Orange Is Back!

If you're like me, right now you're about midway through Season 3 of Orange Is the New Black. The latest edition of the series dropped on Netflix early Thursday evening, and most likely a whole lot of folks dropped whatever they were doing and took up residence in front of their computers.

It is tempting to binge-watch the entire series right away. In so doing, you may miss a lot of lovely silly details -- wisecracks, cultural references and sly bits of dialogue -- that slide in sideways, like a good shiv to the ribs. It is best to take your time and dole it out, episode by episode. But even saying that I know it's impossible, so settle in, get comfortable, bag yourself some chips and a pair of sweatpants, and head into lockdown.

At this point in the show, we're all pretty much at home in Litchfield Prison. The rules and the people are familiar, like old friends and the occasional enemy. In the first season everything was new, and like Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), the new fish, it took time to get used to the place. All those felonious women -- of all colours, shapes and sizes -- were something of a revelation, as were the story lines. Things were never quite what you expected. In the first season, a plot involving a stolen screwdriver, which one might assume would be used for murder, instead became a sex toy. The women themselves were also surprising. Poor little Piper turned out to be something of a hardcore bitch and master manipulator. The terrifying Russian matriarch Red (played with regal and stentorian poise by Kate Mulgrew) became warm and human. The drug-addicted Nicky (Natasha Lyonne), with her matted wad of hair and pop-eyes basically stayed the same, but that's okay, too.

One of the best things about Orange was to see so many women of colour, real looking women, being their big, ribald, hilarious selves. Suddenly big hips, large tits and fierce wit were celebrated. A little part of your brain that had been sitting in the corner, all alone, sat up and shouted "Hallelujah!" The show made gentle reference to many serious cultural issues, whether it was sexuality, religion, race or class, with forthright humour and good sense. This is something new, said the general zeitgeist, and indeed it was. It's not hard to see why Orange has become a beloved piece of pop culture. A little bit of genuine honesty and some good writing, and immediately you've got people beating down the door, demanding more. 

On a side note, the film world could learn something from the rise of the Netflix dramas. The recent Melissa McCarthy vehicle Spy, despite the presence of Jason Statham and the direction of Paul Feig (Bridesmaids), is a pretty dismal affair. The jokes are stale, limp and insulting to the intelligence of both women and men. It's one of those films that leave you scratching your head, especially as the critical consensus has largely been positive. Do not be fooled. There is more life, inventiveness and spirit in five minutes of Orange than the entire two hours of Spy.

Tidying up season two

There is a great deal of comfort in returning to the microcosm of the prison world. The same green walls, the worn linoleum, the good old cafeteria slop. Though a few things have changed this season. Actress Laverne Cox, who plays a trans woman named Sophia, has become something of a star in the real world. The show's other break-out, Uzo Aduba (who plays Crazy Eyes/Suzanne Warren), picked up an Emmy for her work. But the critical adoration and fan gush doesn't seem to have gone to the head of the show, Jenji Kohan. In Season 3, Kohan not only sticks to her narrative guns (the usual rubric of flashbacks continues), but she adds all kinds of new tricks to her arsenal. Thankfully, the show has had the wisdom to push Piper to the side of things. Piper, of course, was the original road into Litchfield, but she is so grating and tiresome in her steady self-absorption that it is pleasant to be freed from her constant whinge. Similarly, Alex Vause, Piper's drug mule girlfriend, is one of the least interesting characters on the show. There are far more exciting people to hang out with in prison, and the new season gives us time to do just that.

The final episode of Season 2 ended with a bravura bang, with the Machiavellian mastermind Vee getting schmucked by a truck. Sometimes justice comes swiftly, especially when it is being driven by an elderly cancer patient/inmate named Rosa whose last bid for glorious freedom echoes the great prison busts of yore (think One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or The Shawshank Redemption). The power struggle that overtook most of the second season had a velocity of its own (a little like a runaway truck), but the other narrative strands added heft and balance. Rosa's battle with cancer was particularly poignant. The reintroduction of the prison guard Pornstache was also a thing of beauty.

