Orange is the New Black: S03 is sharper & funnier
What with women prisoners using their maxi pad ration to urinate when they please, and the main protagonist finding her ex-girlfriend in the same prison, Orange is the New Black is not your average comedy show. This Netflix series is a veteran of three seasons now, and after last season’s dark, harrowing experience, the third one throws up quite a few moments of comic relief.
If you ever wondered why the Litchfield correction area seemed a bit like an evil corporate behemoth in the previous seasons, inventing new ways to torture its occupants, this season underscores that allegory. The main focus of the season is the privatisation of the prison, with budget cuts being introduced, and the arch villain Vee replaced by a corporate representative Danny (Mike Birbiblia), who doles out all bad news to the inmates with sadistic pleasure.
The season had more flashbacks that dealt with Alex, Nicky and Pennastucky’s past life, a trend they have carried on from season two, which had started off with flashbacks about Piper Chapman’s complicated childhood. Since the show invests in character arcs of most of its ensemble cast, it is difficult not to care a little bit for all the characters in Litchfield at the same time.
Piper Chapman has delved into a corporate venture of her own, with a panty smuggling business. She has grown at home in prison, a vast evolution from season one and the early part of season two’s lost-at-sea Chapman. This evolved Chapman is much darker, manipulative and ruthless, pushing her way through in Litchfield, a sign of which was visible in her involvement with the screwdriver stealing incident in the past. Chapman crosses over from being a casualty in a larger crime plan to actually giving in to criminal activities, smuggling panties from the prison.
The background score is one of the high points of the show in this season as in the first two. The season finale has a breathtaking piece of music called On Golden Pond by Gwedolyn Sanford, Brandon Jay and Scott Doherty, who worked on three original compositions for the third season based on its rough cut.
What the season loses out on, however, is focus, as too many side plots and shades of different characters makes it lose its grip, and fails to hold us in. The central scare of corporatisation of the prison is not strong enough to hold our attention, or shock us for very long. Let’s face it, corporatisation and capitalist greed is one of the biggest stories of our lives, and something which most of us are intimately aware of. It doesn’t take a prison show to tell us about the perils of it. What makes this interesting, however, is Chapman’s initial defiance plan against this, which makes her an ultimate colluder to it through this very same side business defence plan. The prison food also turns from bad to worse, and Red is dismayed when she is asked to cook that food. New prison guards are set up as part of the budget cuts, and the new administration tries every method that they can to make a few extra bucks. The show takes a socialist turn in its most political moment yet.
The show requires concentration to get through the middle episodes that tend to be tedious, no obvious plot movements emerging, a crucial element in all television shows. We wait as we are put through those flashbacks that slow the series down. Having said that, I feel the flashbacks (though it could have perhaps been incorporated into the storyline in a more exciting manner), provide empathy to the show. It helps the viewer in psycho-analysing Alex and Piper’s relationship for instance, and the reason they are drifting apart, fuelled by paranoia.
The season explores the inmates’ human sides, and motherhood is the primary motive behind a lot of these above mentioned flashbacks. The first episode, for instance, is titled Mother’s Day, where the inmates are united with their children or their own mothers, and enjoy some rare moments of real emotion. Motherhood is the leitmotif of the season, recurring in episode after episode, and we even witness a birth, a baby born to inmate Daya with a prison guard for a father. The inmates’ complex relationship with faith is also explored within the season. Cindy converts to Judaism in all earnesty, and Norma, the woman from the kitchens, starts her own religious cult with evangelist overtones. She has a long list of followers, who believe she can do good for them, and she is worshipped for her coincidental “miracles”.
The show vascillates between sisterhood, and the complexities of such a community: Stella gives Piper a white ink tattoo saying “Trust No B**ch”, a tattoo that might not be visible to anyone, but will be permanently inked on her body. In one heartfelt moment in the show, the prison’s fence comes crashing down, and the women rush out towards the lake to enjoy a few moments of peace with each other. Freedom in Litchfield prison is the most prized commodity, something each of the inmates is ready to pay an arm and leg for. Starved of this freedom, they seem to care and value it way above your regular woman in civil society. Meanwhile, while they enjoy felicity in each other’s company on a sunny day, the cold Litchfield prison is looming over their heads.
In one heartfelt moment in the show, the prison’s fence comes crashing down, and the women rush out towards the lake to enjoy a few moments of peace with each other. Freedom in Litchfield prison is the most prized commodity, something which each of the inmates is ready to pay an arm and leg for. Starved of this freedom, they seem to care and value it way above your regular woman in civil society.