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

Just finished the first season - it picks up in a serious way in the second half, and that's not to suggest the first half is at all bad.

so this is good? i've heard rumblings about it being good, but i need some ammo to convince the wife to give it a go.

I liked it a lot, and you'll know if it's fr you by the end of the second episode (when it becomes clear that they'll be focusing on a whole bunch of inmates, not just the pretty blonde lead)

yea i was out by end of ep 2. could see it turning out 'ok' but not for me

Without saying too much, I was surprised at how moving many scenes were by the last few hours, not to mention, occasionally, very tense.

I'm on ep 2 now, glad to see oth inmates' stories starting because the tv-pretty lead is the least interesting person so far. Also don't tell me, I'm just going to hope Jason Biggs cheats on her soon and then breaks up w her in some craven way because I hate him and then I won't have to look at him anymore.

It's not that I don't feel for her, it's that there's a certain kind of focus group-approved "pretty" that's so innocuous that it reads as a visual blank to me. I feel the same way about Donna on The West Wing, I want to like her but her face barely registers.

I'm starting ep 6 tonight and p hooked. I initially had the same thoughts regarding the lead (kinda bland, didn't make huge impression), but I've really warmed to her. She really does a great job looking exhausted and shitty by the third or fourth episode.

we are on episode 6 tonight. we dig it.

this show has the longest intro credits sequence ever. other than that i like it? sorta? its weirdly uncompelling. also every scene with biggs and the lead is torture, and the side plot abt the guard/inmate romance is completely terrible. also weirded out abt the fact that moustache guard seems to be played for laughs despite him being pretty much super rapey and terrible.

yeah its weird that they go reno 911 with that guy but maybe that just sets him up to be more menacing later cuz at first you think he's just a joke.

that regina spekter theme song has grown on me. don't think i have every knowingly listened to her before.

i bailed on Weeds early on. i wanted to like it, but i just didn't care what happened to anyone. i like her.

you know sexy weeds mom. i like her. this and weeds can have a forced quirky thing that is just normal on a lot of t.v. like this. sometimes it works. i hate american pie dude on this show. i don't really enjoy looking at him. which sounds mean, but his energy bugs me. his aura. plus he's such a phony. i can't believe him as an adult human in the world. i think he must live in a backlot in hollywood somewhere. phony baloney.

They do some stuff with Pornstache late in the season that alters our perception of him a tiny bit; it's a nice touch.

I kind of hate the theme song, if only for the way it clumsily/obviously underlines the themes. Also, TOO LONG.

the theme song is way loud too.

almost as bad as the entourage theme song. very enjoyable show

remember the first time you heard the sopranos theme song? also very loud. and long. took some getting used to. this song is very attention-getting like that. i get used to things SO fast though. then i barely notice them.

this was prett good, i thought!

pretty good

also, natasha lyonne! i didn't realize how much i missed you, girl. good to see you.

One of the actors lives in my neighborhood and I saw her at a caf on Saturday. I automatically clocked that I knew her, the idea floated up to my conscious thought level that she was that character, my rational side said, "Don't be ridiculous" and dismissed it, and I kept getting coffee and stuff while mulling it over, trying to figure out who she really was to look so familiar. Dumb brain.

i was looking at the imdb for this yesterday, it's interesting how the cast is a mix of people with very little experience and people who have been around for a long time and have been in stuff you recognize. like pennsatuckey (one of my favorite characters) is taryn manning, who was in eight mile, crazy/beautiful, etc.

she was in sons of anarchy too, wasn't she?

and the inmate who never talks was cliff clavin's gf maggie o'keefe from cheers

never watched sons of anarchy but i think so

love taryn manning in this. love everybody really. i'm just glad to see natasha lyonne with a good role to play. she's had her "troubles", right?

only a few episodes left of the season, i think i like this show a lot. i think i have the opposite of scott's reaction to the theme song. it's getting worse and worse and longer and worse.

(SORRY 4 SPOILERS)

want to see pornstache go down so hard and am not enjoying what is happening to diaz. biggs character getting more and more hateable as the series progresses but hasn't been a huge drain on the show like i thought he might. suzanne/crazy eyes contorting in pain listening to biggs humiliate her on the radio killed me. miss taystee already. also how long was wheelchair girl just staring at space in the bathroom by herself before pennsatucky attacked her? where did everybody else she was with go?

biggs character getting more and more hateable

yeah this was definitely written in to the arc of the show, he does a pretty good job at being alternately likable and hateable tho

Love this show. So many great, unfamiliar (to me) actors. Biggs character (and basically all her outside friends/family) a total doofus/moron/narcissist. Including Fake Ira Glass.

xp otm agree it's intentional, i don't think biggs is meant to be 100% sympathetic. def just happy the show didn't turn out to be like 80% about piper's relationship with her fiance

SPOIL: i liked the reveal of suzanne's parents being rich, influential, & white -- thought it was a clever (maybe even too clever) way to subvert expectations of a "crazy" black woman's background

also yes taryn manning is amazing in this

xpost Also, when she starts reciting Shakespeare from memory during the "scared straight" episode.

this show is the best. love crazy eyes.

ANOTHER SPOILER: i was actually genuinely surprised, in a way that tv shows rarely surprise me, when piper hooked back up with laura prepon. did not see that coming at all. maybe i'm dumb.

xxp YES the shakespeare that was so awesome

as for piper and whatshername hooking back up i thought they were pretty clearly setting up for their relationship to eventually go in that direction when biggs told her she wasn't the one who named her, and piper expressing guilt about being an asshole to her, but i didn't expect it to happen so fast or exactly the way it did. i expected piper and larry's relationship to deteriorate more under obvious strain before she hooked up, and not because of it, but i guess that's why it was surprising

i like to imagine taryn manning studied a lot of john malkovich performances while preparing for this role

also this show rules, can't wait for more

heard piper kerman on frrrrrrrrrrrrrresh air today and she sounded exactly like i expected her to: highly articulate thoughtful speaker prone to uptalk during explanations of the most delicate issues

finished it last night, the very end was v cathartic if maybe a little too "dramatic season finale" (esp. with healey looming in the background doing nothing)

i still think it's a weird show tonally, which as was noted upthread is just part and parcel of being a dramedy, but i did really enjoy it overall

i'm liking it more and more -- i think we have like 3 more episodes?

I hate Healy so much he is such a shithead

they really do a good job of shifting healey from "good-intentioned if misguided nice guy" to "huh this guy's kind of a creep" to "total asshole"

all the prisoners are good at heart, all the prison officials are evil at heart ... makes you think

like ... who's the real bad guy, you know?

bloggy voice rant about systemic oppression

i thought the healey story line was taking turns a little too abruptly, but i really did end up enjoying it once it all played out

all the prisoners are good at heart, all the prison officials are evil at heart ... makes you think

um no

well it makes me think

i'm just not sure if you're making a joke here or you just weren't watching the show very closely but i don't think that's really the dynamic.

i'm overgeneralizing a little bit but the prisoners are def more sympathetic and fleshed-out than the prison administration (note that i'm now subtly changing my wording to exclude the guards). healey, the woman boss, and mr. baldy mustache are all pretty scummy, whereas the most "evil" prisoner (doggett/pennsatuckey), while cartoonish, is still sympathized as someone who is clinging to her faith as the only thing that makes her feel like a worthwhile person.

healey, the woman boss, and mr. baldy mustache are all pretty scummy

oh yeah, definitely. i want pornstache to die, slowly and painfully, tbh. and healey certainly turned a bit supervillain a bit quickly.

i do love that dude lost his leg from using a dirty hot tub

i felt bad for that one-legged guard guy when that guy just waltzed right into his bachelor efficiency apartment. he was so defenseless. like a little kid.

oh the hot tub thing was great. i saw him changing before my eyes. it was perfect.

n/a did you watch weeds?

no i watched the first episode and pretty much hated it immediately. i don't remember why but i think there was some weird racial stuff?

i wanted to like weeds cuz i like mary-louise but i couldn't hang with that show. it was too something...

i think i said that on here already though. or maybe that was the netflix thread.

this shot kinda sums it up for me:

http://skyatlantic.sky.com/image/unscaled/2011/10/07/Weeds-S6-PW.jpg

i watched weeds for so so so much longer than i should've, pretty much 95% due to mary louise parker thought the usual 'it came on in the summer' helped also. avoided this cuz it didn't even have mary louise parker but it's a much better show. it does however get that smug cartoon characterization that weeds did insanely. show pokes fun at smug npr liberals but that is totally its viewpoint. it's somehow better and worse w/ this than tv sorkin. far more watchable than any recent tv sorkin obv. far far more watchable.

i don't remember why but i think there was some weird racial stuff?

i'm not entirely sure this show doesn't skew in the same direction, but i can't really explain it too clearly, so maybe i'm punishing it for weeds' sins. i have really enjoyed it, though there's a certain soapy vibe to it that i'm uneasy with - it's so much better than this, but sometimes it feels like Desperate Housewives Behind Bars. but it *is much better than that.

"show pokes fun at smug npr liberals but that is totally its viewpoint."

totally. in a post-american beauty world, you just have to hope that the humanity and humor outweighs the piety or flatfootedness.

"it's somehow better and worse w/ this than tv sorkin."

sorkin doesn't really understand what human people are like, so almost anyone is gonna look better to me by comparison.

http://jezebel.com/laura-prepon-is-no-more-for-orange-is-the-new-black-1141083629

whatever. like Prepon has something to do

something BETTER to do that is. oh well, their love story wasn't really a favorite plot thread of mine

I love that Laura Prepon has never fixed her bottom teeth, it makes her double sexy.

Taylor Schilling is pretty good in this, but to me she'll always be Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged Pt. 1.

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/6a852fb3b3692e88034a90dfde991c40/tumblr_mr16cvodzg1qdetafo1_1280.png

"Taylor Schilling is pretty good in this, but to me she'll always be Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged Pt. 1"

that's what you get for watching that movie

FInally finished the series. I liked it, but worried from the first episode that Kohan won't be able to resist total darkness with this show (like what happened on Weeds). The final scene didn't really do anything to lower my anxiety.

had no idea the actor that played Mendes = Nickolas Sobotka from The Wire

whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Me, neither! I even looked him up on IMDB for some reason and spent some time looking at his photos because I was shocked at how not creepy, nay almost handsome, he was.

