‘Orange’ stars blue over future
What does show’s cliffhanger finale mean for inmates?
Through four tumultuous seasons, one constant on Or
ange Is the New Black has been its engaging ensemble cast.
But the fifth-season finale of the Netflix prison dramedy, released Friday, shatters the world of Litchfield Penitentiary. After following the inmates through a three-day riot, the season ends with police storming the prison, splitting up the inmates and loading them onto buses bound for unknown destinations. Meanwhile, several key characters stay behind, with potentially fatal consequences.
“There is no going back,” Selenis Leyva, who plays Gloria Mendoza, tells USA TODAY. “As an actress, I was mortified the entire time. Because I was like, ‘What does this mean for Gloria? Does she die in the next episode?’... I always think, is Season 6 going to start with limbs everywhere? It’s scary, the aftermath of it all.”
Gloria, the mother figure of Litchfield’s “Spanish Harlem” family, spends the new season trying to save her hospitalized son. In the finale, she’s one of 10 inmates found hiding in an empty swimming pool in the final scene, in which police bomb their hideout.
Leyva, who learned about the finale “the week before we shot it,” doesn’t know whether her character survives the cliffhanger ending. “Reading it, I went, ‘What does this mean?’ The way it’s left off, there’s a huge explosion.”
In addition to her own ailing son, Gloria is the de facto protector of her younger counterpart Dayanara Diaz (Dascha Polanco), who spends the season in a downward spiral after shooting a cor- rections officer in the season’s pivotal first episode.
Polanco says the inmates’ uncertain fates were true to the experiences of real-life prisoners. “It’s realistic; you’re at (someone’s) mercy, you have no freedom, you belong to the system and its the system’s decision where you go.”
While the finale sees the rest of her Litchfield peers shipping out or staring down police, Daya is already in custody. “Daya’s on her own; she just committed a crime (and) obviously that will be punished,” Polanco said. “You might not see her ever again.”
The splintering of the Litchfield inmates threatens to separate Gloria and Daya, who’ve “had a mother-daughter dynamic since Season One,” Leyva says.
“I think in the Latino community, we take on aunts and uncles and cousins who are not really blood-related,” Polanco added. “And everyone’s related in Litchfield, we’re all a big old family.”
While the final episode could be a suitable series finale, Netflix has ordered two more seasons of the series, part of a rare three-season pickup. Even if the show reunites the Litchfield family in future episodes, Polanco and Leyva predicted a tough season ahead.
“They all are going to face consequences, every single person in the prison, because it’s gone wrong,” Leyva said. “It went from a riot asking for justice to falling apart. There’s casualties, and now they’ll pay the price.”
If previous seasons are any indication, OITNB fans won’t get answers until next summer.
Polanco and Leyva say that’s for the best.
“I like the fact that Orange is very secretive,” Polanco says.
“And it’s OK! We need to be,” Leyva says. “The fans are going crazy, we’re going nuts. ... (Costar) Kate Mulgrew and I sit in each other’s rooms, like, ‘Let’s recap, what do you think is going to happen?’ And we’re always so wrong.”