A thread for Netflix's women-in-prison dramedy ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

then again it's a quasi mainstream program tackling prison privatization so I can't really be mad at that at end of day.

So many things about this season I hated, and so few that I liked.

Piper was always a fucking joke, but the shit is just comical at this point. Wasn't just her, though. No one had a story this year that wasn't just aimless and stupid, except for Doggett's and Cindy's (which were horrifying and touching, respectively). Also, wtf with Nicky/Natasha Lyonne? I mean, you don't send anyone up to max and expect them to come back, so is she gone from the show? If so, AW HELL NO.

At least Alex is probably fucking dead now, thank goodness.

I guess I'd walk back the blanket "aimless and stupid" accusations for things like Soso and Chang, and Sophia too (although she shouldn't have been feeding Michael that bad advice and then expect him not to use it). But the whole Dia baby Bennett and Pornstache's mom will she/won't she thing was terrible, and Susanne's erotica storyline was just silly and especially all the stuff about Norma and her followers was beyond my will to roll along with whatever happens. And when Lori Petty turned out to just be a tinfoil hat nutjob I was super disappointed.

it's a quasi mainstream program tackling prison privatization so I can't really be mad at that at end of day.

True, I guess. And casting Bibiglia as the wishy washy middle manager was perfect, because he's a smackable kind of guy.

I wonder what Chang actually got sent to prison for, probably not for ordering a murder. Maybe just the animal part smuggling?

for being an accessory to murder?

those guys didn't seem like criminal masterminds and probably kidnapping and killing some normal guy is not the easiest thing to get away with.

But the whole Dia baby Bennett and Pornstache's mom will she/won't she thing was terrible
will she/won't she give the baby to rich not-grandma was not the point of that story, at least as far as i could tell. from my perspective it was about Daya and her mom, who was an interesting character too. i also thought Cesar was someone we don't see much in tv but who i've known irl. all of that family, really. one of the things i liked a lot about the show is how it showed differences between individual people rather than monolithic ethnic groups (or the even broader group of "women in prison") i also loled when someone referred to Daya as the one who looks like a goldfish. that was hilarious and otm even if i can't remember exactly which goldfish she looks like.

similarly, the magic norma subplot wasn't about norma, but belief and faith (leanne, etc), orthodoxy, etc. again, from my perspective.

natasha lyonne's disappearance was a disappointment, but also i think it served to bring the viewer closer to the other characters. she can suck up all the air in a room. the australian woman was pretty but i didn't really enjoy her subplot much. did not need to see caputo doing it with fig though.

norma is my guru

will she/won't she give the baby to rich not-grandma was not the point of that story, at least as far as i could tell. from my perspective it was about Daya and her mom, who was an interesting character too. i also thought Cesar was someone we don't see much in tv but who i've known irl. all of that family, really. one of the things i liked a lot about the show is how it showed differences between individual people rather than monolithic ethnic groups (or the even broader group of "women in prison") i also loled when someone referred to Daya as the one who looks like a goldfish. that was hilarious and otm even if i can't remember exactly which goldfish she looks like.

similarly, the magic norma subplot wasn't about norma, but belief and faith (leanne, etc), orthodoxy, etc. again, from my perspective.

I agree with all of this, but I just think a little would've gone a long way and a lot was too much.

wow I just finished it! Way less plot/conflict/narrative arc driven than the first 2 seasons and way more day-to-day character-focused goings-on. I didn't dislike it, though! But I was surprised the tone shifted so much. The Australian was such a weird red herring, like she just showed up out of NOWHERE and was barely in it and wasn't even sinister enough to be mysterious; she just felt totally and completely out of place. I loved that Lori Petty wound up being harmless especially the at first subtle and then increasingly heavy handed hints at her being some v scary figure.

Also I am strangely hating Piper less and less now that she's dropped this whole precious yuppie thing and is actually like a rly vengeful and shitty person!

Did this season have any legit villains besides the awful donut dude?

the real villain was BIG BUSINESS

Looooved the Lori petty character

I'd been wondering if my broken affect was hampering my enjoyment of this season, but apparently lots of people were bored by it.

All "whom will Piper smooch" storylines are terrible, but I actually liked parts of her rise to kingpin status, as some twisted version of American entrepreneurial mythology.

I thought that Lolly was playing a long game by pretending to be schizo and confronting Alex to assess her kung fu skills, and then turn out to be an assassin after all. But yeah, her apparent death did some to be sealed for a while.

Soso's OD was hard to take.

Flaca looks good in pigtails.

I still feel that the show doesn't really doesn't do a great job at expressing the normalized degradation of prison life -- I always think of Litchfield as a weirdly oppressive summer camp with remote/authoritative camp counselors, since the inmates are so often up to goofy hijinks, some of which look genuinely fun -- only with occasional explosions of violence.