WHAT WHAT WHAT

duh

^ great post

He seems so much SHORTER in OITNB than in The Wire.

he lost height for the role

lol

n/a otm -- he has the same exact face only with a mustache on it!!

Also, fun fact: he is Liev Schreiber's half-brother.

just finished watching this. The 'scared straight' ep was the BEST. I too did not realise that was Nicky Sobotka!

I know, right? Now that I see it is is sooooooo obvious, but I was just so creeped out by that character that I didn't make a connection!

so jodie foster directed an episode of this?

also taryn manning is fucking amazing in this show, as everyone else already said

it took me forever to place piper's mom - she's the mom from strangers with candy

^^^yes!!! Thank you. I could have just imdb'd her I suppose.

This is exceptional, three episodes left for me!

Natasha Lyonne's character is my favorite out of the core cast; love the Taystee/Poussey interaction, they should have a sketch comedy show, a staple of which would be White Women Talking To Each Other.

So psyched for more of this!

The animal the animal

lmao @ the animal the animal

is this show good? this show seems good!

judging based on scattered youtube clips only.

It's great!

excited for the new season. was the laura prepon returning / not-returning thing ever resolved?

shouldn't be watching any of this. should be engaged in religious thought, with the pc off. but we're all beyond tired. and this show seems good! and prison seems like a scary place.

http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/orange-is-the-new-black-real-alex

this article is interesting. i was trying to figure out if my interest in the story was more based on (a) prison life, and how someone like piper survives in prison or (b) the sexy, sweet, tortured relationship between two very attractive female characters. still not sure.

On the whole, Wolters says that the true story would be “so wretched and stinky, it would quite possibly result in a collapsed universe. So I guess it’s a good thing Piper and Jenji stick with the fun little tidbits.”

and yet she's working on her own memoirs! i'm glad she is; i'm morbidly fascinated with the "real story" of prison life. what i know comes from msnbc's lockup, which looks very different than what's on orange is the new black.

whatever the reason, this show really got under my skin. considering signing-up for netflix just to watch new episodes when they air.

It'll be released all at once.

season 2 trailer is finally here and "it looks amazing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e99SkdcB2UU

Early on, I half-expected that prison-Vause would end up being revealed as Piper's hallucination, i.e. I've watched too much sci-fi.

trailer does a good job of (a) making piper seem totally different (in season one, she was sweet and frightened; in season two, she's hardened and vicious, and -- amazingly, i think -- you can see the change on her face and in her demeanor); and (b) shifting the emphasis away from piper (and alex) to the other characters.

i'm still drawn to the piper/alex story, but this trailer seriously plays with my expectations. the season one story set up alex as the sexy, in-control seductress, and piper as the almost cooing girlfriend. the trailer for season two ... well, it all seems different. besides, i read rumors that alex won't be in season two very much, anyway. this new trailer is totally compelling, but i wonder if people aren't going to like the "new piper" very much.

I didn't like the old Piper very much, so I'm looking forward to this.

i read rumors that alex won't be in season two very much, anyway.

Originally, she wasn't going to be in it all until they sweet-talked Laura Prepon back for a small amount of time.

not that i care that much, either way, but i was trying to figure out why i liked the old piper. maybe i see people i know in her "sweet, innocent" character, and empathized with her being thrown into terrible circumstances. maybe i thought she was hot, and liked the love story with her and the alex character. i saw a tweet today, from the atlantic, that kind of made me feel guilty; it implied that piper's central-role in the show was because u.s. audiences are assumed to "need a white, pretty, privileged face to sell a story that's really about everyone else."

Originally, she wasn't going to be in it all until they sweet-talked Laura Prepon back for a small amount of time.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, April 17, 2014

glad they did. i like her character a lot.

I couldn't figure it out. What's on Laura Prepon's plate that is SO MUCH BETTER than one of the best dramas in production at the present time?

Tom Cruise

Like I said.

I hear he's good with motorcycles

amid listless sleep, i had dreams about this new trailer. mostly dreams like, "what's worse -- general population or solitary confinement"?

if there is a season three of orange is the new black, laura prepon will be back on the show, full-time.

I wish I had a "Regina Spektor" button on my Roku that would allow me ffwd just past the opening sequence. Because that song...guh.

there have been some youtube montages of the show, featuring either that song or similar songs, which have been effective (though, without the context of a compelling show to frame it, these songs wouldn't interest me at all).

by the way, there's an earlier, uk version of the trailer for season 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqzP0O6PSDk

gives you another glimpse of the radically changed, razor-tough, maybe borderline-psycho piper. i'm starting to like this lady.

Btw Johnny, there's something interesting I wanted to tell you

Come closer

THE ANIMAL THE ANIMAL

?

there's so much to this series that's totally beyond me. i need netflix, pronto.

You realize pretty quickly that $7.99/mo is just about the right price for Netflix streaming, because some months you'll binge like a freak and others you'll barely use it. If it were any more expensive, those "barely use it" months would feel like a huge waste.

yeah you'd just unsubscribe and wait until

YOU'VE GOT TIIIIME

jf i've found that they hold on the title card w/ the blue sky background and title in orange the perfect amount of time to stop ffwding

Yeah, I got pretty good at that towards the end of S1.

Btw Johnny, there's something interesting I wanted to tell you

Come closer

THE ANIMAL THE ANIMAL

― hundreds-swarm-dinkytown (Jon Lewis), Friday, April 18, 2014 4:35 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

lololol

ever since i saw the first "the animal the animal" i've been looking forward to hearing the song again
i don't really like it but it's totally 100% insidious

DAMN YOU TOM CRUISE

stevie ‏@ekstaseequeen 1h -- i wanna rob a bank and i don't care if i would get caught cause like orange is the new black makes prison look fun once you get use to it

smart career planning.

Actually I think this is one shortcoming of the series, in that the middle of the season characterizes Piper's experience as a kind of summer camp where the worst thing that she has to contend with is boredom -- and when she went into her soliloquy to the wheelchair girl about prison forcing you to confront/question your essential self, I didn't get a sense of that existential crisis because she was also having seven 0rgasms sexy funtimes at the same time. (Of course, the stuff with Pennsyltucky gets to that crisis in an animal, an animal way.) My expectations also played a part: every time they flashed back to Piper's pre-lockup life, I was anxious for them to get to the part where she assimilates with her new prison family and she finds a new appreciation of what-have-you.

again, i've only seen bits-and-pieces (and what i think is one whole episode) on youtube, but to the extent they made prison seem like a cakewalk, i think that's changing in season two, if the trailer's a good indicator. also, the show got me interested in prison-related issues, so i've been reading a few articles examining how true-to-life OITNB is, regarding prison life. and the answer seems to be: it got a lot right!, and prison is often less violent, and more just boring and numbing, than you might think (though the threat of horrible violence is always around).

if you're really interested in prison conditions (and not just women's prison conditions) there are two frontline docs airing this month about the corrections system in the USA
i would recommend watching those -- frontline never disappoints

well, very rarely

that's a good tip. frontline is outstanding.

FWIW, i read articles about both men and women's prisons. men's seem to be worse, unsurprisingly, but what i said above seemed to be true for both male and female facilities.

for instance, this guy's reports from being bounced into-and-out of prison debunk some myths, reinforce some others, and do mention the boredom and drudgery of prison life (in a male prison facility). worth reading, if you can get past the cursing and snark-y phrases.

frontline never disappoints

I dunno, my dog still has fleas.

is your dog a lone-wolf?

and the answer seems to be: it got a lot right!, and prison is often less violent, and more just boring and numbing, than you might think (though the threat of horrible violence is always around).

I think I've heard that the real day-to-day prison struggle is boredom, but I'm not sure the show connects Piper's "who am I becoming??" cri de coeur to it; maybe her affair with Alex is supposed to be some kinda synecdoche that represents that struggle?

piper needs to realize having sex with everyone isnt going to solve all her problems

i think her realization next season is that trying to be menacing toward everyone is what will solve all her problems.

https://s3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/2J9fH84CUIm9rM1cZFHI_Q--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://l.yimg.com/os/publish-images/tv/2014-04-17/3beb9c50-c5eb-11e3-b76b-3de94b47ea49_OITNB-piper-throat-rip.gif

piper needs to realize having sex with everyone isnt going to solve all her problems

this is why i got so pissed off with weeds!

i think her realization next season is that trying to be menacing toward everyone is what will solve all her problems.

Looking forward to this!

me too! still wondering how we're going to go from this

http://media1.policymic.com/site/article-items/27651/1_gif.gif

to this

http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article3179100.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Orange-Is-The-New-Black--Season-2--Teaser--Netflix-HD-3179100.png

bah. hey, i know there's a netflix thread, but just as a quick question: is the idea that netflix lets you watch a large catalog of movies and original programming on your computer and/or smartphone alone, or can i also watch it on my regular tv screen? and -- beyond OITNB -- is it a worthwhile service.

Grrrr. I guess they've already inoculated us to higher subscription fees, though.

Some media center devices -- like a PS3, maybe XBox? -- let you stream Netflix to a TV.

I use a Roku to stream netflix on the teevee--no additional charge iirc

Some media center devices -- like a PS3, maybe XBox? -- let you stream Netflix to a TV.

― Call the Doctorb, the B is for Brownstein (Leee), Monday, April 21, 2014

i fear if i had a ps3 or an xbox i might never leave the house.

chromecast or an hdmi cable from your laptop will let you watch netflix on your tv

Yeah we do that, or through the Wii

Judging from the way Weeds went, Piper will get all bad-ass, and then someone MORE bad ass will scare the crap out of her. Rinse and repeat until all of the fun is sucked out of the story.

So you're saying I should avoid Weeds.

Yeah. At least in OITNB, that arc seems more plausible than it does in the world of suburban weed dealing.I mean, in this show, it has felt almost too light, seeing as it IS a prison drama. OTOH, I don't really want to watch an Oz-style prison show, so, for me, the humor is what I enjoy about it.

