Is it time to break out of jail series?
The new season of Orange Is the New Black proves it’s time for the show to end, writes Bethonie Butler
SINCE it premiered in 2013, Orange Is the New Black (OITNB) has helped shine a light on the inherent injustices of the US criminal justice system. The Netflix prison dramedy continues that tradition in its latest season, but its most compelling argument is more about the show itself: it’s time for it to end.
Season 6 finds many of Litchfield’s inmates serving out their sentences in maximum security following the riot that upended life at the minimum security prison last season.
The show introduces a few new inmates, but none are interesting enough to justify the amount of attention the show devotes to them.
The worst offender is Badison (Amanda Fuller), a Boston-bred prisoner whose corny jokes and self-given moniker make her possibly the most annoying inmate in OITNB history – yes, even more annoying than Piper (Taylor Schilling). Then there’s Carol (Henny Russell) and Barbara (Mackenzie Phillips), a pair of homicidal sisters whose perpetual war with each other and their respective prison blocks is only occasionally entertaining.
The show’s focus on unfamiliar faces also means that several of Litchfield’s fan favourites get lost in the shuffle. Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren is given plenty of lines, but the talents of Uzo Aduba – a two-time Emmy winner for the role – seem underused.
Galina “Red” Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew) adapts to the politics of max in ways that seem out of character for a woman who served as “prison mom” to roughly a third of Litchfield’s minimum security population.
And season 6 does even more damage with respect to the infuriating relationship between Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett (Taryn Manning) and Charlie Coates (James Mcmenamin), the corrections officer who raped her in season 3.
This season’s misguided priorities are confounding given that the show has more compelling material to work with. The riot becomes the prison’s festering wound with some inmates trying to protect themselves at all costs,