise. Laura Gomez as Blanca Flores in Orange is the New Black. And while, yes, Piper was our entry into this world, it’s not her who leaves the biggest impact. When I look back on seven seasons and its most stirring moments, Piper barely figures into it. The show was, at its best, about hitting you with human moments that make its themes resonate. Suzanne asking, quietly, “How come everybody calls me Crazy Eyes?”. Nicky’s tragic, heavy-eyed relapse. Blanca standing on the table, pissing herself in peaceful protest. The joyous swim in the lake – a literal oasis of happiness in a desert of shit. Poussey whispering, pleadingly, “I can’t breathe.” This season has those aplenty, some happy, some heart wrenching, many bittersweet. But the moment that sticks with me? Taystee, played so tremendously by Danielle Brooks all these years, simply looking at a list of the mission statements of the prison she’s been doomed to spend her life in. And silently ticking off all the ways that the prison has failed them, and even worse, failed her. You can watch all seven seasons of Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

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