Judging from the way Weeds went, Piper will get all bad-ass, and then someone MORE bad ass will scare the crap out of her. Rinse and repeat until all of the fun is sucked out of the story.

you forgot the part about her having sex with the more bad ass person, but yeah otm

Somebody gave me her Roku because her roommate already had one, but now that I've had it for a year I definitely would've bought one. If you don't "game," it's the best option.

"gaming" and "gamer" are terms-of-art these days, aren't they? world's changed.

you forgot the part about her having sex with the more bad ass person, but yeah otm

So Chapman/Suzannen is going to happen?

Suzanne.

this is better than weeds ever was (and i stuck w/ weeds for a long time). it could go off a cliff eventually but alot of what sank weeds was apparent in that first season or a bad correction to other things in that first season.

We stream Netflix directly through our Blu-Ray player, it's wonderful.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/c4b7ce5830f35684764d0a83a1d0c161/tumblr_n46k63IvAu1qc4q26o6_250.gif

i think i love her.

and now i'm scared of her!

maybe you should watch TWO episodes, see what happens!

not sure i could handle it.

just to show you, i'm ordering netflix.

the frontline doc about solitary is on tonight
you could watch that instead

it's free

i might do both!

we can all see if prison is really just a boring, mind-numbing sleepover camp, or a torture-chamber of murder and rape.

eh, sorry; that was poorly and thoughtlessly phrased. i do wonder about these conflicting article i've now read, though.

Could be both, tbh.

yeah; that's true.

i've had an uncle in prison for over thirty years and my understanding from him and from what i've read is very much the former (minus yr too cute sleepover camp). one of the major criticisms of oz was that there was ridiculously too much murder and rape occurring on the show though that show made no pretenses really of presenting a realistic portrait of prison life. this show seems somewhat more interested in that but it's still pretty open about having to get any of that on the show via 'hot blonde in prison, lezzing up happens plus lol npr yuppies' liposome. it's just accurate enough to make say the women's prison stuff in justified this past season seem more silly.

i've never seen oz. got some of my impressions from msnbc's lockdown, but i (now) realize they might be skewed in their coverage.

i have a feeling this show won't go on forever like Weeds did. Although Weeds went off the rails relatively early on, and it's later seasons were actually much better, I thought.

i saw a tweet today, from the atlantic, that kind of made me feel guilty; it implied that piper's central-role in the show was because u.s. audiences are assumed to "need a white, pretty, privileged face to sell a story that's really about everyone else."

― Daniel, Esq 2, Thursday, April 17, 2014 5:01 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's always going to be weird when a rich white person is centered in a story about what prison is really like

yeah. actually, that article from the atlantic was praising what appears to be the show's new direction, veering away from piper (and i guess alex) as the "central character," and focusing on the other prisoners' stories.

Where are all you getting this Piper goes over the edge stuff? Based on a few seconds from the new season? She's had her ups and downs already, mean bits, naive bits, etc. No reason to think she will change radically, especially since she is based on a real person. Also, iirc, the show offered plenty of other prisoners' stories. I predict, radically, that season two will be more of the same. That's not a bad thing.

I also imagine prison differs greatly depending on where it is and why people are there. For most people it's probably boring. For others, it's a dangerous full-time job. I can't recall what level prison the show depicts. It's conspicuous (though by no means inaccurate, I guess) that "Orange" doesn't depict any gang activity, does it?

Where are all you getting this Piper goes over the edge stuff?

read it. not that she "goes over the edge," but that she's radically changed, this season. also maybe my imagination, to some degree, based on the trailer for season two, but i've read the show's producers like to play with their viewers' minds (e.g., ads imply one thing, show delivers another).

this isn't totally related but I recently learned about this awesome piece of quasi torture by greyhound the bureau of prisons employs from time to time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_therapy

they basically stick you on a bus for weeks at a time whilst 'transferring' you to a new location

why would this be "the cruelest aspect of being a federal inmate"? you can look out the bus; you shouldn't feel so claustrophobic as you would in, say, an isolation chamber, and you would feel safe, since guards would observe you at all times. you probably couldn't sleep very well, and you'd definitely get sick of sitting, and maybe be physically harmed by so much sitting; not sure how those things compare to conditions in a general-population area of prison.

you're kidding, right?

just some light wikipedia reading

PITT* has eluded systematic study by police researchers who heretofore
have been interested in studying more visible police behaviors (such as
arrest and use of force). Although overlooked, it is a serious, extralegal
police action that has resulted in lawsuits and the death of dumpees.

*i.e. Diesel therapy

no, i wasn't kidding. i just didn't understand how bad a practice it is compared to prison-life generally.

A rule of thumb that I think applies and that I just made up is that if there is an opportunity for prison officials to behave in a reasonable, humane manner, they usually won't.

My very limited anecdotal women's-prison knowledge comes from some interviews I did with a few young women serving life w/o parole sentences for their roles in a particularly horrible carjack-murder case. They had been locked up for a few years at the point I talked to them, and they didn't have any major complaints with prison per se. One of them told me she was the happiest she had ever been in her life -- since being convicted, she had come out as gay and now had a girlfriend who was also her cellmate, and was working in the prison hair salon. Granted, "happiest she'd ever been" was a low bar for her -- she'd grown up basically ignored by her mother and raped by her step-father (who went to prison himself on that charge), and she was only about 18 when she was arrested. Granted also, she was two years into a life sentence, and I don't think she really grasped or believed that she was never getting out. Still, nothing I heard from them makes OITNB seem all that far-fetched.

Diesel therapy is mentioned in the OITNB book. transferring to a new location sounds rly awful. and yeah, prison differs greatly depending on where it is and why people are there acc to OITNB book.

my apologies. i didn't get it before, but i do now the article notes that, "(o)n the surface it sounds benign. What could be the problem with making a prisoner ride in a bus for hours at a time?" but find out, by reading the excerpt. it's graphic and terrible.

cool

opening scene from season two.

Ooh, S3 already a go! http://www.imdb.com/news/ni57154350/

laura prepon, givin' away storylines ("#oitnb#alexvause#backtothebighouse").

OITNB making me strongly consider subscribing to netflix streaming service.

Do it already!

You'd find out why Piper has gone all BA Baracus for season 2, since the season 1 finale shows you why.

i know why, but i want to see the whole story! even the split-second of that scene didn't make piper seem tough.

over on the netflix recommendation thread, scott seward posted a youtube clip of a full episode (or more!) of another netflix in-prison original program, called jailbait. it looked even more grim and grittier; i got through about 20 minutes of it before i felt claustrophobic from the whole "you're trapped in prison for a long time" vibe.

(maybe piper did seem tough in that scene, but i didn't see all of it. gotta get netflix)

he really said this?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmwkwHoCYAAxy75.jpg

if so, lol.

daniel esq the amount of enthusiastic and analytical posting you've done on a thread dedicated to a show you've never actually watched is one of the weirdest things i've ever seen on ilx

wether it's a bizzaro trolling effort or not, i'm into it

ty

it's performance-art, really.

keep it up!

One of my friends has been running a tumblr posting OITNB stills with Madonna lyrics on top of them. Orange Is the New True Blue

S2 released tomorrow, right?

YES!!

the animal the animal

so tempted to play hooky from work

So I guess you ended up getting Netflix and watching S1?

oh nm, that was Daniel, Esq 2

Nee-anderthal, nee-anderthal, trapped trapped trapped till the cave is full.

lol

fingers crossed for new opening credit music

^ this

they'll do it like the wire and it will be amanda palmer's version of the same song

This site sez season 2 is released in 4 hours... that can't be right? Are they going by GMT?

I mean, is it getting released at 12:00AM GMT?

if that is true, my understudy is going on tonight. I mean I don't have one but y'know they'll figure something out. What is important is that I know what happens before everybody else.

That's probably just someone in GMT counting down until June 6 arrives.

yeah there's a countdown on netflix, it's in approximately 11 hours. whether they have it set up different times by time zone i don't know but i could totally see them making it midnight west coast time, so after last call here.

Ah thanks.

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-06/4/11/enhanced/webdr06/anigif_enhanced-18205-1401897196-18.gif

♥

just watched first ep. oh piper.

nnnhhgghh I have to wait for GOT and 24 to finish before I switch from Sky to Netflix and watch this + House of Cards.

very lukewarm review from the nyt.

idk that seemed a little more positive than 'lukewarm' to me

Variety also more or less called it a comedown.

interesting to me that much of the nyt's criticism is that the show presents a sanitized/suitable for tv-face on the prison experience, when many people -- here and in articles assessing the show -- say it's fairly accurate (for at least some prisons).

Tasty is still my fave

three episodes in. i know it's cliche to diss on piper, but episode 2 without her was a straight-up delight. they kinda lampshaded her role in the show when natasha lyonne made that crack about her thinking she was the star of everyone's movie, but ughhh i just find her so aggressively boring.

loved the little girls they got to play young taystee and young suzanne, and the casting of the little girls at the slumber party with suzanne blew my mind: they were like delicate, bitchy songbirds, so tiny and high-pitched.

Just finished episode 2. I don't think I have it in me to binge for 13 hours this weekend, but I'll probably be done by mid-week. Agree that the little girl who was cast for young Taystee was an amazing choice.

Anybody else encountering missing captions on the fifth episode? I've read that Netflix's recent app update doesn't play nice with Roku as far as captions are concerned, but there is way too much Spanish and Russian in this one for me to keep up with what's going on.

most of the way thru season one, and i hate the american-pie actor's character more than i hate the pennsatucky character.

You'll hate them fairly equally by the time you reach the end.

holy s--t.

Three episodes of s2 down and holy hell i'd forgotten how much i loved this show

Episode four has so many touching moments. This is good.

"I'm not an alcoholic. I'm Australian!"

season two really is much better than season one. the intensity on everything is turned up.

Really? I've been thinking everything in S2 seems like low stakes compared to S1. Not that it's a bad development, but there's a lot less tension.

the racial tension (with the major undercurrents of violence), the initial story about piper stay at a different facility and how that plays out, piper's changed personality, the turning of one guard because of his personal issue, all seems like an across-the-board increase in the stakes to me.

(final episode of season one was equally intense, i'd agree).

Stakes definitely get higher deeper into S2. I've got two episodes left and I'm trying to decide whether to savor them by waiting or just go ahead and knock them out.

