Thoughts on “The Animals” (Orange is the New Black)

This is your official spoiler warning.  Massive spoilers for “The Animals” on Orange is the New Black (along with a bit of Sleepy Hollow’s “Ragnarok.”)

Needless to say, the penultimate episode of Orange is the New Black’s latest season knocked me out.  Poussey snuck up on me in mid-season one, and by the end of that season, she was my favorite on the show.  I’m devastated that she’s gone, and I’ll miss her dearly.  Her humor, her optimism, her earnestness, her bright smile – the show will definitely be bleaker without her in it.

However, I’ve been thinking about why, despite how sad I am to lose her, Poussey’s death works for me.  When they killed Abbie on Sleepy Hollow, I was sad, but I was also furious, disgusted to see how poorly the show did by their amazing co-lead.  There aren’t enough women on TV who are given leave to be wonderful, let alone women of color, and this year, many people have felt Abbie’s death was the unkindest cut in a season that seems particularly strewn with discarded characters who are female, PoC, and/or LGBTQ.  By all rights, Poussey, as a queer woman of color, could have been yet another in a long list.  But for me, she’s anything but.

With many of these deaths (I’ve talked about Abbie, but numerous other shows have had similar controversies over character deaths this year,) the prevailing sense is that 1) it’s such a waste, and 2) it’s trodding on a beloved character for the sake of cheap angst for the (often white male) characters mourning them.  They feel needless, a character of worth thrown away for shock value.  But here’s the thing:  Poussey’s death is needless, a waste, but not from an external show sense.  It’s needless within the story, and that’s the point.  Rather than kill off Poussey to prop up, say, Piper’s narrative, the show deliberate sets out here to tell a story about the senseless tragedies that happen in an atmosphere where people are dehumanized.  This grinding-down of the prisoners has been building all season, and it was only a matter of time before one of these women was crushed by the system that views her as less-than.  Given the current social movement speaking out about police violence, it rings particularly true that it’s a Black woman who’s killed accidentally by a poorly-trained guard during an intense situation.  This is the human cost of what Litchfield has become; it makes me furious and disgusted, not at the show, but at the real world it’s reflecting, where tragedies like this happen far too often.

As to why it’s Poussey specifically?  Honestly, because she’s the perfect person to put at the center of this story.  She’s almost universally loved, both within the show and among fans (although her death is mainly felt among the other Black woman, she had ties outside her own group, like Soso and Judy, and she wasn’t disliked by anyone,) meaning her death will have maximum impact.  I don’t know that there’s any other character on the show that would have provoked the same outpouring of grief from fans, and that’s important.  When we watch TV, we bring these characters into our homes and get to know them.  For some, TV opens a door to seeing Black people, queer people, or in the case of this show, criminals, as people rather than “groups.”  In losing Poussey, we’ve lost a friend, and while it of course doesn’t compare in the slightest to what the families of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, or Tamir Rice have gone through, it gives many a glimpse of understanding what tragedies like this are really like, and just maybe, when the next inevitably transpires, instead of asking, “What did they do to ‘provoke’ it?” they’ll ask, “Why does this keep happening, and how can we as a people stop it?”

Favorite Characters: Nicky Nichols (Orange is the New Black)

Season 3 of Orange is the New Black, released earlier this summer, of course got me thinking again about that fine show.  Not surprisingly, this led me to thinking about one of my favorites from the series; Nicky is an obvious supporting character and benefits from some of the advantages thereof, but in my book, she’s too awesome not to love.

By the time Piper comes to Litchfield, Nicky has been there long enough to be unimpressed by it.  She generally varies between a lackadaisical deadpan and bemused irony, making her own, slightly disinterested fun where she finds it.  She helps Piper find her footing during her earliest days in prison, filling her in on finer points like Litchfield’s racial separatism (“Just pretend that it’s the 1950s, it’ll make it easier to understand.”)

For the most part, Nicky has gotten to the point where she can take prison in stride.  While she may have smart comments about her work detail, other people’s feuds/affairs/catastrophes, or Litchfield’s latest dehumanizing cost-cutting measure, they don’t tend to actively bother her.  But she’s not like Poussey and Taystee, either, who are lively and always finding ways to entertain themselves.  Nicky is a little more ground down, most likely because she’s been there longer; she conveys a lot of genuine amusement, attraction, and even delight, but she does it in a more muted way.

