I decided to read Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman before I realized that Netflix had just released Season 2. It was a good moment of coincidental timing because the series’ second season follows the book more closely than it has in a while and it was interesting to have Kerman’s perspective to compare to as events unfolded onscreen.
[CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD]
While book and show both have a sense of “We’re All in This Together” camaraderie (I can’t help but imagine the inmates bursting into song, pulling off their khaki prison uniforms to reveal High School Musical-style cheerleading outfits), the book ignores the fact that the women in prison are there for a reason. Some for better reasons than others. Likely this stems from the fact that, as Kerman notes frequently, you are not supposed to ask an inmate about their crime. You talked about how long they were in, you talked about where they were from, but you didn’t discuss what had landed them in prison in the first place. Whether that allowed Kerman to simply believe the best in all of her fellow inmates or whether she deluded herself into believing that none of them truly deserved to be there is unclear. Rarely does she seem bitter about her time in prison and she continually says that she realized that it was ultimately her own fault that she was there—she came to understand that her drug smuggling involvement, however peripheral her role might have been, played a part in destroying many of these other women’s lives by helping them gain access to drugs. But where both the book and the TV show expose the poor treatment of the prisons, the series also delves into their crimes, giving viewers a weird feeling of “I’m rooting for you?” instead of the expected “I’m rooting for you!” in most television shows. (Think of when you watched Dexter. You knew he was a bad guy who deserved to be caught, but you never really wanted it to happen.) That moment during visiting hours, where Christopher yells for all to hear that not only is he not marrying inmate Lorna Morello, but in fact she is a crazy stalker who won’t leave him and his wife alone is cringe-worthy. From a real world perspective, he is totally justified in his yelling (maybe not the smartest course of action considering she may be unstable but certainly an understandable one). From a viewer’s perspective, it is hard not to feel for the woman who falls apart under the anger of the man she has inexplicably convinced herself she is going to marry.
But enough about the book, you can read more of my thoughts on the book (and the topic above) in my book review section, A Writer’s Review. Let’s dig in to some of the greatest moments of Season 2.
Everything Alex. I’m not sure what it is about Laura Prepon in this role, but whenever she was involved in the story, my attention spiked. I cannot say I particularly cared for this actress before (I was not a That 70’s Show fan), but I sure am glad we’ll be getting her back full time for Season 3. Whenever she is around, Piper becomes instantly more interesting. TVGuide had an entire article debating whether Piper or Alex was the worse person. I think it is pretty clear that in many ways, they are both bad people, but more because of their inability to predict how and if their actions affect others. It is clear that in many ways they inspire the worst in each other, yet can’t seem to break off their relationship. Did Alex totally betray Piper (and potentially extend her prison sentence) by telling the truth and taking the plea deal? Maybe, but you can argue that Alex thought Piper was going to tell the truth no matter what and so she had nothing to lose by telling the truth too. What about Piper’s choice to turn Alex in? Was she doing it out of spite or out of a desire not to lose Alex or out of a desire to protect her? Hard to say. She could not have know that Alex would pull out a gun when the probation officer came by. Potentially, nothing would have happened at all because the probation officer might have found Alex there looking like she’s doing nothing (in which case Alex could have denied it and claimed Piper was trying to get revenge on her) or Alex might have already been long gone (which they would have discovered at one point or another). All I can say is that she may have only popped up a few times this season, but she had a big impact and I’m excited to see what happens when Alex is behind bars again.
Red vs. Vee (vs. Gloria?). If one thing was made clear in Season 2, it is that, although Gloria may run the kitchen, she is no OG (Original Gangster). She was continually used and manipulated by Red and Vee in their fight for power (a fight which mirrored their first time in jail together years earlier). The series showed us just how Red came to run things and it was fascinating to see her as a newbie in prison. Vee created her own competition, thinking that it would be easy to control her creation. If she had handled thing differently, Red probably would have let her in on the smuggling operation and they would not have the power struggle they went through. I also loved seeing Red after her fall from grace. It was hard no to root for her (it is also hard for me not to think “That’s Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager!” but I work on it every episode). It becomes clear that for all Red’s control issues, she really does view people like Nicky and Morello as family. Ultimately, Gloria must choose between the lesser of two evils and decides it is better to have Red than Vee to battle it out against for control. What I did not see coming? Vee’s end coming in a hit and run as she’s about to make it to freedom. (You go Miss Rosa!–see this show has me cheering for a women who just spent her last days teach an innocent teen how to lift wallets from people’s purses.)