Those aren't prison roaches in Episode 1. They're Madagascar hissing cockroaches (the kind you get at pet stores). Entomology FAIL. ONE STAR.

in all seriousness tho it's great so far

two-thirds the way through season two. vee's a great villain, but they've given no glimpse into any "good side" of her personality. she's just there, as a manipulative evil presence, stirring things up. there are all or mostly evil people, but this show tries to show fuller, messier characters.

enjoying the season thus far but the writers seem to always want to insert poop-related elements in every other episode.

happy to have a character that isn't nice once you get to know them. rosa is season 2 mvp for me. kinda love that as crazy as we thought lorna is it didn't begin to compare to just how batshit crazy lorna actually is. the flashbacks felt more like lost this season (maybe i just forgot or maybe there were more piper ones last season and it didn't feel as much 'backstory' of the week), no complaints as that was one of the stronger facets of lost. elements of oz's flashbacks there as well though those were alot briefer and more to the point, few of the flashbacks here actually end w/ the arrest and only a few really tip you off on how they ended up in prison, it's usually just a detail in their backstory.

I guess watch out for spoilers but the Lorna reveal was great. It does contradict something said in Season 1 (an off-hand comment about how Christopher hadn't visited her since her first year in prison, when he'd never ever visit her - though she could have merely told him he visited, so I was ok with that), but it's one of those things that makes sense but you never really had any reason to distrust her narrative in Season 1 that they were, at one time, lovers. I like how long they waited to play that card.

him = them

happy to have a character that isn't nice once you get to know them.

― balls, Sunday, June 8, 2014

yeah, i see this point, too. i'm going back-and-forth on it, as i watch.

kinda surprised there wasn't a major cliffhanger to end it? sorta felt like it was all tied up, for the most part.

I don't mind not having a cliffhanger, because most of the resolution in that final episode was worth the build-up to get there. (Still don't give any shits about Piper and Alex.)

"Noble" male characters in the final episode is a total 180 from the end of S1, though, where every one of them ended up a shitheel.

i'm watching the final episode now. wasn't season two in the can before they decided to go forward with a season three? that would explain the lack of cliffhangers.

yes cuz there was a chance that netflix, the company that hasn't cancelled lillehammer, might not renew what is by far their biggest hit.

I still haven't watched House of Cards, but after the second season of that I'd think the two shows are on equal footing popularity-wise. Anyway, I don't think ambiguity about a possible S3 had much to do with how S2 resolved itself.

house of cards gets the award show love and mag covers, orange gets the crit love so in terms of what actually matters to netflix it's probably a wash but literally the only piece of data netflix has released about their total viewers for shows is that orange is the new black is by far their biggest hit and it drove their subscriptions to a record high last year. i could imagine the margin maybe narrowed (understandably, s2 of hoc >>> s1) and admittedly this is just anecdotal data but hoc's return garnered 'o hey this is back' and renewed debates over whether it's any good and whether it's awesomely bad or just bad while half the women (at least) i know have been breathing 'the animal the animal' under their breath for a month now. ppl were geeking over trailers. anyhow i anticipate having regina spektor stuck in my head for a week or so every summer for years to come.

Yeah, the rate that time moves on this show, they'll be able to stretch Piper's eight remaining months into at least 3 more seasons.

When Fig tried to distract the accountant with the NY Giants socks on by saying Tiki Barber would be at her husband's cocktail party, I called bullshit at my television. No Giants fan still likes Tiki Barber!

Watched the first episode with growing dread that we were going to get a whole season in a new prison, so seeing the rest of the cast in episode two was such a relief.

Ensemble cast >>> Piper at this stage but this show is really good at casting its minor characters and making them distinctive.

Yeah, the rate that time moves on this show, they'll be able to stretch Piper's eight remaining months into at least 3 more seasons.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, June 9, 2014

one storyline, left dangling, seems to hold open the possibility of an extended sentence for piper.

this show is really good at casting its minor characters

Kinda bonkers that Lori Petty was cast in such a tiny role in just the first episode. This kind of show is made for her.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/08/lori-petty-on-orange-is-the-new-black-the-halcyon-90s-and-discovering-jennifer-lawrence.html

I found out that the casting directors were in New York on my favorite corner, Sullivan and Spring, and so I called my manager and said, “I’m in New York for one more day and I want to meet Jennifer Euston, who casts Orange and Girls.” She said, “You want me to call her and tell her you’re in town for just one day and want to see her?” And I said, “Yes, please.” So, she called her and they said, “Oh my god, we love her”—because to them I’m someone they grew up with and they probably went as me for Halloween or something. I went and visited with them to put my name in their ear, and this role came up so they gave me a call.

whoa, I didn't realize Jodie Foster directed the premiere! neat.

last episode of season-two may have wrapped things up a little too neatly, but with a show like this (a season's worth of episodes released on a single day), it's okay. i'm looking forward to a new set of storylines developing in season three.

whoa i thought that character was really familiar but i just couldn't place her! xps

https://24.media.tumblr.com/7d8a6b81187ab627d81970c07b3ec9d4/tumblr_n6tokkHrBf1rq3iono1_500.jpg

https://31.media.tumblr.com/690cc63a330e3c31f313031e14e76881/tumblr_n6tokkHrBf1rq3iono2_500.jpg

https://31.media.tumblr.com/77968f9f97c070e2f00b70497553009b/tumblr_n6tokkHrBf1rq3iono3_500.jpg

https://31.media.tumblr.com/b930368b47cf712a3b7d0b10ff1aa16e/tumblr_inline_n6xfbfhBEw1sh0u1j.png

https://31.media.tumblr.com/6f19aa9a6f508fa46f0c3c4a60d225eb/tumblr_inline_n6xfc15C3w1sh0u1j.png

Fixed.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/c99f2ed57f62ef7b0ced221f7eea7acb/tumblr_inline_n6xfd9WQjI1sh0u1j.png

Just finished the new season. Will not spoil. Until then, just want to say it's fucking great, and continues to be maybe the best cast show on (sorta) television.

Oh Morello...

Just finished the new season. Will not spoil. Until then, just want to say it's fucking great, and continues to be maybe the best cast show on (sorta) television.

― Everyone is awful except you. Wait, no, you are also awful. (jjjusten), Thursday, June 12, 2014

season two was so good. only part i thought may have been the slightest bit of a letdown was the final half of the final episode (no spoilers; it's just that some uncharacteristically implausible things happen, but that's tee-vee).

Everyone is awful except you. Wait, no, you are also awful.

ha.

been watching season 1 and 2 this week on a few binge sessions.
really enjoying it.
however, for the last few episodes my teenkid has joined in with the viewing.
think he has learnt a few things he never expected to while sat next to me in the living room.

anybody remember this early mtv hit? turns out the woman playing norma sang it (she was also in the shirts)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHqpdVNd88g

also that nyt review is seriously off base. the best writing is for the male characters? oh, right, it's by a dude critic. smh

^^^Yup.

haha that is insane. i liked that they humanized most of the prison admin and guards, it moved the show away from a cartoonish tendency that weeds never avoided moving toward, so in that sense the writing for the male characters got better this year but still, that is insane.

Oh shit, I had no idea Yael Stone (Lorna) is Australian. Expecting that Long Island accent to come out of her mouth and being greeted with an Australian one is throwing me off balance.

I was definitely put off by the cartoonish end to the finale, but the episode leading up was good enough that I forgave it. solid season all around.

they really upped the poop quotient tho

Poussey = MVP methinks, as well as Taystee for her arc.

Pennsastuckey became way more ancillary than I expected

my week's been so busy that I haven't been able to watch the last two episodes. it's driving me crazyyyyy.

i think this season has been very strong, but the part of me that wants my favorite characters to experience only sunshine and rainbows is suffering. taystee and poussey :( vee exploiting suzanne's loyalty :( :(

i'm still not a big piper-fan, but in several episodes they've used her very judiciously as comic relief, and that's my favorite version of her. loved her asking healy to put alex on her call list and hurriedly clarifying "IT'S NOT A LESBIAN THING!"

Poussey was definitely the S2 mvp, though Suzanne is a close second.

otm.

no way bank robbers are cool

well, vee was a pretty imposing, significant character, and that actress really inhabited the role. she might be mvp.

Rosa good too, but didn't steer any part of the story besides her own.

didn't steer

See what I did there? lol

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2014/06/11/where-the-fuck-are-all-the-guards-an-ex-con-reviews-orange-is-the-new-black/#.U5n43Wk51y0.twitter

haha great link - "There’s a putt-putt golf course near my house with more security than this prison."

what bugs me about that article is the ex-con clearly recognizes what dramatic license is because she outright acknowledges it a few times, yet then dismisses it.

NAH MAN, ALL THE SHOW SHOULD BE IS ABOUT PROCESSING, PAPERWORK, AND GUARDS HANDLING SEMI-AGGRAVATING SITUATIONS IN A BUREAUCRATIC WAY.

I mean I'm not going to pretend to know what prison is like and I'll take her word but the whole 'wow I hate that a scripted television show has snappy dialogue' is disingenuous baloney

that was a great article. "But some people wanted to get sent to solitary because they felt threatened or unsafe." this is a key line, and something i always figured would be appealing to a lot of prisoners.

She's obviously watching the show through her own filter, but I enjoy reading things like that. If someone made a show about pizza delivery or a job in a cellphone insurance call center, I'd relish the opportunity to be hyper critical.

sure, tv shows have license to be dramatic, but it's valuable to hear someone "call bullshit" on unrealistic aspects.

sure, when they're talking about how the security seems to be missing at key moments (which was a fair point), not "wow some of the dialogue is really witty, I don't know that all prisoners would talk like that" or "most people's flashbacks would be eight seconds, not all people are this complicated!". (presumably those people are the ones that get no camera time OHHHH REBUTTED!)

maybe I'm still smarting from listening to a guy whine about Dark Knight Rises 'plausability' because he didn't understand the concept of an unreliable narrator in cinema

eh, different strokes. i'm glad to hear how the show is different from real prison (i guess msnbc's lockdown is most realistic? not sure; they edit for drama, too, i imagine).

