I know it’s a bit late to write something about this series now, considering that the last of the seven seasons was premiered in 2019 and I only started binge-watching the entire series a few months ago. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s an amazing show that has touched my heart many times in various ways.
The plot features some pretty dramatic and exaggerating elements at times, and the number and intensity of sex scenes were a bit overwhelming for me, but the story itself manages to be a magnifying glass that exposes and explores the dark sides of the American society rather comprehensively – racism, sexism, inequality, corporate bureaucracy and complacency, and problems with human beings in general – selfishness, uncontrollable desire, self-righteousness, pride, violence, family issues, revenge, etc. I love how the inmates’ flashbacks give a clue to how they have become the person at present. They best illustrates how everything happens for a reason. It is not difficult to sympathize with these convicted criminals after knowing their stories, in which inequality and injustice often plays a big part. It also raises the question of whether being legal is necessarily moral, and whether being illegal is immoral.
Meanwhile, it is intriguing to see how working in a prison has an effect on the prison guards. Most of them struggled to make ends meet and would not hesitate to exploit the inmates if any opportunity to earn quick money comes up. It is upsetting to see that some of them are not bad people inherently, but the setting of a prison simply made them violent and inhumane sometimes. In fact, inmates could even be more decent people than the guards.
Although the series is loosely based on the memoir of Piper Kerman and the story evolves from the experience of the character representing her in the drama, Piper Chapman, I have grown to like some other characters more. It is a fantastic cast seriously, and everyone made the characters real and alive, but my favourite inmates have to be Nicky and Suzanne.
Nicky is a drug addict who has struggled her entire adult life with addiction, self-hatred for failing to fight addiction and neglect of her parents. I love the fact that she has turned out to be such a kind, loyal, quick-witted, intelligent woman who was basically abandoned by her parents emotionally all along. I was slow to finish Season 4 because she was sent to maximum security in the beginning of the season and not featured for most of the episodes. I was so glad when she finally appeared again! I admire her unrequited and selfless love for Lorna and her promise in Season 5 that she would help keep her baby safe even if its father left them, followed by a call to the father saying that she wished she herself could be the one burdened by being loved by Lorna. This was so touching! Another scene that I absolutely love was the “prison call” scene in Season 6 that Nicky had with Red, her prison mom. Nicky was made to name Red as a culprit in the riot or face 70 more years in prison. She chose the former and has since suffered from enormous pain for betraying Red, the person who has been more motherly than her own biological mother. The two of them were in different blocks of the prison after the riot and had no chance to talk. During a phone call session, Nicky pretended to be calling her mom but was actually confessing to Red, who was also pretending to call her son in the adjacent booth, how sorry she was for naming her. It was such a clever scene. I actually like the actress playing Nicky, Natasha Lyonne, so much that I watched another Netflix series that she created, Russian Doll, immediately after finishing OITNB.
There is also Suzanne that I adore. She is a loveable figure traumatized for costing a little boy’s life for just trying to befriend him. Being black and adopted by a rich white family, she encounters discrimination of all sorts all along her life despite being loved by her parents and younger sister. Other inmates think she is crazy and dub her “Crazy Eyes", but sometimes she is the only sensible person in this mad and ridiculous world, as she is never tainted or tempted by deception, hypocrisy or selfishness, and is indeed more well-educated and knowledgeable than most of her fellow inmates. She likes to make things right.
Private prisons represent indeed a problem-stricken system. The people running them only looked for ways to get more funds by packing more inmates in a crowded space. They did not treat them as people who need help to learn from their mistakes and prepare for lives after serving their time so that they don’t end up in prison again. In fact, ex-cons coming back to prison is common in the series as they soon realized they lack support from family and friends the minute they regain freedom, and could easily go down the rabbit hole of crime. Yet, for people among the top of the system, I do like Fig and Caputo, who took the role of warden at different times throughout the series (despite the other fancy titles the company gave the person at their position, they were practically the wardens). Their relationship started with extortion, but then turned out to be friendly and even romantic. They are such an adorable couple, especially because Fig was influenced by Caputo’s passion in restorative justice and making inmates’ lives better, and started to really care.
I do think the seventh season was the right time to end this series. I have watched other series on Netflix such as Unbelievable and When They See Us, which are both impressive and heartbreaking productions that demonstrated how stereotypes and malpractice can ruin innocent people’s lives. But OITNB brought an even bigger impact because it is a more complicated blend of various issues, and because sometimes a comedy can tell a sadder story than a serious, dark drama.
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