Orange is the New Black

[Theda Baratheon]

Watched the first 4 or 5 eps...not sure how I'm feeling yet it's all v fast paced 

[A True Kaniggit]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the whole season is suppposed to take place within the span of a few days. 

Edit: On the third episode now and am still trying to decide whether or not to just binge the whole thing tonight, or to pace myself. 

Edit 2: I'm halfway through episode 4 now and I'm thinking

 

Is the nurse they found in medbay really there? Or is it more of a Tyler Durden thing going on with Sophia? Because if it is just a nurse who stayed around, that guy should really get a raise after the riot is over.

Episode 7: Huh. So much for that theory. Dude really deserves a raise.

[HexMachina]

Watched three episodes. There is something so wrong totally with the show given the story they are telling. It may always have been a dramedy leaning more towards comedy but that really doesn't work when in this riot situation and given the more brutal nature of what's going on .at least for me anyway. I felt distinctly uncomfortable during the scenes in the chapel but totally it was portrayed as comedic which is really offputting.

[Joe Pesci]

3 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Edit: On the third episode now and am still trying to decide whether or not to just binge the whole thing tonight, or to pace myself. 

Yeah I just finished off 6 episodes and thought about doing the same, but I don't think I'll be able to handle another 7 hours. 

7 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Watched the first 4 or 5 eps...not sure how I'm feeling yet it's all v fast paced 

Agree, it's been a pretty rapid story movement in a very short time. I'm not even sure if it's been 24 hours yet through 6 eps. I'm enjoying it so far though, but not as much as prior seasons.

[The Wolves]

I'm not liking this new season. I don't like watching people make mistake after mistake when they always had a chance to do the right or different thing then dig themselves into a deeper hole, it gets exhausting and that's what the riot is, exhausting. 

I get that that these women are angry and fed up with the abuse and disrespect but to see them treating the guards like that in the chapel was wrong. Daya is stupid doing what she did and all of a sudden realizing what she did had me rolling my eyes. The story and acting was great but I can't watch characters and people just make one bad decision after another and their situations get worse I lack patience for that. 

[Kyoshi]

I'm on episode 5 and not enjoying it at all because it feels like a thematic/conceptual bottle episode. The riot has really stunted the show's growth.

[HexMachina]

11 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Anybody catch Cindy's cameo on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt?

YES!  Was almost expecting a cameo from the cultist mole woman 

5 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

I'm on episode 5 and not enjoying it at all because it feels like a thematic/conceptual bottle episode. The riot has really stunted the show's growth.

I just finished episode 4 and felt like it was so stupid and out of place in the middle of a riot. Themeatically just not working at all. I think so far this is my least favourite season. It bugs me so much after the hard-hitting moments in the last two episodes of last season. Nothing seems to be treated seriously. The whole talent show bit was ridiculous, the hostage situation with the guards is played way too comedically, especially Angie and Leanne. And the Paula Dean stuff is just so frustrating. 

Even Poussey's death is not given the treatment it deserves. Brook and Taystee's grief isn't given any respect at all. The whole seance thing just felt plain insulting. I don't like the direction this season has gone at all.

I also think the cast has grown to an unmanageable size. It's focusing on too many characters I don't care about at the expense of those I do

[Theda Baratheon]

16 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Watched three episodes. There is something so wrong totally with the show given the story they are telling. It may always have been a dramedy leaning more towards comedy but that really doesn't work when in this riot situation and given the more brutal nature of what's going on .at least for me anyway. I felt distinctly uncomfortable during the scenes in the chapel but totally it was portrayed as comedic which is really offputting.

They made me uncomfortable as well, those scenes. 

Waiting to watch the whole thing before I have any deeper analysis 

[Theda Baratheon]

don't really like the comedy nazis either...i dunno, there's a lot about this season that feels...kind of shallow i guess. 

[Nictarion]

54 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Even Poussey's death is not given the treatment it deserves. Brook and Taystee's grief isn't given any respect at all. The whole seance thing just felt plain insulting. I don't like the direction this season has gone at all.

I also think the cast has grown to an unmanageable size. It's focusing on too many characters I don't care about at the expense of those I do

Disagree with this. Taystee's grief has been handled fine. She wasn't having any of the seance bs, and her interview with the reporters about Poussey was well done imo. 

Agree with this though. I'm about halfway through and I was thinking the same thing.

[HexMachina]

19 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Disagree with this. Taystee's grief has been handled fine. She wasn't having any of the seance bs, and her interview with the reporters about Poussey was well done imo. 

Agree with this though. I'm about halfway through and I was thinking the same thing.