OK, I’m going to call bullshit on this entire scene. Find me the prison where they send the rapist who just got processed to deliver the food to the women. Please. They have to at least pretend to give a shit about your safety, you know? Also, are all the guards asleep here? She just gives the dude her damn panties and a note to another inmate in the middle of everything. No attempt at hiding anything.

I think they're saying he’s actually a hitman and not a rapist.

Are you fucking brain-damaged, dude? Do you think that makes this more believable?

lol

wait, who was whining about the dark knight rises' "plausibility"?

i remember slate used to do 'roundtables' for the big shows where they'd have some vague experts discuss the show every week (they still do it only w/ pop crits which isn't the same), one season they had psychiatrists which was ok but one season w/ the sopranos they did it w/ seasoned mob journalists and those dudes were great w/ the 'o yeah that's dead on' and 'that would never happen'. this precedes that but i know that apparently enough ppl 'in the know' hectored david chase about tony wearing shorts at a cookout, something a boss would NEVER do apparently, that he felt the need to address it in the show.

wait, who was whining about the dark knight rises' "plausibility"?

― Daniel, Esq 2, Thursday, June 12, 2014 7:30 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a whole buncha nerds I knew who were apparently ok with the villain in Batman Begins knocking people out with magic insane-gas and a dude performing feats of strength in a bat outfit but had problems with things like "there's no way he made it 6 miles away from the blast radius when the nuke exploded" or "why wouldn't the dude in the prison have said Talia was really the other person to escape!"

but anyway to clarify above I wasn't taking issue w/ her commenting on the realism of prison cos I do find that interesting (I kept wondering how the hell the cop and Diaz kept hangin out together without anybody besides her 'family' catching wise), just the bits where she criticized the dialogue/characters - of course the dialogue has to be more interesting than real life's banalities!

I really enjoyed the elderly prisoners, sad they didn't get more time

prison seems, by its nature, to be beyond real-life's banalities, if only because people are constantly in danger.

but i read some guy, who writes for vice and was frequently locked-up because of a drug problem, saying that prison wasn't as bad as you'd think. that's "fwiw," obv.

a friend of mine who did some time says jail is much worse than prison

i'm hoping one w/ octopus tattoo gets more play next season, she was badass, hopefully it turns out she was a bank robber too

say did those mafiosos comment on whether the whole 'cunnilingus' thing was really such a hot button in the mob?

I still wanna know what Norma did!

i can't remember but that seems plausible to me, i've known plenty of dudes who don't eat pussy and it's always been a weird machismo thing. tried to find the sopranos roundtable but slate was no help. i remember sudhir venkatesh doing something similar w/ real corner kids and the wire and them pretty much concurring iirc.

'cunnilingus' ... really such a hot button

high five

I'm surprised to find that Healey might be the funnest character for me in the second season. Everyone else is just so humane and sad, while he is pathetic, he is also consistently a fool. The best is him saying (aprox): 'The thing about women is making them think you're meeting them halfway, when in fact you're only meeting them ten to fifteen percent of the way. Always remember: Women are really bad at math!'

Regarding the guy that wrote the column for Vice, I heard that New York state, where he did his time, has prisons that are way less violent and more humane than almost anywhere else in the country.

fwiw, this is that guy's twitter feed. from there, he linked to his articles in vice about prison life. interesting reading.

second installment of that An Ex-Con Reviews Orange Is the New Black series. good reading.

I hope they'll keep this up for all of S2, but it seems like she's said all she wants to say.

it has made me reevaluate the show, to be honest. but on the other hand, i asked this question upthread (i.e., "how realistic is oitnb?") and some posters here said it isn't that far from reality. i'm sure things vary considerably, prison-to-prison, regionally, or even within a facility.

There aren't many (if any) scripted dramas I watch for the reality they attempt to portray. I watch them for the writing and the cast (both of which OITNB is excellent at). If I want to peep into real prison life, I'll watch Frontline or something.

yeah I would imagine it's somewhat difficult to say consistently how prison life is as I imagine it varies. there were some articles that said minimum security prison life is far worse than depicted on OITNB in some places, too.

but obv some of the stuff is going to be off regardless...it's television, not a prison simulator video game (tho that would be awesome).

xpost

prison simulator video game

POOT STINKUM: DOOKPOCALYPSE

I wonder how a real Jack Bauer feels about 24

CARS DON'T EXPLODE *THAT* WAY!!!

nothing about 24 is realistic. let me explain, by way of this 250-page treatise i've written on restaurant napkins . . .

srs question but why is gum contraband in prison? I think they explained it but I probably missed it

Found this on a site about prison contraband...

Gum – A simple stick of chewing gum may not seem nefarious on the face of it. However, its existence in our facilities poses a grave danger. There's nothing quite as unobtrusive as gum on a lock. Yet when a door becomes inoperable it is, in effect, a wall. If you look hard enough in 2012, you will find gum in your facility. Applied to the right lock at the right time, it is a very dangerous commodity.

hm. a partner i used to work for at "biglaw" once said, holding a ketchup bottle, that anything can be used as a deadly weapon.

he was an editor on the yale law journal.

God I love this show so hard. This season started off VERY slowly for me, though, with the whole Stupid Piper thing leaving a stink that stayed for several episodes (seriously, does Larry's dad hate her so much that he wouldn't warned her about the Vausability about not being 100% truthful? OK w/e water under the creek), but once it focused on THE ISSUES (with the compassionate release, and then the nun's story with the forced feeding, which I think was a pulled punch since we didn't get to see it but that way lies torture pr0n) it became extremely powerful.

PS Flaca is a total babe.

Also, why didn't Fig claim some kind of sexual harassment against what's his name to save her job?

i don't think she really wanted to keep it - better to get out with a recommendation than stick around knowing everybody's got something on her

then the nun's story with the forced feeding, which I think was a pulled punch since we didn't get to see it but that way lies torture pr0n

fwiw a) p sure they don't actually force-feed prisoners, they hook em up to Total Parenteral Nutrition and b) i think they made reference to this? red makes some comment about the sister having IVs in her arm or something

i don't think she really wanted to keep it - better to get out with a recommendation than stick around knowing everybody's got something on her

Yeah, I guess easier to slink away. Still, thought she'd be petty enough to try to drag Beer Can Caputo down with her.

she was facing prison and got to slink away w/ a recommendation

Missed opportunity to throw her into the general population imo.

(That's probably not realistic...they'd send her somewhere else, surely)

she was facing prison and got to slink away w/ a recommendation

I've probably been following the Donald T. Sterling saga too closely, keep expecting people in charge to put up a fight.

fucking great ending

waiting for Caputo's 'Weekend at Bernie's' handling of the situation w/ the warden to begin season 3

Just watched the first ep of season 1 and thought it was fucking terrible. JFC.

cool

well the first episode of popular dramas is always the best one so you might want to stop now

Run nuns! Ruuun! hahahaa

Dayanara/Bennett pregnancy subplot is the worst part of this show. They're both so fucking stupid! Just the dumb blank looks on both of their faces all the time--ugh.

lol yes

"Run nuns!" otm

Brook Soso on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/28o7ec/i_am_kimiko_glenn_actress_from_orange_is_the_new/

all her answers are long and rambling like soso's! lol

Hahah I know right???

More of those ex-con reviews from Washington CityPaper:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2014/06/16/the-blonde-bitch-wins-again-an-ex-con-reviews-orange-is-the-new-black-part-iii/

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2014/06/19/we-aint-running-after-none-of-you-motherfuckers-an-ex-con-reviews-orange-is-the-new-black-part-iv/

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2014/06/25/dildo-making-and-smuggling-cigarettes-an-ex-con-reviews-orange-is-the-new-black-part-v/

Maybe someone already said this, but the child actor that played young Crazy Eyes was soooo good; she precisely captured Crazy Eyes' characteristic physical mannerisms and facial expressions

Those ex-con reviews are pretty enlightening, but some of it's a little "it wasn't like that in my prison so it's bullshit." it may well be bullshit but like, not everything that goes on in tv shows about college went on at my college (that i saw), doesn't mean it doesn't happen elsewhere.

i mean her review of the sex contest on the show is

Ok, so, let’s say for the sake of television entertainment value that all the guards suddenly fell into a coma and all the cameras stopped working, and that this contest actually happened.

while the woman olive is based on said

http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/orange-is-the-new-black-real-alex

“Usually what you would do was have sex in your jail rooms,” she explains. “You’d have sex anywhere you could: the tennis court, the outdoor squash court, or the rake pile. Anyplace! When the guards aren’t around all bets are off. Everyone goes to it!”

WCP should find a rich wanna-be writer who could tell us if the Jason Biggs character is true to life

Finally finished this, thought this season was so much worse than the first. Fuck Piper, I could not give a shit less about her, her arc, or what happens to her. Splitting up the first two episodes into one centering on her and one completely without her just emphasized how much I do not want this show to be about her. I think Crazy Eyes redeemed it a little bit in the last two eps, but I spent most of the season disgusted at how cartoonish they'd made her character.

I think the end shot of the season makes explicit my problems with the show. I thought ending it right as Rosa is smiling after running down Vee would have been a pretty perfect shot to end the season but, no, they had to get all hand-holdy and point out the DOUSEE-ness of "look, this is just like when Rosa was young and getting her adrenaline from running from the cops". Like, JFC, we got it already.

i loved the season overall but definitely wish they'd either cut rosa's frosted mini wheats moment or gave one to everybody in an OTT wire-style montage (the track star chatting with the airport employee, punk poussey, the nun with red in a track suit, etc) climaxing with the old olive coming back into the prison and seeing old piper

like, if you're gonna go there GO THERE

and yeah uzo aduba is so good but for a while they basically turned suzanne into that picked-on-kid-turned-bully in The Wave, could have used one scene with her adoptive parents (who iirc were portrayed as regular visitors in the first season) to see how her relationship with Vee was affecting things on that front

not looking forward to nichols heroin arc next season

mary steenburgen's coming on next season as pornstache's mom, which makes me worry that we got a custody battle subplot coming

i love steenburgen though, and hope the ensemble can continue to rise above stock story aspects

aw i teared up at the final scene

the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal

the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal the animal

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Hqg3PMWrJ78/0.jpg

THE ANIMAL

THE ANIMAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W4MYJt8c4w

i finished this earlier today and now i miss it, marathon sessions are hard on ya. i liked season 2 quite a bit more than 1, that joint really benefited from the kind of toxic influence that vee provided. and while her demise was a biiit unlikely i suppose she had some kind of catholic-voodoo curse on her so that explains everything.

also isn't it THE ANIMALS THE ANIMALS

arrgh, I've been watching this for the past week or so and now I have that goddamn song stuck in my head

for season 3 they should replace it with one of sideboob's tracks

Just started season 2, and while there are some standouts, esp. the flashbacks, I'm getting a b-list "M*A*S*H" vibe from a lot of the episodes.