Nicky’s main indulgence is girls, in whom she partakes liberally.  She has a steady supply of sexual partners in the name of pleasure and fun, though she naturally has her favorites – there probably aren’t many people in Morello’s life who care about her as much as Nicky does, and she has a definite thing for Alex.  This brings her a little hardship, because she’s prone to falling for women who are already hung up on someone else, but it never gets her down for long.  And she’s not one to let second-choice status stop her.  She has a detached, casually vulgar flirting style that she employs on whoever she pleases, and when there’s relationship drama to be had, she comments on it way more often than she gets involved in it.

Because this is Orange is the New Black and you may have picked up the pattern from the other character write-ups I’ve done for the show, Nicky isn’t all about laidback comic relief and enthusiastic sex scenes.  The most humorous characters in this series still have their demons, and Nicky is no exception.  In truth, going to prison might have saved her life, because it forced her to give up heroin due to nonexistent resources.  Though she does well enough when there’s no temptation, it’s clear that her addiction still has a powerful hold on her, and if the opportunity presents itself, she’s not entirely confident in her own ability to resist.

Her own introduction to Litchfield came with a big dose of withdrawal, and she looks to Red, who helped her through it, as a surrogate mother on the inside.  Nicky’s relationship with Red might be more intense than her connection to any other character.  With Morello and Alex, I think she’s able to internalize the fact that she likes them more than they like her and come to a kind of peace about it.  Red, however, she cares for deeply, and she knows that Red feels the same.  This means that when she and Red clash and she falls out of Red’s favor, it’s a hard blow, as she feels the weight of what she stands to lose.

Favorite Characters: Suzanne Warren (Orange is the New Black)

When this character is first introduced on Orange is the New Black, she’s a character!, a highly-entertaining archetype with outrageous antics and hilariously-bizarre non sequiturs.  Over time, though she retains much of her comic potential, she grows into a much more fully-drawn person with demons, struggles, and private tragedies.  Just as Piper has to learn to recognize the individuals behind her uninformed first impressions, we discover Suzanne’s full range and soon regret that we ever used her prison moniker Crazy Eyes.  (Some character-specific spoilers.)

That’s who we first meet:  Crazy Eyes, the unstable inmate who takes a shine to the horrified Piper.  Piper tries to calmly, rationally explain that she’s not interested in becoming anyone’s wife, but her diplomatic brush-off is met with pie-throwing and peeing on the floor.  Crazy Eyes is the whacky loon, the loose cannon, and she provides endless laughs.  Whether she’s showing off her “mad epiglottal skills,” joining the Scared Straight program for an acting outlet (her dream roles include Desdemona and Claire Huxtable,) or humping her fellow inmates, her sheer unpredictability is one of the show’s comedic highlights.

But then, late in season 1, a chance encounter with Piper offers insight into, not Crazy Eyes the character, but Suzanne the person.  She confesses that her job on the cleaning crew helps her manage her mental and emotional struggles, she shares about her time in psych, and she points out how much Piper’s rejection hurt her feelings.  Suddenly, we see a woman with mental health issues who’s just trying to get by in prison.  She seeks friendship and looks for someone she can love and protect, and she loses control when her feelings overwhelm her.  Because she’s so high-octane and all-over-the-place, she’s thought of as a joke, not quite real, and people can fool themselves into thinking that her emotions and experiences don’t “count” that way other people’s do, but this is the scene that starts turning the tide.

Season 2 delves much further into Suzanne.  It shows her troubled past as the adopted daughter of wealthy white parents who, though well-intentioned, seemed ill-equipped to handle her mental health difficulties or meet her cultural needs as a Black child.  The flashbacks offer a lot of insight into who she is, but more significantly, they show how susceptible she is to the machinations of Vee, season 2’s major baddie.  She’s so lonely, so starved for love and friendship, and at such mercy to her feelings that she’s easy pickings for a modern-day Fagin whispering in her ear.  It’s painfully simple to manipulate Suzanne by giving her the barest shred of affection, and Vee quickly fosters an environment in which Suzanne is so desperate for Vee’s continued approval that she’ll do anything the older woman wants her to.  Vee takes advantage of her volatile emotions and explosive tendencies, feeding on her devotion until she can use Suzanne like her personal attack dog.  It’s heartrending to watch, and it’s awful to think of someone so vulnerable being preyed on this way.  She had a rough time of it last season, and I really hope that season 3 brings something good her way, something to help her heal from some her harrowing experiences last year.

