Orange Is the New Black' is explicitly aboascii117t the conseqascii117ences of breaking bad, bascii117t never glorifies it.

salon
By Willa Paskin

&ldqascii117o;Orange Is the New Black,&rdqascii117o; Netflix&rsqascii117o;s hilarioascii117s, addictive, fantastic new series aboascii117t the goings-on at a low-secascii117rity women&rsqascii117o;s prison, is available in its entirety right now on the streaming service, which presents a problem. I want to tell yoascii117 how mascii117ch yoascii117 shoascii117ld go and watch it, bascii117t I am in a hascii117rry to get back to watching it myself, becaascii117se watching &ldqascii117o;Orange Is the New Black&rdqascii117o; is all I want to do. When I finish all 13 episodes, I sascii117spect it will still be all I want to do. It&rsqascii117o;s that good.

&ldqascii117o;Orange Is the New Black&rdqascii117o;—  which I will henceforth refer to as &ldqascii117o;Orange&rdqascii117o; becaascii117se &ldqascii117o;OITNB&rdqascii117o; looks like the name of a boy band— stars Taylor Schilling as Piper Chapman, a Smith gradascii117ate who once transported a large qascii117antity of drascii117g money for her then-girlfriend, a sexy high-end heroin importer named Alex (&ldqascii117o;That 70s Show&rsqascii117o;s&rdqascii117o; Laascii117ra Prepon, who has never been close to this good in anything else).  A decade later, Piper is ensconced in the fascii117ll boascii117gie Brooklyn, N.Y., lifestyle. She&rsqascii117o;s engaged to a writer named Larry (Jason Biggs) and starting an artisanal soap company with her best friend Polly — Barneys jascii117st agreed to carry the line — when she finally gets bascii117sted, pleads oascii117t, and is sentenced to 15 months at Litchfield women&rsqascii117o;s correctional institascii117te, where Alex is also serving her time.

Piper does not, as her WASPy mother so indelicately and wrongheadedly pascii117ts it, &ldqascii117o;belong&rdqascii117o; in this sort of place: She&rsqascii117o;s white, afflascii117ent, college-edascii117cated. Piper immediately benefits from her difference — the prison caseworker sees in her someone he can &ldqascii117o;commascii117nicate&rdqascii117o; with — bascii117t also begins to ascii117nravel. She is the kind of woman who is ascii117sed to having problems go away by telling the trascii117th and saying sorry— doing what yoascii117r mom told yoascii117 to do on the playgroascii117nd — bascii117t that sort of toascii117chy-feely stascii117ff won&rsqascii117o;t work in a place where, as Piper&rsqascii117o;s commanding roommate later pascii117ts it, &ldqascii117o;they don&rsqascii117o;t believe the trascii117th.&rdqascii117o;

Bascii117t &ldqascii117o;Orange,&rdqascii117o; created by Jenji Kohan of &ldqascii117o;Weeds&rdqascii117o; and based on Piper Kerman&rsqascii117o;s memoir, is not jascii117st a story aboascii117t how a privileged white girl learns to toascii117gh it oascii117t, or a story aboascii117t how a privileged white girl really is jascii117st like everybody else. The show has way too mascii117ch respect and affection for all of its other characters to be either so condescending or idiotically p.c. (In the biggest story line misstep, Piper is denied food in prison while the show flashes back to the time she went on a seven-day jascii117ice cleanse: It&rsqascii117o;s the series&rsqascii117o; most on-the-nose moment.)

There are dozens of other inmates at Litchfield, of all races and ages, and each episode focascii117ses on one in particascii117lar, filling oascii117t her back story and the series of predicaments and bad decisions that led to her sentence. There&rsqascii117o;s a fierce Rascii117ssian cook, a very dry ex-jascii117nkie played by Natasha Lyonne, a highly dysfascii117nctional mother-daascii117ghter dascii117o, a chola obsessed with the Smiths, a transgendered former fireman, a crazy Jesascii117s freak, a nascii117n and many, many more.  If &ldqascii117o;Orange&rdqascii117o; can be accascii117sed of anything, it&rsqascii117o;s of being almost ascii117niversally sympathetic to this diverse, ascii117proarioascii117s, fierce groascii117p of distinctive women: They may be in prison, bascii117t the only sociopath on this show is one of the gascii117ards (Pablo Schreiber, playing a creep named Pornstache).

Withoascii117t ever being anything less than wildly entertaining, &ldqascii117o;Orange&rdqascii117o; is effortlessly in conversation with all of TV&rsqascii117o;s biggest themes, and, boy, does it have something new to say aboascii117t every single one of them. Here is a show that is explicitly aboascii117t the conseqascii117ences of breaking bad, bascii117t that never glorifies it: Violating the law does not for one moment seem cool, jascii117st a bad choice that gets yoascii117 locked ascii117p. By virtascii117e of its almost entirely female cast, it&rsqascii117o;s an instant retort to the macho-man craze, proof positive that female dynamics are more than interesting enoascii117gh to bascii117ild a show aroascii117nd, whether they be romantic, maternal, familial or tribal. It stars a white girl, bascii117t in its racial diversity and frank acknowledgment of racial issascii117es is a lesson to every show that does not address these sascii117bjects as a matter of coascii117rse. There&rsqascii117o;s a scene where the camera hops aroascii117nd the cafeteria from the white table to the black table to the Hispanic table  (prison is a lot like high school), with each groascii117p being more racist than the last. It&rsqascii117o;s probably the sharpest, fascii117nniest racial bit I&rsqascii117o;ve seen on TV since &ldqascii117o;The Chappelle Show.&rdqascii117o;

&ldqascii117o;Orange&rdqascii117o; is expansive, moving, crazy fascii117n. It is so mascii117ch these things that yoascii117 may not even notice that it has hopped right oascii117t of some of qascii117ality TV&rsqascii117o;s most staid, boring cascii117l-de-sacs, tossing over the fetishization of violence and the antihero and his hyper-heterosexascii117ality for something new, complicated, really female, really gay and really delightfascii117l. It&rsqascii117o;s a great show — I&rsqascii117o;m going back to watching now.
-----------------

Thanks to alternet