 |
| Left to right: Kate Mulgrew and Nick Sandow |
Welcome to the new recap series on the second season of the Jenji Kohan Netflix hit Orange is the New Black. Over the next few Saturdays, we will be looking through the episodes and highlighting the events that make this comedy/drama a stand-out in general TV. Does the series have what it takes to make another phenomenal season of TV, and can the tales of Piper Chapman and her inmates satisfy expansion? Stay tuned and make sure to follow along at your own pace.
 |
| Kimiko Glenn |
Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow) is in charge of making the prison operate on a tighter shift, which causes a lot of hostility from coworkers and inmates. Meanwhile, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) has been granted her furlough, but at the cost of respect from her peers. She begins to regret it. Red (Kate Mulgrew) smuggles in some goods via flowerpots, which Caputo has caught onto, but not before Red can hide the evidence. He destroys her plants, causing him to feel regret. He also fires Susan Fisher (Lauren Lapkus) because of her negligence as an employee. Brook Soso (Kimiko Glenn) refuses to shower, which causes all of the inmates to complain. Rosa (Barbara Rosenblat) goes in for chemo and befriends a fellow patient who ends up going into remission. She realizes her mortality as she heads back to the prison. Piper eventually becomes fine with her furlough, but soon gets the news that her grandmother has passed away. Also, Caputo has found a replacement for Susan: Pornstache (Pablo Schreiber).
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
 |
| Barbara Rosenblat |
MVP:
Rosa Cisneros (Barbara Rosenblat)
Hands down, the best performance of the week goes to Rosa. While she has felt largely like a background character for most of the series, we finally get a deeper reason to care. We have seen her go through chemo before, but she felt like a supporting character and not much worth mentioning happened. This time, things turn interesting as it drops us right in the middle of the events and we see her discuss how the employees operate and sneakily consume drugs. She may seem like a slow, uninteresting person, but her observations are what makes her particularly interesting. She knows how to cheat the system and get her way. Also, the closing parts of this episode are emotional dynamite that help Rosa to solidify her success as a character. She expresses vulnerability without doing it forcefully. Along with a really solid flashback, this is one of the season's best episodes and a reflection of how the show manages to take unassuming characters and make them matter.
 |
| Stephanie Andujar |
Flashback
A young Rosa (Stephanie Andujar) falls in love with a bank robber. From there, she begins to get the thrills of robbing and becoming rich in the easiest way possible. Despite all of the bullet wounds and heart attacks, she loves it. It eventually becomes problematic when her compatriots and boyfriend. She eventually becomes so addicted that she gets caught.
 |
| Pablo Schreiber |
Overall Thoughts
After a few weeks of decent, but not great, episodes, Orange is the New Black returns to top form with en episode that explores the ideas of loss. Susan is on the verge of leaving. Red loses her flowers. Soso loses her smell. Rosa loses her chemo buddy as well as gains a realization of her own impending demise. There's also Chapman's grandmother, who in a brilliant plot twist, dies before she can access her furlough. The grief is done all in delightfully comical and dramatic ways that plays to the show's strengths. As usual, things are in top form when the cast is working towards similar thematic issues and creating something almost unifying despite their countless differences. It sets up a hopefully grand final half of the season and gives us promise of the return of Pornstache and a look at Chapman's life out in the wild with Larry, especially since she doesn't have a grandmother to visit. This episode ends with really impressive cliffhangers that make all of the establishing episodes that preceded this feel more important.
Comments
Post a Comment