Warning: This article contains spoilers.
Just a month ago, Netflix released the sophomore season of it’s ridiculously risqué and incredibly successful series “Orange is the New Black.” Of course, this meant a near half-day binge for plenty of fans (like myself) who so eagerly anticipated a second season. So what makes “Orange is the New Black” worth the yearlong hiatus?
Let’s back up to the show’s preface. “Orange is the New Black” follows the story of Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), a self-centered, recently engaged, well-to-do white chick from New York who just found out about her 15-month sentence to an all-women’s prison for a crime she committed a decade ago. As the show unfolds, we discover that Piper’s seemingly charmed, traditional life is anything but the ordinary. Through our protagonist’s eyes, we see that prison life isn’t the fairytale band of badass women that Piper imagined. Instead, Litchfield Correctional Facility teems with violent gangs, corrupt CO’s, and, to Piper’s horror, her ex-girlfriend, Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), whom she was involved in a drug ring with ten years ago. And so, “Orange” proves to be the perfect concoction of racy, raunchy, and ratchet: the exact formula we’ve all been waiting for in a female-centric dark comedy.
But underneath the debauchery of the first and second season, “Orange” chronicles the Litchfield inmates’ unconventional searches for self. In season 2, Poussey struggles with her mixed romantic feelings for her best friend, Taystee, while dealing with unsettled feelings for her ex. Red fights for her prison “family’s” trust after losing her place in the kitchen. Pennsatucky’s clan dissolves, leaving her to blaze her own path in prison with the help of Mr. Healy. And Piper begins to mend her severed relationships with her family, ex-fiancé, and Alex.
What makes the series even more unorthodox is that “Orange” is all of the inmates’ stories to tell. Among the hilarious takes on emotionally turbulent tales that the series provides, us outsiders find that we aren’t that different from those locked up on the inside. Despite explicit sex scenes and graphic fights, we relish in the show’s more intimate moments: particularly those shared between girlfriends (both platonic and not). These pseudo-familial bonds shared among the inmates in Litchfield are what leave us begging for another fifty-two minute episode.
Compared to other current shows, “Orange” has a bit of a leg-up (pun intended). Its ability to juggle virtually tabooed genres including poverty, religion, race, and gay and women’s rights gives us an opportunity to explore and accept people from different walks of life. In the explicit melting pot of estrogen that is Litchfield, we (like Piper) ultimately befriend women who have killed, smuggled drugs, and committed fraud. It’s promiscuous, it’s alarming, and it leaves nothing to the imagination: but with this in mind, “Orange is the New Black” has – and will continue – to set new norms for modern Internet television.