Nicky vs. Boo (and most other Nicky moments). There were some really great moments brought on by Nicky and Boo’s sex competition, from Nicky’s failed attempt to pick up a prison guard, to the moment they look at each other and anxiously agree to end the competition on a tie. A moment of great subtle acting comes when Nicky, in a rush to catch up to Boo, hooks up with a number of women in a row. It is clear that this is getting to her when she starts massaging her jaw likes she’s in pain from overworking it. I don’t know if that was something written into the script or if Natasha Lyonne came up with that on her own, but whoever’s idea it was, I really appreciated it. Nicky had some other great moments–turning her drugs over to Red so she wouldn’t use them, giving the fired prison guard a pep talk about finding something better in life, schooling Red on the need to apologize if she wants to win back her family, comforting Morello after Christopher humiliates her, etc. In fact, Nicky might be in contention for one of my favorite characters.
Piper’s Trip to Chicago. Even before she is reunited with Alex, Piper’s trip down to Chicago in the season opener was an exciting change of pace for the series. (Also directed by Jodie Foster, which is a random but interesting bit of trivia.) The trip there, with the Vaseline in another inmate’s ears (a detail adapted from the book), the cigarette-carrying cockroaches and threatening cellmates, the murderer-not-rapist, the initially harmless seeming cellmate determined to figure out Piper’s sex drive (or something?)…It was refreshing to get a change of scenery, however temporary, and helped put Litchfield into perspective. Piper definitely learned how much worse off she could be. Or maybe Chicago only seemed bad because Piper never had the time to settle in like she did at Litchfield. That place seemed scary and foreign when she first arrived too right?
Compassionate Release. I hate to say this is one of the season’s best moments, but this storyline was so startlingly sad. (I know this show runs for awards as a comedy but I contend that this is a drama with occasionally funny moments and not the reverse.) Season 2 touched a great deal upon the corruption and mistreatment within the corrections system, but while the other issues were mostly played for laughs (the 30 second shower rule to keep the pipes from backing up, the empty generators when the power went out), the this was not one of them. Basically, Jimmy is an elderly inmate with dementia. Deciding that they don’t want to deal with paying to properly care for her, she is “compassionately” released, onto the street, where she will undoubtedly die within the week. That scene where she was being led to the van, calling for Roberta (Piper) to help her, was rough to watch. 
Sleepover and Sing-along. Never has Litchfield prison felt more like a summer camp on the show than when they are all brought into a single area to sleep when the power goes out during a bad storm and Soso (who is almost certainly the most irritating addition to the series) leads them all in a group sing-along. It started awkwardly enough with everyone staring at her like she was crazy—which she very well might be—but soon everyone had joined in. If you can’t beat crazy might as well be crazy, right? Sure, they will never be singing High School Musical together, but this was pretty close (and I can just imagine some people picking up with a rendition of “Stick to the Status Quo”). Of course, the fun of the occasion was brought down a bit by Red and Vee’s crazy showdown, but it was worth it for a few moments of fun.
While we saw a lot of time devoted to Healey, Fig, Caputo, Bennett, and Pornstache, these storylines mostly fell flat for me. The Fig-Caputo politics were the show’s most predictable element, Healey’s story was depressing (and not in a good way), and the Bennett-Pornstache-Daya love triangle dragged. Bennett and Daya were fighting all the time (understandably so, but why would she want him to end up in prison? how would that help the situation? they would never be able to see each other again, he wouldn’t be able to help raise the baby, they would lose the income he could earn…) and you almost felt bad for Pornstache, if not for the fact that everyone seems better off with him in jail. (The knowledge that Bennett and Pornstache were equally guilty under the law was the most interesting part of the whole story.)
What did you think TV watchers? Were you able to get through all 13 episodes this weekend? Where do you stand in the Alex vs. Piper debate for worst human being? Who do you want to win the power struggle between Litchfield’s top prisoners?
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