One last bit of kudos.  Orange is the New Black often does a nice job with intersectionality, and that’s especially true with Suzanne.  She’s a queer woman of color with a disability, and the show examines her sexuality, race, and mental illness – separately and together – in thoughtful, honest ways.  I wouldn’t have dreamed that after her first appearance, but it’s definitely true.

Brave Saint Saturn: Anti-Meridian (2008)

With five years between The Light of Things Hoped For and this release, I started to think we’d never get the end of the astronauts’ story.  But just like the Gloria emerges at last from the dark side of Titan, so Brave Saint Saturn returned in the end with this final chapter.  With a superb array of songs and an overall theme of coming home, Anti-Meridian closes the Brave Saint Saturn trilogy with a bang.

 

Story first:  the astronauts have returned to earth, where they receive a hero’s welcome.  The CD liner notes and a few spoken tracks on the album fill in the gaps – trapped in a geosynchronous orbit, the Gloria was detonated to propel the flight of the Starling, an escape pod.  I’m not up on my technobabble, but suffice it to say that the blast proves a new method of antimatter creation, making the voyage and subsequent return of the astronauts even more historic.  

 

Not many songs deal directly with the plot.  Dennis Culp’s “Hero’s Homecoming” is clearly the most explicit, exploring the exhilaration, joy, and also regret (not everyone made it home) of the heroes as they ride through the streets during their welcome-home parade.  Beyond that, the final two tracks on the album, “These Frail Hands” and “Invictus,” beautifully carry the metaphor of darkness from The Light of Things Hoped For and bring it at last into the light.  “These Frail Hands” is especially masterful – it might be my favorite Brave Saint Saturn song of all time.  With a gentle melody that starts plaintively and grows into an anthem that incorporates choruses from the previous two albums, it’s gorgeous to listen to, and the lyrics are astounding.  I’m seriously resisting the urge to quote the entire thing right now, but I’ll begrudgingly content myself with a single stanza:  “Darkness can’t perceive the light, / Though lightlessness has chilled us numb, / And though its wings may cloud the skies, / The dark shall never overcome.”  I mean, come on!

 

Several other numbers touch on the light-and-dark imagery.  “Through Depths of Twilight” is a thoughtful piece that champions those who’ve brought hope in dark times, particularly highlighting Abraham Lincoln’s “better angels” and the “thunderous words” of Martin Luther King, Jr.  The terrific “Always Just Beneath the Dawn” reaches from son to father in an effort to connect.  The chorus is stellar, and I love the lyric, “In my bones, / Your twenty-three same chromosomes / Reside in twisted prophecy, / Likening our destinies.”

 

The songs on this album have the widest range of subject matter on the trilogy.  Some, like “Starling” and “Blessed are the Land Mines,” are social-message songs.  Though “Starling” starts as a denouncement of killing animals for sport, it gradually works its way to the larger issue of disposable people or nations falling victims to others’ power-lust or fear-mongering.  Likewise, “Blessed are the Land Mines” is a darkly ironic rock number that condemns war-profiteering in general, and more specifically, support within institutionalized religion for war – or as the song puts it, “the church who rattles sabers.”  On a different note, Culp’s “Fields of the Fallen” is lovely, moody, and mournful, and “Fortress of Solitude” is one of the coolest songs I’ve heard about a superhero.  I’ll cop to loving the combination of superheroes and modern rock, and this song is a bang-up example.  I especially like the line, “This prison of mine / Is to carry alone / The light of one red sun / Beneath my skin, / And never, ever go home.”  Tons of variety here, with lots to love!

