Suzanne and crew having fun on Valentines Day on Orange is the New Black
Photo Credit: Netflix
Spoilers for all of Orange is the New Black Season 2 ahead…
A Review of the Second Season of Orange is the New Black as soon as I feel like I’m in a Shalamalan film…
So much to talk about it’s hard to find a place to start…
How about we start at the end; the final sequence of the second season of Orange of the New Black, that of a dying Rosa escaping the prison in the very van that takes her back and forth to her now useless Kemo with the perfect musical choice (Don’t Fear the Reaper is always a great choice) blaring through the speakers is a perfect example of what exactly makes Orange is a New Black, and in particular the second season, so special. The show finds something intriguing and fascinating about even the most minor of character and plays it out in the most perfect way possible. Rosa as far as I can remember was a pretty big non factor throughout the entirety of the first season, and by the end of this season I cared about as much about Rosa as pretty much any character on television.
The magic of the second season of Orange is the New Black lies in just how well creator Jenji khoen uses the ensemble cast and makes all of the characters, even the most minor of them, into a three dimensional human being. Given an ensemble so diverse and deep this has to be a near impossible challenge, but yet throughout Orange is the New Black it feels like it comes so easily. By the end of the season I cared about nearly everyone on the show, no matter how flawed the character is because they’re presented as human beings and not as constructions or even at times characters on a television show.
To get us to that point we have to have some plot constructions of some sort and the show’s use this season of almost Lost esque flashbacks was the perfect device. Each character had an increasingly fascinating backstory from Suzanne’s out of place family vibe, to Rosa’s epic robberies and the curse that accompanied them, to the broken lesbian love story of Poussey, to Tastyee’s relationship with the manipulative Vee, to Red’s introduction to prison, Morello’s obsession with a guy that she had one date with, and the list goes on and on. Every flashback sequence is done with a certain beauty and sadness that really humanizes all of the characters on the show.
It’s amazing with all these character beats happening and the scope of development that the show is trying to achieve that the show still has time to tell a cohesive storyline in which it does very well. Unlike last season Piper is very much a background character this year and instead the driving force of the narrative comes from the big battle between Vee and, well everyone who isn’t in her crew. It’s a solid driving force that allows the fears and anxiety of the characters to come out in full force, while the manipulation of Vee dances all around them. It especially allows for both Tastyee and Poussey and their awkward friends but one of them wants to be more relationship to really come into the forefront. It also works as a bonding exercise for the characters, bringing them all into focus in a show where each of these characters could be lost in their own little worlds (ie the Boardwalk Empire approach).
As for Piper, who was essentially our main character throughout most of last season, gets a little less to do throughout season 2 while still being important. Khoen does something rather interesting by beginning the season with an all Piper episode. It’s not that Piper is a terrible character but the critical and internet reaction to the character was lukewarm at best. After the first Piper centric episode we don’t get as much Piper, but what we do get for the most part is pretty solid stuff. The season’s Piper arc focused on taking away all the things that Piper had pre prison sentence. Her fiancé decides that he likes her married best friend more than he likes her and ends up shacking up with Polly at the send of the season. Piper’s family comes to visit less and less and start to seem better off without her. Alex has left for the hills after she gets a deal to get out of prison after testifying against her former drug lord boss before leaving for the hills again in fear of said drug lord coming after her. Piper is basically left with nothing that made her the Piper we knew at the beginning of the series leaving her with a bit of an empty slate to build upon throughout the rest of the season.
As a show Orange is the New Black isn’t without its subtle problems. The show’s plot thread seemed to get more convoluted as the season reached its conclusion and there are a few times here or there that the show seems to get a little too exposition heavy. Ultimately these things are so marginal in the whole scheme of the show it doesn’t seem like it maters at all. Orange is the New Black season 2 is about as near perfect a season of television you get. Forget that the show beautifully written or perfectly acted for a second and look at the whole picture. It’s an ambitious achievement on a grand scale and it’s simply beautiful.
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