Season 3 begins by tidying up a few loose ends. The previous prison boss Fig was busily embezzling funds from the prison to fund her secretly gay husband's political career. A bit of mutually beneficial collusion and horse-trading between guard Joe Caputo and Piper resulted in Fig being ousted and Caputo taking over the prison's top job. This came about after a resolutely memorable blowjob scene, featuring the pet names "fangs" and "beer can." Such is the nature of the show's cheerful level of obscenity -- no one so much as bats an eye at the mention of clitorises. Indeed, all aspects of other female bodily stuff (periods, panties and douches) are handled with the same breezy insouciance. I have never seen a program that features as many different uses for maxi pads as Orange. Pads variously show up as blindfolds, slippers and mattress material. But I digress...

Other story lines that were left hanging in Season 2 are taken up again. Even though Pornstache has met his fate, the future of his "supposed" child growing in the belly of inmate Daya Diaz (Dascha Polanco) remains unclear. Poor old Crazy Eyes, Vee's one true acolyte, has narrowly escaped being blamed for a crime she didn't commit. Red has recovered from a serious beat down and is back on her steady scramble to the top of the heap.

Weirder and wilder

At the start of Season 3, Litchfield Prison is threatened with imminent closure. The embezzled funds have left the place hollowed out and barely hanging on. Caputo, now in charge, is faced with a bleak economic picture. The entrance of a private corporation initially seems like a gift from the gods. The corporate overlords assume control, install a sweatshop to make overpriced panties, and set about undercutting the order of the place by hiring cheap (untrained) labour to replace the regular guards. This is a great opportunity to introduce new characters and new narratives arcs. The damndest people show up, including comedian Mike Birbiglia who plays a corporate shill named Danny Pearson. Actress Lori Petty also makes another appearance, as a space cadet inmate from Chicago. 

There are a few wandering plot lines that don't amount to very much -- one bit involving prison hooch and a drunk squirrel that seems a bit overextended. But rest assured, there is a methodology at work. Kohan has a way of dropping in small details that later become critical, though it is occasionally hard to tease them out amongst the great writhing pile of serpentine narrative. Suffice to say there is much to love in this season's snaky plot ball, plus the usual lesbian sex scenes, drug abuse and occasional murder along the way. Season 3 is noticeably funnier than the previous two, with running gags about Harry Potter and how to fake being Jewish (in order to get Kosher meals from the cafeteria). Cue up your Woody Allen tummler.  

The women of Litchfield, whatever class, colour or creed, are each given time and attention. Everyone has a story, even the characters you barely notice at first. This dedication is rendered explicit in the story of Chang in episode six (Ching Chong Chang). When Piper and Alex catch Chang brushing her teeth with salt in the prison bathroom one morning, they burst out laughing at her peculiarity. But there is much more to Chang than initially meets the eye, and that is exactly how she wants it. Little noticed, almost invisible, Chang has developed her own way to live exactly as she pleases at Litchfield. As she trots about the prison, the ability to slip under the radar is revealed as a skill that has served her well since she was a girl.   

In the first season, the war between men and women took up the lion's share of time, but as things have rolled on it seems like just about everyone is a victim, either of the system or their own weakness -- usually a combination of the two. The occasional bit of hectoring creeps in now and then. This is especially evident in the opening episode of Season 3 (Mother's Day), where the women of Litchfield host a carnival for kids at the prison. Hillbilly meth addict Pennsatucky is seen planting five crosses made out of Popsicle sticks for each one of her terminated pregnancies. This leads to a lecture on Freakonomics from resident bull dyke Big Boo. But even the most dismal reality inside the prison industrial complex is handled with a certain open-eyed clarity. There is no point in pretending that the entire system isn't designed to keep women, and particularly poor women, in their place. This is perhaps why I like the series as much as I do: it looks at the various elephants in the room -- issues of class, race and gender -- and calls them out, one by one.

As Orange has developed, the original conceit of the show (call it Piper Goes to Prison) has fallen away. I believe one critic described this aspect as "a vestigial limb." This is an apt analogy. As things get weirder, wilder, and even more idiosyncratic, Orange has outgrown its own genesis -- Chained Heat meets Martha Stewart -- and become something altogether more interesting. Who knows where it will go? In the end, any show that comes up with a sex fantasy novella set in outer space with protagonists by the name of Rodcocker and Gilly has my undying devotion.