 

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I'll probably talk more about the Emmy nominations later, but I just have to geek out over Laverne Cox's nomination for Orange is the New Black.  First trans* person in history to receive an acting nomination for the Emmys (and I imagine for all the major Hollywood awards) - the barriers that woman has broken down in the past year blow my mind.  The tip of my hat to Ms. Cox.

Orange is the New Black Wish List

 

With nearly a year to wait until season 3, it’s time to look towards the future and muse about what I’d like to see when the good ship Orange is the New Black returns.  In many ways, the sophomore season improves upon the show’s first outing, but there’s always room for tinkering.  These are my season 3 wishes.  (Once again, I’ll disclaim the possibility of spoilers; some very specific season 2 mentions here.)

 

·    More stories for the Latina inmates – We’ve now seen flashbacks for eight of the white characters (including multiple Piper- and Red-centric episodes) and all eight black characters (thanks largely to the Vee arc in season 2,) but only three Latina characters – four if you stretch to count Aleida’s involvement in Daya’s flashback.  I’d love to learn more about Maria, Flaca, and Maritza, and I’d definitely like more Flores.  That said…

 

·    Less Daya/Bennett – These two bore me; what can I say?  They had sweet interactions in the beginning, but now, they both seem so dumb, and their plots tend to feel a little rinse-and-repeat.  Either shake up their storyline or put less focus on it.

 

·    Someone to help Nicky – I’ll admit it – I’m very worried for Nicky.  I was on pins and needles when she was given heroin, and I had to reassure myself that it’d be too repetitive for the show to kill off a white gay junkie via overdose in the second half of both seasons.  She’s been okay so far, but I don’t like the way she looks at that stash in the finale.  Show, make sure she has someone to help her be strong.

 

·    Overall plot balance – Piper/Alex are interesting to me, so I’m glad it looks like Alex will be back for season 3.  However, I also love the more true-ensemble feel of season 2, with different characters coming to the fore.  When the show returns, I’d like to see it strike a nice balance between Piper’s story and everyone else.

 

·    More humor – Season 2 has terrific drama, but sometimes it gets a bit too heavy.  Orange is the New Black is a dramedy at its core, and means, again, balance – this time between serious and funny.  Let’s be sure to keep plenty of laughs moving forward.

 

·    More of the Sophia-Sister friendship – Sophia felt really sidelined this season, and I love her unlikely friendship with Sister Jones.  More, please!

 

·    More interracial queer interaction – Despite Suzanne’s initial interest in Piper, the LGBTQ stuff has been pretty segregated.  I get that Litchfield is pretty segregated in general, and it wouldn’t bother me so much if the QPoCs didn’t seem so separated from one another.  There’s no sense of solidarity between Suzanne, Poussey, and Sophia, nothing like the tight-knit subculture between the white queer inmates.  I’d like to see more between them, and more cross-cultural interactions.  There are some great, brief interactions this season (Nicky and Poussey, Suzanne and Morello,) but there’s a lot of room for more.  And along those lines…

 

·    A girlfriend for Poussey – Seriously, she’s a catch.  She deserves better than a crush on her best friend.  A new character seems like the best bet right now, although, of the existing characters, I’m a little intrigued by the possibility of Poussey/Nicky.  I can’t quite picture it, but it’s probably the healthiest of all their current options.  Either way, I’d love to see how Taystee reacts to Poussey being with someone.

 

·    Something good for Suzanne – Anything, really.  Season 2 was hard on her; she went down a bad road and was used by a despicable person.  Let’s see some redemption for her actions as well as something that allows her to be genuinely happy for a little while.

More thoughts on Orange is the New Black

 

Season 2 of Orange is the New Black offers up plenty of twists, revelations, and conflicts to keep fans busy, but it also provides some nice narrative food for thought.  Today, I want to examine two characters and how race and culture are at play to create different results in similar scenarios.  (Again, a disclaimer:  I’ll be getting into season 2 stuff, especially flashback info from episodes 2 and 3.)

 

We found out last season that Suzanne (a.k.a. Crazy Eyes) is the daughter of two well-to-do-looking white parents, with the obvious implication that she was adopted.  Similarly, Taystee has a line in season 1 about having been a ward of the state until adolescence.  The new episodes give us more information about both of their backgrounds, paying special attention to their experience with adoption or lack thereof.