Cindy's conversion discussion with the rabbi was pretty cool, though.

i loved the Cindy plotline and thought it paid off well in the finale. hated piper + alex for almost the entire season - but i liked at the end when piper set up the australian tattoo artist and acted all cold + villainous. i'm excited for what seems like them doubling the cast w/ all the new inmates? glad bennett is gone - what a shit storyline that is. for some reason had a particularly hard time buying the prison this season - it seems like the inmates are pretty much allowed to go wherever they want whenever they want. they're gardening, doing personal cooking projects in the kitchen, writing erotica in the bunks (i cannot believe that they let the inmates walk around w/ pens -- and not just any inmate but crazy eyes!). in some ways (like the doggett storyline) the show feels brutally honest, but against this backdrop of a totally fantastical setting. it's a weird thing to reconcile.

just a few more words on the Cindy plotline bc i was pretty turned off to it in the beginning - it seemed like a kinda cheap joke at the expense of jewishness (all these obviously gentile women lying about being jews so they could eat frozen meals), and even when the show was trying to demonstrate that Cindy was a bit more committed to it than the other participants, i didn't completely buy it. it seemed so 'jewfacey' w/ her dropping random yiddish words and references - and maybe even doubly-offensive since the humor seemed to come from the big black woman pretending to be jewish as though that was funny in-and-of-itself. but then she started speaking sincerely about her relationship to jewishness during her conversion talk w/ the rabbi and i really bought it and got onboard. her rejection of jesus and the afterlife in favor of community + working in this world resonated w/ me and even though the conversion process that the show demonstrates is totally bogus (some rando rabbi giving her the go-ahead and then her dipping on her own), i liked it and i really loved her mikvah immersion scene. if she wants a full conversion she'd have to go through a more intensive process probably after getting out, but from my pov afaic fictional character Cindy is a member of the tribe.

the conversion process that the show demonstrates is totally bogus (some rando rabbi giving her the go-ahead and then her dipping on her own)

You get what you get in a prison, I guess?

no, for sure, but the Rabbi sitting there and being all, "ask me again," and then saying "yes," and that being enough except that she needed to dip in a mikvah -- i mean at least ime that is a fictional, truncated representation of how conversion works and a rabbi would be pretty irresponsible to imply that it was sufficient for her to convert.

but as a purely symbolic indication of her commitment i found it very moving

Should we be calling her Tova now?

Which was the conversion ep? I watched the first two eps from the most recent season and decided to pass on the remainder, but I will go back for a conversion ep!

It was the finale.

(Finale bonus: you get to see Alex probably get knocked off.)

iirc second to last she meets w the Rabbi to convert and she dips in the mikvah in the finale but the storyline starts up prob midway thru the season

Oh, was it second to last? Hmm, probably a safe bet to watch the final two anyway. They weren't as bad as the rest of the season. (Also, watch the Chang episode. It's really good.)

OK, I am going to cue up Chang and the last two eps--thanking u for saving me from dud eps, which the first two certainly were.

http://www.clickhole.com/article/why-your-mother-and-i-are-getting-divorced-explain-598

god the finale just would not end

they sure got to hang out at that lake without any COs seeming to care or interfere for a long time

they sure got to hang out at that lake without any COs seeming to care or interfere for a long time

There were no COs!

OK, I am going to cue up Chang and the last two eps--thanking u for saving me from dud eps, which the first two certainly were.

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Friday, July 10, 2015 2:26 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i loved the Chang episode

I think the convo with the rabbi was in the finale. It just seemed like such a freaking long ep.

That's because it was 90 minutes!

lol

Even so

wife and I started watching this and idk how I really feel about it - tonally it's a mess. Am I actually supposed to care about these people and their campy yet lazily sketched out "problems"? The writing seems to have Golden Girls syndrome, it's almost a parody of "gay man writes dialogue for women" cliches, and then there's tons of racial stuff that just feels awkward and forced. I can't tell how much the show expects the viewer to invest in the characters and plots as anything approaching realistic (as with, say, the Sopranos), or if we're supposed to just laugh at how ridiculous everything is and enjoy the melodrama (as with, say, American Horror Story).

how far in are you?

middle of season 1

We stopped watching after season 2.

last night we were on this episode where Moustachski from the Wire was trying to ferret out info from the engaged inmate how heroin was getting into the prison and at first it was framed like something threatening/dangerous was about to go down - he even literally threatens her - and then when she insists she doesn't know anything instead of following through on his threat to "stop playing nice" he just... backs off and does nothing?

this felt emblematic of the show's general confusion. It toys with "prison is scary and dangerous!" stuff but then abruptly opts for some silly hijinks a la Laura Prepon is trapped in a dryer

if you stop now you won't get to hear that song 30 more times

I'll say it get's significantly better in the second half of the season.

Said it before, show essentially operates like a lesser MASH.

haha I totally see that - ensemble cast, ostensible horrors of situation occasionally alluded to but usually backgrounded in favor of hijinks (barring the odd "Hawkeye strangles a baby on a bus" finale episode)

when this came on the scene, Netflix original programming was still pretty novel, and having all the episodes at once made it a v new and enjoyable experience

was thinking of polling the Netflix shows. They've yet to really make a great show imo, seems like they're feeling their way through making things that have really clear antecedents from/connections to shows on other networks (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt:30 Rock, Master of None: Louie, Mr. Show:Mr. Show, OITNB:idk uh Breaking Bad?)

If there's another show full of Lisa Hanawalt character designs and sight gags, let me know

I'd say both Bojack Horseman and Making a Murderer are great.

I haven't watched either of those. Got the impression that Bojack was m/l some Adult Swim sort of shit