Dunno if this has been posted yet, and it's about male prisons, but still:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/a-gentlemans-guide-to-sex-in-prison-1634995425

Hello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njy0dFFlpAc

it begins. what a perfect weekend for me to be too broke to go out!

the end of last season felt kinda wish-fulfillment/fan-servicey, so in other words more like jenji kohan's previous, risible show, but i like (most of) these characters too much to not be interested in the show. also, mary steenburgen!!

I'm going to attempt to just watch one episode of this per week (after beginning with a twofer) this year. Will I fail? Probably, but it's a thing I'm trying. Hopefully I'll see this thread again in 12 weeks.

Never watched this show, but I've just found out my friend Nick appears in the sexual harassment video* in ep 7 this season.

*Which is a real corporate video he acted in around six years ago.

And of course his wife went on youtube, found the original video, and shared it on FB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L9xyFKD8HE&feature=youtu.be&t=480

He's the impressively coiffed uncomfortable dude in the white shirt in the preview frame.

Wait, Steenburgen is in this season? She was just in all last season of "Justified." There should be a statute of limitations between appearances as a high profile season-long guest star.

Huh, just out of curiosity I looked her up to figure out why she was famous, because to the best of my memory she never anchored a major/hit movie or TV show. I still don't know, but I was surprised to learn she won an Oscar 35 years ago for "Melvin and Howard!" The world is full of surprises.

timehump chronicles

admiral rodcocker for prez

so this show has always been somewhat silly but god this season it got really really silly

I had the suspicion that Chang's backstory would be good, and it really was.

This fruit. Is defective.

steenburgen was in some woody allen films and has been a reliable character/side player for years; plus lengthy high profile Ted Danson liberal power couple for a long time (although I think they divorced), were in Curb your Enthusiasm a fair bit for a while. I used to have a mad crush on her.

She used to be married to Malcolm McDowell back in the 80s.

http://images.bwwstatic.com/upload10/633048/tn-500_steenburgen_mcdowell_wm1.jpg

(although I think they divorced)

Don't tell Ted Danson.

for various reasons i was not very into this season but i did watch it all in three days despite an imminent deadline so more fool me

I've watched the first episode (after watching previous 2 seasons) and found it not to my liking. I'll give it another chance, just wish they weren't trying to squeeze messages into every available spot.

I did enjoy hearing the song again :-/

TRAPPED TRAPPED TRAPPED TILL THE CAGE IS FULL!

it's still often funny and i liked the various backstories (despite the blunt moral resonance thing) but it was a bit of a problem that all of the ongoing storylines were too silly or annoying to care about. if next season they ditch all semblance of plot then it'll be fine.

first ep of this season is one of the best they've ever done imo (and my easy fave of the 6 I've seen so far)

"russians stay focused"

it is pretty sitcom-y this season. there was some heavy stuff happening in the first two seasons! but i haven't watched it all yet. maybe it gets heavier. a regular yukfest. can't say the sitcom-y stuff like bedbugs and drunk squirrels was that great, but still lots of great individual funny lines.

animal animal animal animal animal animal animal

i watched the first two episodes and it's a bit boring to me this season. I enjoyed the gratuitous sex scene between piper and alex though because who wouldn't.

alex is such a bore. i like how demented piper looks this season.

now that i finished it, i changed my mind
i love this show
also it got a lot easier to ffwd through the opening credits, no?

Think I said it earlier, but this show is basically "M*A*S*H."

I gave up on my plan to just watch 1 per week, and ended up binging through several episodes last night. Finished off with 'Ching Chong Chang,' which was basically the first actually good episode of the season. I've been warned to brace myself for the finale because it jumps the shark really hard. I'm not surprised if that's true, because this season SUUUUUUUUUX.

Chang is the shit

Lots of great characters individually. Don't really care about the narrative arc of the show tbh. I don't care about acting very much but Taryn Manning was great. If Brittany Murphy were still alive she would've totally been on this show.

I've had that thought, too.

I mean I got no problems with jenji kohan but her shows do seem to peter out after awhile. then again I always thought weeds was mediocre and then it got utterly execrable, whereas OITNB was spectacular in long stretches of seasons 1 and 2, so the "ehhhhhhh"-ness of this one bums me out more

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

Bojack is super funny, and surprisingly mature (in the "contemplating adult life and its disappointments" sense).

Bojack is terrible.

Not sure I made it through one episode of Bojack, but it obviously has its fans. Amazon and even Hulu have some great original programming, either airing now or on its way. The latter has Difficult People and the new Aaron Paul show from the Friday Night Lights/Parenthood person.

wow there's a lot more of these than we could possibly poll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix

"Upcoming Original Programming" does not inspire confidence...

I assume WHAS: The First Day Of Camp would win anyway

you could just poll sitcoms, dramas, animated and docu-series and fairly represent what they've offered. i doubt anyone here really needs to vote for VeggieTales in the House tho my 2yo nephew swears by Dinotrux.

huh feels like the try to pull off some dark SHOCKING moments towards the end of season 1 with the abortion clinic murder and various other subplot climaxes. Also lots of ridiculous monologues ("You betrayed me... that's why I trust you", "I hate you... because I love you!")

honestly the only characters' interactions I find genuinely moving are the two young black women who work in the library, when the one talks about coming back to prison cuz its better than being outside, that was p well done.

shakey did you watch weeds?

nah

for all the dramatic backstory / flashback stuff they've done, nothing ever topped Yoga Jones' relatively brief monologue about what landed her in jail in S1

yeah i watched weeds for a bit but generally never really liked it and grew to hate it so came into oitnb w/ pretty low expectations. the show kinda met those expectations (laughing at smug npr yuppies while nevertheless having the show done from their perspective, smug dimissals of white trash and xians (except yknow xians that are classier and more liberal and probably cool catholic), scary tough black ppl that are actually teddy bears once you get to know them (plus they keep it real!). at the same time it was a lot better than weeds imo. cw i think is the third season is the weakest cuz there isn't a big bad (one reason why i kinda think third season might be the best tbh), but i think first season is the weakest really. show becomes much less piper focused as it goes forward, show creator basically said in interviews the show was her way to smuggle in stories about women of color by telling a story about a white woman. also less cartoonish (though it can still be pretty cartoonish). also it comes out in june when there's nothing else on tv.

yeah the racial dynamics of this show are really conflicted, you can see the gears turning a little too clearly

the more I watch of this the more the M*A*S*H* comparison seems apt. Season 1 ending swung between the ludicrously cliched (a talent show! the black lady sings Amazing Grace! the mute has an amazing singing voice!) to the unexpectedly violent (the exploding oven, the final beatdown/fight). If Jason Biggs was written out of the show at this point I will be grateful.

er not talent show, Christmas Pageant

there is some kind of irony in the audience surrogate becoming an increasingly irrelevant, entitled punching bag mined for laughs, but I feel like this show grinds to a halt when Piper's the focus - by s2 it's so obvious that it's the other characters that are more interesting and where the actual dynamism is. Still a fair amount of missed or fumbled opportunities, but the focus on the non-Piper inmates is where the good stuff is.

also Evil Oprah is a p good villain

also so glad Laura Prepon is gone

I bet she comes back tho

ugh Figueroa's final humiliation felt really gross and misogynistic.

she was always a terribly written one-dimensional caricature, like a drag queen evil bitch boss, but having her comeuppance be in the form of sexual humiliation (and not just once, but twice!) felt viciously sexist.

enjoying s3 though. any scene involving 2 women that are not Piper/Alex is reliably great.

wow s3 *really* went off the rails by the end. Just sloppy writing and tons of disconnected stuff going on - too many spinning plates at the same time or something. It started off so well with the more or less single-character-centered episodes (Chang, Norma, the Amish girl). idk if I'm on board for a 4th, I want to give this show credit for what it tries to do and occasionally gets right but then there's all this other garbage (primarily Piper-related) mixed in.

The Hayes Judaism conversion plot arc was odd, dunno if I was as moved as Mordy cuz I found it pretty much unconvincing and played for laughs *right* up until her actual conversion, at which point I was like "oh, this is serious? Huh."

iirc i had complicated feelings about it throughout but i think they pulled it out in the end

Yeah I quit after s2 and glad I did.

iirc i had complicated feelings about it throughout but i think they pulled it out in the end

Yeah it's upthread. I think it came off reasonably well too, it just felt abrupt. I was okay with the laughs (her recounting the opening of Annie Hall, and then Yentl, as her own childhood was obvious but still lol), just kinda surprised when all of a sudden it became a "no, I'm SERIOUS" thing

I quit midway through S2 - for every funny and well-observed beat there was a clunky and excruciating one. Also some of the most irritating incidental music this side of Doctor Who.

haha yeah a lot of the music cues are terrible

except for the "Rebel Girl" drop, that was awesome

http://jezebel.com/orange-is-the-new-black-locks-in-three-more-seasons-wit-1757301136

Why this is good news: such a brilliant cast getting paid to work together for another 3 years.

Why this is bad news: they'll be wasted on seasons potentially even worse than S3 was.

Like, I never watched Weeds, but from what I understand, ruining an initially promising series is just Jenji Kohan's thing.

i don't want to rush to judgment there because weeds was on showtime and ruining an initially promising series is very much showtime's thing. fwiw oitnb is much better than weeds imo.

The variance in quality btwn seasons of OINTB is nowhere NEAR that of Weeds, where they had a great formula for a show, wrote themselves into a corner v quickly, and spent like 6 more seasons grasping at straws to try to make the show work giving its characters the flimsiest and most unbelievable motivations for their actions.