 

Taystee’s story is sad but undeniably familiar.  It’s unclear how old she was when she was first put up for adoption, but at some point she clearly aged out of a desirably adoptable age.  The smart, spirited girl grows up in group homes, being passed over for those younger, lighter-skinned, straighter-haired, and less forceful.  Her yearning for a “forever family” makes her a prime target for Vee, an opportunistic drug dealer.  Like Fagin before her, Vee preys on cast-off children, grooming them to work for her and offering them the parental figure they’re missing in their lives. 

 

Superficially, Suzanne’s situation appears far better than Taystee’s.  She’s adopted into a well-off, loving family at a young age, raised in suburban comfort.  However, Suzanne’s upbringing has left scars as well.  Her well-intentioned mother loves her dearly and fights tooth and nail for her happiness and inclusion, but Suzanne remains an outsider in her own community.  She grows up among white people (probably exclusively, or nearly so,) where no one quite understands her.  Even something as simple as her hair – when she’s young, her parents leave it large and wild, presumably because they don’t really know what to do with a black girl’s hair.  It’s not until her baby sister is born that it’s first styled, a treat from a black nurse who manages Suzanne with an ease her own mother never achieves.

 

So, in a way, Suzanne is looking for family, too.  Taystee makes friends in prison easily; there’s a common vernacular and cultural bond, and she fits in seamlessly.  Meanwhile, Suzanne struggles to find her place.  In Litchfield, prisoners live according to a “tribal” system in which they mainly associate with members of their own race.  Granted, we don’t know much about what her adult pre-prison life was like, but it seems Suzanne has had limited time socializing with other black people.  I wonder if she was excited when she first discovered a black community at Litchfield, if she finally felt like she belonged somewhere. 

 

But here, too, Suzanne is out of place.  With her Standard American English diction, privileged background, and love of Shakespeare and figure skating, she doesn’t have the shared experience that binds together many of the black inmates, and they tolerate her without really accepting her.  (Note:  Suzanne’s clear but unspecified mental health issues definitely have something to do with it as well – the others tend to treat her more like a “special” mascot than anything else.)  When Vee returns to Litchfield, it’s no wonder she quickly recognizes Suzanne as an easy mark.

Favorite Characters: Poussey Washington (Orange is the New Black)

Don’t ask me how, but in watching season 2 of Orange is the New Black, I managed to restrain myself to a single episode a day.  In the grand scheme of things, I realize that spreading it out over 13 days in lieu of binge-watching doesn’t dramatically shorten the wait until season 3, but it’s something.  Expect plenty of Orange is the New Black meditations in the coming days; naturally, though, I have to start with Poussey.  (Note:  while I won’t get into major spoilers, I will be including season 2 stuff, so read at your own discretion.)

 

When I finished season 1, I waxed on Poussey’s relationship with Taystee, but today is all about Ms. Washington herself.  Her exuberant personality won me over in season 1 – the inmates at Litchfield deal with their situation in different ways, and the Poussey we first meet is one who rolls pretty well with the punches.  She’s excellent at finding things to laugh about (even in prison,) she’s tirelessly supportive, and though she’s not afraid to get serious and speak her mind, she’s most content just shooting the breeze with her friends.

 

The new crop of episodes delve much deeper into Poussey, and while what we get isn’t as all-out fun, it draws a picture of this woman that’s a lot more detailed.  We still see Poussey’s capacity for joy and humor, especially early in the season – the Stand and Deliver cracks me up – but she goes through a serious trial by fire that tests her limits on all sides.  When Vee, someone from Taystee’s past, shows up in prison and tries to get Taystee back under her thumb, she quickly recognizes the importance of driving a wedge between Poussey and Taystee, and Poussey’s fight to keep her friend is grueling.

 

So what’s revealed about Poussey over the course of this storyline?  First, we see that she’s a good judge of character – she makes a piercing, spot-on observation about Vee that pinpoints her better than any other line in the series – and she isn’t easily swayed by flattery or manipulations.  She’s a born extrovert who craves companionship and values her relationships above all else, and the surest way to press her berserk button is to try and take away the people she cares about.  When push comes to shove, however, she won’t play nice with people she doesn’t respect just to keep her place at the table.  She’s fiercely loyal even when people don’t always deserve it, and she has an inner strength that drives her to face off against those who are bigger and more powerful than her.