I hadn't watched episode 5 when I wrote that post. I agree that was a powerful scene. I stand by my opinion on the earlier episodes not dealing with the grief side of thing s very welll though. 

And I feel like they really ruined that moment by having the almost comedic escape of Donuts immediately after. The episode should have ended after Taystee's speech.

Eta: okay the stuff with Taystee's, Brook and Janae has improved now and they actually seem to be taking the issue seriously. Still having issues with this season but I think it has improved from episode 5.

Also Piper Chapman is possibly the most irritating character I've ever encountered on TV. I just want to scream at her whenever she is on screen

[Kyoshi]

^^Agreed that the cast is way too large this season, or maybe there simply aren't enough meaningful scenes with core characters from previous seasons, so the newer, supporting characters just feel like frivolous filler.

And again, I really hate that although it's only a few days/hours in-universe, I'm deep into the season and

the riot is still the main story. I wish they had treated it more like the lake scene, where a random and absolutely silly thing happens but soon after the prisoners go back to living the lovable and comedic mess we'd all grown to love. In one episode, 10 IRRC, there's such a dramatic change in tone that I almost skipped the whole episode. The show suddenly turns into a non-meta horror/mystery thriller such that it ends up like a completely different show altogether. It's a mess. The whole thing is a mess and right now I'm bracing myself for an unsatisfactory cliffhanger to end of the season.

[Kyoshi]

Or maybe I'm just frustrated with Netflix right now. Perhaps I should point that. Some might still enjoy the show.

[A True Kaniggit]

Netflix needs to work on it's math. Either that or I'm counting wrong, and can't figure out where. Anyone know where the extra person is coming from?

At the end of the riot they say they are 10 short while counting the inmates. Since they're including that woman from MCC, we know that they're actually 11 short. There are 10 people hiding at the pool, and 2 that we know wandered off the prison, equaling 12 that they haven't recaptured. 

[Dolorous Gabe]

14 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Netflix needs to work on it's math. Either that or I'm counting wrong, and can't figure out where. Anyone know where the extra person is coming from?

  Reveal hidden contents

At the end of the riot they say they are 10 short while counting the inmates. Since they're including that woman from MCC, we know that they're actually 11 short. There are 10 people hiding at the pool, and 2 that we know wandered off the prison, equaling 12 that they haven't recaptured. 

 

Good point. I think it must just be a scriptwriting error.

Finished it. It's still good but there's definitely a disconnect between what it was trying to achieve with this season, which was grand in ambition of idea, and the end product. It is tonally messy, perhaps because it was trying to use the same kooky sense of black humour in the context of much more serious themes? Whatever the reason, the balance and shifting of tones seemed off its mark. Piscatella is a bold creation but he seems a bit too ludicrous to me, partially because the motivations for his actions are totally unconvincing. Hated the ending:

Spoiler

Another cliffhanger! Not sure where they're gonna take the story from this point.

That said, there were things to enjoy. As usual the characters are well written, the acting is great, the dialogue is usually very good. And a reasonable amount of its trademark absurdist humour did hit its mark:

Spoiler

"You have eyebrows! Plural!" 

 

[HexMachina]

Anyone notice that Daya was painting Bennett? 

 

Finished the season, the end was better than the start but overall this was probably the weakest alongside Season 3. Several problems really - the tone was at odds with the serious stakes of the riot; 13 episodes covering 72 hours was too much; and the focus on the wrong characters. 

The focus on the wrong characters was probably the biggest misstep. First Sophia steps out after about 10 minutes of screen time (though I think Laverne has another show so that could be why). But even beyond that, the characters we grew to care for in S1-4 for barely present in the first half of the season, and instead we focused on the meth heads and neo-Nazis. And that's all I can call them because I seriously don't know any of their names. Give me Norma, Gina, Boo, Morello, Nicky...I don't care about these other caricatures.

I do understand the absence of some characters. The season looked at how they all dealt with the riot, and inevitably a lot try to keep their heads down or do other things. Brook, for example, is grieving for Poussey (I liked her scenes with Janae), and the Hawaiian girl and others want to stay out of it too. But we could have spent more time with Nicky and Morello, or Piper and Alex, Red, Flores, Gloria, Ruiz, Boo. Instead we got bland and uninteresting Nazi's and increasingly despicable Angie and Leanne.

Also, not nearly enough flashbacks, which have always been this show's strength. I did like Janae's though, it was pretty powerful even if the episode as a whole was a bit disjointed. Oh and Taystee meeting Poussey  

As I mentioned, latter half of the season improved, as focus shifted to characters I care about (although the Nazis persisted, and Angie and Leanne became increasingly awful characters compared with the more nuanced compelling stuff from earlier seasons).