Though I wonder what this will mean for the writing and filming and execution of the show! It must be crazy knowing you have so much time to make all this stuff happen and you have no risk of being canned

kill off Piper

ugh this season was awful
AWFUL

That Australian girl, was she real or from the Sims?
I guess I liked Big Boo + Pensatucky teaming up. Maybe some of the backstories. I hated everything else.

Was the raid on Cesar's anything to do with Bennett, who I had assumed would sail back in in the finale?

Seems like this came back for S4 with zero fanfare. I didn't even realize it was up until I noticed it while flipping around through Netflix.

3 episodes deep now and still no sign of Natasha Lyonne or Laverne Cox.

Didn't Natasha Lyonne leave the show halfway through the last season?

She's still in the credits.

Laverne Cox is featured in episode 4, and Natasha Lyonne is glimpsed. They're both in solitary, is all.
5 in and I'm enjoying this more than S3, but then that season only revealed it's disappointingness over time, like it seemed OK week-to-week but then never cohered into anything satisfying. Even at its most wishy-washy I still find this show extremely watchable tho.

Yeah, I made it all the way through 5 last night as well. Was happy to finally see them both, though Laverne's character is in a bad way.

It's now clearer than ever that Piper could be completely written out of the show and nothing would change. It might improve, even.

watched the whole thing and it's really good

I'll probably finish it up today. Hearing that^ is good news.

Still only midawy through and I could do without this panty ring plotline and yeah anything Piper is boring but last season they cut her out somewhat and it was poor, I just hope this new ex-soldier guard stuff is going somewhere. I like that new guy Piscatella, he seems interesting.

Just finished episode 9 and this has actually gotten pretty good.

This ended up being maybe the best season? Hard to say. I haven't seen S1 since 2013 so I don't remember all those details, but it's definitely better than S2 and S3 once it gets going about midway through. I mean...FUUUUUUCK.

loving nurse beth in this

so far this is much much better than S3.

but I'm still pissed that the fuckin' C.O. had a throwaway line about being upset that he missed seeing Halford in Priest in 1999.

HE WASN'T IN PRIEST IN '99 dDSAFLKEAJEALKFEJADASFJDSAFDASFJgsejgrkeajfewafeaklfjea;fe

makes that really shitty subplot about the Cult of Norma and Timehump feel like yesteryear. kinda funny how both of those storylines mostly got summarily discarded.

not really feeling the Sosa - Poussey relationship as it feels arbitrary...feel like they haven't known what to do w/ Poussey since the Vee arc, and she's one of my fav characters.

comment upthread about Piper being inessential is otm. when she went to make a phone call a few eps ago I was like "OMG what un-heardfrom old character is she calling?"

xp He said 89. I was trying to figure out when he left, and they cut it really close.

nope. I just rewatched it, he definitely says "summer of ninety-nine"

Ralph Wilson Stadium wasn't called Ralph Wilson Stadium until 1998 (before that it was Rich Stadium)

welp the other shoe drop just finally happened. guess the rest of the eps are going to be a lot more intense

nope. I just rewatched it, he definitely says "summer of ninety-nine"

lol all my mental anguish was for nothing!

welp the other shoe drop just finally happened. guess the rest of the eps are going to be a lot more intense

If you mean what I think you mean, it ain't the half of it.

this is the best season, which shocked me as it seemed destined for a downward trajectory

lol Ripper Owens responded to my tweet correcting OITNB on the Judas Priest mistake

and the weird thing was he wasn't even tagged

alright two eps left....btw anybody whose heart doesn't break for Lollie = monster

*waits for Neanderthal to get through the last two episodes, because whoa*

FUCK

I had the last two episodes left this morning. Hoped for some post-Brexit cheering up. NOPE.

Huh. Season 3 seemed to pop up too quickly after season 2 (which we thought was just OK), and then we didn't feel like watching season 3, especially once I read some reviews. So if we saw 1 and 2 but skipped 3, can we just dive right into season 4? Or do we need to see season 3 first?

If you read a synopsis for S3 somewhere to get up to speed, you'll be okay and save yourselves a lot of time.

I'm in shock at how much of an improvement this season was over the third. Last year when we finished, I thought I was just about done with the show. We just finished the latest one five minutes ago and I am desperate for the next season already. I feel exhausted and really sad about so many things that happened.

yeah, I mean there were so many things about Season 3 which had me questioning the writers' sanity (the Norma cult and the Time Hump bits being the worst offenders). it was like they decided "alright we're not Piper-focused anymore" but couldn't figure out what direction to take the show so they flung a bunch of shit at the wall.

this was devastating but so good. I am kinda tired of the cliffhanger endings though.

also still loling at the Kenny Rogers Roasters reference

I just watched it all at once over the last 24h and good lord that was bleak af. I feel like I just sat through a 13 hour von Trier film. Also the whole "rapist is complex and sympathetic and is forgiven and not held accountable" thing made me RAAAAAAGE

that was bothersome! i kept thinking he was going to get his at some point . overall a pretty entertaining season especially compared to the last.

christ this season. starts out weak but rips your heart out at the end.

haven't finished this season yet but show still seems to be suffering from the problems of its unwieldy cast - ie jarring shifts in tone, plotlines juggled inexpertly, uninteresting digressions. some good stuff but there's like a third of this show/storylines that could be cut and I wouldn't miss them.

Agreed on the digressions -- I felt they could've started around episode 4 really, or when Piper rallies some of the prisoners to a new cause.

was kinda disappointed that Piper went back to Red instead of accepting her lot and going full Nazi - you made your nazi bed, now you have to nazi sleep in it!

this season is certainly grimmer/darker - but I'm not sure it's actually better? Been surprised by the number of Mad Men directors brought in for various episodes, hadn't noticed that before.

I think it's better than last season! But I suppose that's not saying much.

yeah it's definitely better than the last season just in terms of most of the storylines - but even so there's just too many imo, the thing is very unwieldy even when it's not bogged down with Timehumping and Normaculting. And then at least once every couple episodes we get some stupid pointless scene where Piper and Voss have to talk about their feelings about one another which is just *barf* wgaf. Or romantic Caputo bullshit. Or a flashback sequence that feels like padding/water-treading. Also can't unsee Crazy Eyes' whole schtick as a bad Whoopi Goldberg impression.

Stuff this season has done well: it's really driven home the institutionalized brutality of incarceration (even moreso w privatization), which got glossed over in previous seasons. The racial segmentation/segregation coming to the fore also well done, I think; that "circling the wagons" mentality so common in prison communities. And there's at least a half dozen cast members that always deliver in their scenes (Cindy, Nicky, the crusty old biker lady, Mendoza, Boo).

***SPOILERS***

also the Poussey foreshadowing was some "I'm naming my new yacht the 'Live Forever'!" type clumsy bullshit

I was really hoping that Caputo was going to let MCC have it live on air :(

Almost as disappointed about that as I was about Poussey

Great series overall but I found it hard to believe that a guard could be killed and nobody would notice that he was missing, even though a lot of new staff had been hired

Dude was not actually a guard, was my understanding.

Cliffhanger ending was v stupid

obv she isn't gonna shoot the guard, it's gonna be one of these moments as per usual (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StatusQuoIsGod), but I don't think that was the point of the scene. meant to illustrate growing tension in the prison and now Caputo's gonna basically have to rebuild his staff.

IMO all guards will be killed and resources will run out and Season 5 will be Lord of the Flies in prison

I predict she shoots one of the inmates by mistake

haven't finished this season yet but show still seems to be suffering from the problems of its unwieldy cast - ie jarring shifts in tone, plotlines juggled inexpertly, uninteresting digressions. some good stuff but there's like a third of this show/storylines that could be cut and I wouldn't miss them.

― Οὖτις, Monday, July 11, 2016 10:33 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still have 4 episodes left, but this is totally otm, this show could really stand to allow some of its cast to just not have a storyline for the season. Because there are so many characters and each of them needs an arc for some reason, they all get short shrift, regardless of the vast disparities in quality in the scenarios.

It really feels like each episode is just little bits thrown together: a little bit of Morello's travails with her husband, a little bit of Voss's struggles with the garden, a little bit of Poussey's relationship stuff, a little bit about Sophia in the SHU, etc. And for whatever reason Caputo gets major scenes in every episode; by screen time alone, he's basically the lead on this show.

Which I don't mean as a criticism of the actor or his scenes, he's pretty good and it doesn't feel like the writers are just throwing stuff his way because they have to, which is how it feels for some of the other characters

Again, I'm not done with the show, so maybe every single plotline will pay off, but it seems super-unlikely.

at least in the much-maligned third season, they tried to weave a broad thematic thread about faith and family through many of the plotlines. And even though a number of the S3 plots were bad, overall I appreciated the choice not to melodramatically raise the stakes after the Vee plot in season 2. This season feels more slapdash in certain ways even as it's a lot better in other ways.

The single best thing they could do in future seasons is never have Piper and Vause back together again.

I feel like by the end S4 pulled off a really thorny balance of empathy and indignation so I give it a lot of leeway for its shortcomings

I didn't jump in on this until season 3 last year and only after the fourth did I feel like I had to go back and watch it all from the beginning.

The cliffhanger is agonizing fun just for how are they going to de-escalate without anyone else dying (which would only undermine what's already happened) or like at least a dozen inmates being taken down the hill or transferred entirely.

lol it'll most likely be one of those "one week later..." smash cuts

This show is both refreshing and annoying in that most situations de-escalate. If it were Oz, it the next episode would be begin with brains splattered on the walls

totally otm

In real life if Daya killed the guard (whose name I forget) and all of the other prisoners refused to testify against her or said that they didn't see what happened then what would be the chances of her being found guilty of his murder?

The new CO woman is also there though remember. I predict someone will kill...THE LIGHTS.

xp i mean fingerprints, powder traces, etc, i think there's a lot of forensic stuff that could point to her

but like either way you stole a guard's gun and held him at gunpoint, you are kinda just fucked regardless, right?