 

She also gets her very own flashback episode to her pre-Litchfield days, which provides further insight.  Unlike some of the inmates we’ve met, she comes from a loving middle-class family with a wonderfully supportive father.  She was an army brat who moved around a lot, living in other countries and forming close attachments that were severed every time her dad was inevitably transferred again.  Though it’s obvious that she feels incredibly deeply, she’s developed the skill of pretending she doesn’t – it’s easier to cut ties with someone when you insist that you never really loved them.  It’s an interesting shade when you look at her frequent wisecracking and occasional tough-girl posturing:  a lot of it is genuine, I’m sure, but at least some of it must be rooted in this same defense mechanism.

 

Oh, and did I mention she’s a QPoC who’s both traditionally unfeminine and gorgeous?  Poussey for the win, people!

Orange is the New Black (2013-Present)

*Disclaimer: Like Supergirl, Orange is the New Black is a fine show that does a lot of things really well but falls short in certain aspects. Namely, like way, way too many shows, it features multiple characters with disabilities played by able-bodied actors. Seriously, if characters with disabilities were cast appropriately, actors with disabilities would be all over Hollywood in prominent roles.*

 

After gushing over the utterly wonderful Poussey and Taystee, I figured I ought to write about the show in general.  Orange is the New Black was a slow starter for me; it began as a show to watch when I had time, but it grew addictive as it went on, and by the time I finished season 1, I was a definite fan.  I’m currently trying to figure out how I’ll pace myself when season 2 arrives, knowing I’ll have a full year to wait before getting any more.

 

In Orange is the New Black, Piper Chapman is taken from her cushy life when she’s called up for a decade-old crime  In her early 20s, she carried money for her then-girlfriend, an international drug smuggler, and she’s now been sentenced to 15 months in a medium-security federal prison for her sins.  At first, she approaches her situation intellectually, doing research on What to Expect When You’re in the Clink.  She plans to keep her head down, power through, and come out unchanged, where her fiancée and a season of Mad Man will be waiting for her.

 

Clearly, Piper has a few things to learn.  She’s instantly overwhelmed by the dehumanization, the loss of privilege and privacy.  She’s thrown into a culture where women don’t stray outside strict racial boundaries, the bathroom stalls don’t have doors, and any sign of disrespect (to inmates or staff members) invites danger.  Her habit of putting her foot in her mouth has her in constant hot water, and her usual method of conflict resolution – level-headed discourse – doesn’t fly here.

 

Likewise, Piper and her fiancée Larry see just how difficult it is to maintain their relationship with Piper in jail.  Piper’s entire world has turned upside-down, and Larry has no way to truly understand what she’s going through.  Matters are further complicated when Piper realizes she’s incarcerated with Alex, the ex-girlfriend who presumably informed on her.  Despite the obvious bad blood between the two, there’s a magnetic pull to their interactions, and Piper’s thoughts about the alluring, untrustworthy woman do her head in.

 

Aside from the central characters, the show is populated by a stellar ensemble of fellow inmates.  Their lives and stories are revealed gradually, initial stereotyped impressions reshaping into women who are deftly drawn and well thought out.  Each episode includes a flashback or two about one character’s pre-prison life, and it’s great to see different facets of these women and get a glimpse of what started them down the path to their current predicament.  The show’s greatest strength is this unique, complex, and sympathetic cast of characters.  They are of different ages, races, social classes, orientations, national origins, and abilities.  They wrestle with hopelessness, power struggles, indignity, mental illness, rights of gender identity, betrayal, and corruption, to name just a few.  They also fall in love, adopt fierce loyalties, chase the things that make them feel normal, and find reasons to laugh.  The show uses them to put stunningly-individual faces to the often faceless circumstance of the imprisoned.  If Piper moved steadily down my list of favorites throughout the season, it’s only because I kept finding more to love among the supporting players.

 

Warnings

 

Swearing, sexual content (including nudity, sex scenes, and masturbation,) substance abuse, some violence, racist and homophobic slurs, and frank depiction of bodily functions.