A couple of comments

 

I liked the way Poussey's death was handled in the end. It was poorly done at the start but things were brought back into focus towards the end.

Ahhh, maginficent Fig. What would we do without you? Never change, and never leave this show.

Gloria's story was pretty heartbreaking, and it was a powerful performance by the actress. I really felt for her and was rooting for her to escape. And then Ruiz fucked her over, which I should have seen coming after her response to Gloria's plan but as usual I didn't. 

Annoying cliffhanger. How frustrating. Also Piscatella being shot felt like a bit of a cop out. No need to properly address that complicated issue now...

I don't know where they'll go next season. We'll obviously start with the resolution to the cliffhanger, which will almost inevitably be a disappointment. But after that' what? Split the show between two prisons? Awful idea, the cast is already too big and I don't care about a lot of them. Hopefully they take this chance to hit reset and cut some of the cast. 

[karaddin]

@Dr. Pepper @Theda Baratheon I'm not reading the rest of the thread to avoid spoilers, but I wanted to get a post-mortem of the season from some people I feel I can trust to have a viewpoint that I can relate to. Brook and I still haven't even watched Season 4 yet, the treatment of Sophia in Season 3 really upset me (you can go back to posts in this thread to see that!) and I wasn't really in the right headspace to deal with more of that when the season came out. Then what reactions I saw were very much on the negative side, Sophia's arc is still very bleak, I saw quite a few black women on twitter that were deciding the show was at the point of exploiting the suffering of black women for white women's enjoyment, later on I was spoiled on Poussey's death which pretty much destroyed what motivation I had to handle what Sophia's story would do for me, only to get that too.

My question is - if that angle of critique is the thing that has been put me off watching Season 4, does this season redeem the show in any way? The couple of comments I glimpsed scrolling to the bottom of the thread suggest no, that if anything it will anger me even more. Is that correct?

ETA: Apologies to tag you in if you haven't watched the season either Dr P, I don't see posts from you. I know Theda has been watching it at least.

[First of My Name]

I just finished it and find myself in agreement with much of what was said here. While I enjoyed watching this season a lot, there's a few glaring flaws. My biggest gripes are the Piscatella thing and the final episode, which just failed to satisfy on multiple levels.

That said, can we just give Danielle Brooks an Emmy? She was so impressive here.

[HexMachina]

18 hours ago, karaddin said:

@Dr. Pepper @Theda Baratheon I'm not reading the rest of the thread to avoid spoilers, but I wanted to get a post-mortem of the season from some people I feel I can trust to have a viewpoint that I can relate to. Brook and I still haven't even watched Season 4 yet, the treatment of Sophia in Season 3 really upset me (you can go back to posts in this thread to see that!) and I wasn't really in the right headspace to deal with more of that when the season came out. Then what reactions I saw were very much on the negative side, Sophia's arc is still very bleak, I saw quite a few black women on twitter that were deciding the show was at the point of exploiting the suffering of black women for white women's enjoyment, later on I was spoiled on Poussey's death which pretty much destroyed what motivation I had to handle what Sophia's story would do for me, only to get that too.

My question is - if that angle of critique is the thing that has been put me off watching Season 4, does this season redeem the show in any way? The couple of comments I glimpsed scrolling to the bottom of the thread suggest no, that if anything it will anger me even more. Is that correct?

ETA: Apologies to tag you in if you haven't watched the season either Dr P, I don't see posts from you. I know Theda has been watching it at least.

I know you didn't ask me, but I imagine S4 and S5 would only anger you even more, particularly with regards to Sophia. She's actually almost entirely absent from Season 5 (she has maybe 10 minutes of screentime, at a push?) and what little time she does get ends in a pretty bleak place.

Spoiler

She decides to leave the prison voluntarily so she can see Sister Ingalls. She gets escorted down to max after turning herself in to find that Sister Ingalls has been given compassionate release and Sophia has basically returned herself to her dire season 3 situation for nothing.

I know Laverne Cox was supposed to be in another show this year so wasn't sure if that factored into her lack of screentime or not

In terms of racial stuff, I think it's handled better this season, especially after the fifth episode. However, the entire season is really a reaction to Poussey's death (it takes place over 72 hours). There are some moving scenes and Taystee plays a big role in this season. 

I'd advise you not to watch based on what I recall of your comments from season 3 and other threads. I don't think you would enjoy the direction the show has gone in

[karaddin]

@HelenaExMachina

Thanks! Your opinion is certainly welcome as well, didn't mean to just restrict it to Dr P and Theda, just that the opinion of anyone who couldn't even see why that stuff was bothering me probably wouldn't be very helpful. I think you're probably right.