The guard doesn't want word to get out that he illegally brought a gun in either. Perhaps the woman CO there suggests they all walk away without saying anything and everyone agrees. This would be a v boring de-escalation though.

whatever happens it'll all blow over and it will end with Nichols making out with one of the other prisoners.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/29/hacker-holds-netflix-to-ransom-over-new-season-of-orange-is-the-new-black

wow apparently they leaked the first 10 eps

This sucks for Netflix. Normally I'd never side with a corporation on any issue, really, but they've done a lot of good work with creative people and basically just give them money they can't secure through other means, so fuck these hacker assholes.

I have ZERO idea how subscriber retention actually works but I wouldn't think this would actually have much impact on their subscribe base? Like, OINTB was gonna hit the internet almost as soon as it hit Netflix anyway so

Yeah this really axcomplishes nothing beyond being able to suss out which of your Twitter friends are saddos who can wait a month for their stories

Bump for 2moro

i'm enjoying this so far

the trailer for this made it look godawful - like they just get to run the prison themselves?

sorta, yeah. it's the three immediate days after the events of the s4 finale

the whole season!??!

a bottle season. love it

The talent show! A riot within a riot. I'm relieved at how well judged the comedy v tragedy has been so far.

i got into this show in season 4 - my wife had binge-watched the first few season when i was on vacation. there are elements about the show i really like, and characters and actors that i really enjoy. but ... i feel like it's also just a bit of a mess. the sprawling cast can be a bummer when they spend too long focusing on boring side-plots and uninteresting characters. there's a real formless and aimless aspect which has just been taken to new heights in season 5, lots of threads that get dropped then taking up again way later. a lot of the stuff that is played for laughs is not particularly funny, the antics of the comedy nazis for instance are just irritating and dumb.

it's a huge mess, 15 subplots, an underdeveloped cast, lots of cheap laughs, desperate attempts at relevance (everybody citing a different mass killing in the first ep) etc. And then a literal "Chekov's gun" this time around, I really shouldn't bother with this, except there are a couple characters I really really like too bad they only get like 10 minutes of screen time per ep

I really shouldn't bother with this either, seems like a case of diminishing returns so far

I do kinda give them credit for trying to do something different with the giant ensemble cast/multiple storylines but they really don't do a very good job of it

Only the situation kept this interesting but it still panned out more or less as expected - flashbacks all pointless and too many characters to deal with. Burset in particular got short shrift. Not sure how they're getting two more seasons out of this.

it's one of those things where I wish they would just slow down and take their time. I was into the more focused, flashback-framed episodes that went in depth (to varying degrees) of various characters and I wish they would just go with that instead of the constant prison shenanigans and hamfisted attempts at addressing contemporary issues and the Piper plot and all that other shit. So much of prison is monotony and boredom, it seems like it would serve as a good platform for character studies, but they aren't interested in that - they'd rather try to do a dozen things at once.

i'm liking this season a lot

oh my god have they always been so fucking heavy-handed?? it feels like really "woke" white liberals writing about diversity in really improbable ways that make them feel really good and then patting themselves on the back for it.

like, a black Muslim, and she's a sex worker, oh, and also she's into polyamory and approaches it in the most casual nonchalant way, like have the ppl writing this actually met a sex worker or a person in a poly relationship?

more like Performative Liberal Allyship Is The New Black

i've only seen the first four - do they reveal that she was a sex worker later in the season or did i miss something?

Netflix's main audience stats are millenials IIRC - you can definitely see how the values have infiltrated so much of their programming

i've only seen the first four - do they reveal that she was a sex worker later in the season or did i miss something?

I thought they alluded to it when she was on the diner

i'm the last person to like a show bc it's politically correct but i think there's enough interesting going on that whatever political agenda the writers have seems fairly inconsequential. one thing i really like is that the show is sympathetic about its characters but it doesn't whitewash them - it's clear why they're in prison bc they're impulsive and make poor decisions and are drug users and abusers and sometimes cruel. poussey is really the only char who seemed too good/innocent to be in this show (and iirc her arrest story was pretty unfair as well). (laverne cox' character is pretty angelified too). they do a good job humanizing addicts and murderers and even the staff. it's not as good as the wire obviously but in a similar way it does a good job of making the "enemy" be the institutions surrounding the characters and generally not the characters themselves (some exceptions to that - the guard who brought the gun in seems pretty unredeemable but they made short work of him).

Is there an odd count problem at the end of the season. Just noticed something doesn't quite add properly.
But won't say further.

Also wondering what the duration of time passed in the 'real world' of the season is.
Great cliffhanger ending so sorry to have to wait another year to find out what happens next.
Also just seen it suggested that they might jump forward in the time line to get closer to the present day and incorporate some of what's happening under 45.

Is there an odd count problem at the end of the season. Just noticed something doesn't quite add properly.

Same - at least two out!

i understand the criticisms but i still like hanging with a majority of these characters

just tried to verify the count and if you include the Counterfeit Cunt from Connecticut in their census than there is one person i can't account for.

is this going towards a Lost finale where the prison doesn't really exist or somethin

was thinking the same about count. But not wanting to give details. In case anybody not seen.

Oh & Hadn't noticed until I came across an article talking about the cliffhanger ending, had somehow just thought count was right until then.

Big Toy Story 3 vibes in the finale. Didn't see it as much of a cliffhanger though.

How long are we embargoing open discussion?

Yeah I thought that shit was out the window on streaming shows tbh

How could spoilers possibly matter w a show this silly

I am briefly joining the thread to say that I finally started watching this yesterday. I'm only 1 episode in but I like it way more than I thought I would

I'll return when I'm all caught up :)

S1E1?

See ya in a month!

this series is a real drag. there's been a storyline about makeovers fgs

anything Flaritza does is ok by me

i'm the last person to like a show bc it's politically correct but i think there's enough interesting going on that whatever political agenda the writers have seems fairly inconsequential. one thing i really like is that the show is sympathetic about its characters but it doesn't whitewash them

this is v much the show's savig grace even when it's bad. I thought it was dumb that so many people complained about all the stuff we got with Healey last season. like...this is part of the deal.

(I have not watched the new season yet but idgaf about spoilers)

I've been enjoying the season a lot so far, though the one where we get to see Red's life back in the USSR has been the only dud so far. The "twist" there is predictable (although I do like its message), and maybe the writers were trying to take attention away from that triteness by indulging (boringly) in horror cliches in the present-day story.

ugh what a bleak and underwhelming dud of a season

this is another show where I've just sorta given up on caring abt the characters but enjoy spending time w them enough I guess

just finished it. i liked it and thought some of the beats were genuinely affecting. netflix knows me so well tho queuing up GLOW immediately after the final ep ended since by the end i was powering thru Orange bc i couldn't wait to start watching it.

ugh what a bleak and underwhelming dud of a season

I disagree completely, this season is probably my favorite among all the seasons, since it's so dedicated to killing utopias.

Uh... so three episodes into this season. Does it get better?

It's weird to consider abandoning a show I've enjoyed well enough for seasons, but everything about this is falling flat for me, the misanthropy, the pokey plotting, the sexual assault played for humor, the comic bits that feel like placeholders for funnier comic bits the writers never got around to punching up (more characters chatting irreverently about movies, but getting details wrong). Everything about it just strikes me as miserable. Does that gloom ever lift?

A lot of good things happened this season, but the whole premise of it was complete bullshit, and once I figured out the entire season was going to be the inmates holding the prison and it was a bottle season taking place over 3-4 days, I tuned out of caring so much and just focused on details I liked.

I gave up after episode 2

Uh... so three episodes into this season. Does it get better?

It's weird to consider abandoning a show I've enjoyed well enough for seasons, but everything about this is falling flat for me, the misanthropy, the pokey plotting, the sexual assault played for humor, the comic bits that feel like placeholders for funnier comic bits the writers never got around to punching up (more characters chatting irreverently about movies, but getting details wrong). Everything about it just strikes me as miserable. Does that gloom ever lift?

― Evan R, Friday, July 7, 2017 12:55 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i didn't think it got better. i ended up watching most of it, this i was only an episode or two from the end. may end up finishing it at some stage but don't really care at the moment

no, it doesn't get better, but like everyone says it's pleasant when you stop truly caring abt it and just enjoy the amusing moments as they happen.

we just finished s3 last night. i have to pack it in now, s1 and s2 were really good and promising but shit just fell apart. sometimes it feels good to say goodbye to show without finishing it

Yeah don't become like me and try to finish Dexter after not enjoying it for three years.

S4 is a major drop off in quality, no reason to subject yourself to it

really? i thought season 4 was nearly as good as S2. S5 was kind of a mess though.

oh oops, I forgot there were five seasons. I did enjoy S4 quite a bit (that was the leisurely one where hardly anything happens, right? I mean that in a good way). But S5 really burned the show to the ground.

also damn just read this show has been renewed for a seventh season, too. That is one very long one-year prison sentence.

taking steps is easy, standing still is hard

wait, we are to believe that all 5 seasons have taken place in the span of 1 year?

watched the 1st couple eps of S4 and gave up on this. Really enjoyed 1st 2 seasons. Haven't thought about the show at all since stopped watching it. I think the Piper/Prepon softcore soap opera stuff was what 1st soured me on it.

yea for sure that storyline got really old even within s1

S6 began pretty wobbly, but ended up in a good place (for most of what remains of the original cast, anyway).

OITNB has a poor track record with integrating new characters in meaningful ways, and S6 is no exception, but at least the Carol/Barb thing was fun dramedy.

I watched the 1st episode of S6 and it stressed me out SO much, does the whole season go on like this?
like it's not fun for me to watch powerless women be abused???

It's no worse than S5 for this really (which I just rewatched and enjoyed more also) but yeah there's a bunch of depressing evil stuff (worst moment for this imo comes during a flashback to two of the new characters), some lols. I had enough interest in enough characters to keep watching somehow.

Another bleak season - how else could it go? But with the jokes not really hitting and an added sense of rudderless drift from the writers...not sure I could even drop spoilers if I wanted to. 2 eps left to go (165 mins between them).

The first third of the season was so dense that it felt like watching an entire previous season by the time I finished ep4. I soldiered on and finished it, though, and I guess it was about as rewarding as this show can ever get.

I hope that one day we get a womens' prison drama that learns from this show's mistakes.

what do you think of Pete McTighe's Prisoner reboot, Wentworth?