Orange Is the New Black: Season 3 (2015) [Netflix (HD)]
Comedy | Crime | Dark humor | Drama

Tagline: Every sentence is a story

From the creator of Weeds comes a heartbreaking and hilarious new series set in a women's prison. Based on Piper Kermans acclaimed memoir, Orange Is the New Black follows engaged Brooklynite Piper Chapman, whose wild past comes back to haunt her and results in her arrest and detention in a federal penitentiary. To pay her debt to society, Piper trades her comfortable New York life for an orange prison jumpsuit and finds unexpected conflict and camaraderie amidst an eccentric group of inmates.

Storyline: The story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money for her drug-dealing girlfriend.

3.01: Mother's Day - The prison hosts a special visit to inmates to celebrate Mother's Day, as part of Caputo's attempt to "soften" his regime in light of recent controversies. Piper finds out that Alex has returned to Litchfield and the two reconcile. Poussey misses her mother. Bennett struggles to deal with Daya's family while keeping under wraps that he is the father of her child. Daya and Aledia clash on motherhood. Pennsatucky holds a memorial for the abortions she has had. Healy feels threatened by Caputo's recent staff change decision. Red fills the hole in the greenhouse with cement, and is later visited by her family, from whom she finds out Piper lied about how well the store was doing. Flashbacks reveal several inmates' past Mother's Day experiences.

3.02: Bed Bugs and Beyond - Litchfield prison combats a bed bug infestation, forcing prisoners to wear underwear or disposable paper suits and causing some of them to become paranoid about the cause of the bugs. Red confronts Piper about her lies about Red's family's store, causing Red to cut off both Piper and her husband for dishonesty before Healy gives her a dressing down. Pornstache's mother visits the prison and offers to adopt Daya's baby, causing tension among Bennett, Daya and Aledia. Alex struggles to deal with being back in prison and Piper reveals she ratted Alex out to her parole officer, causing the two to square off. Bennett proposes to Daya but has qualms about her extended family, especially the angry Cesar. Nicky and Big Boo find that they have been robbed of heroin they were hiding. Caputo learns that the prison is to close due to budget constraints. Flashbacks reveal Bennett as a U.S. Army soldier deployed to Afghanistan, where his unit comes under an insider attack by Afghan forces, and an Afghan soldier he has befriended is mistakenly killed. Piper and Alex's feud comes to a head in the closed library, where they end up hooking up. Bennett gets a crib from Cesar, but also witnesses Cesar pointing a gun at one of his children; he abandons the crib on the side of the road and drives away.

3.03: Empathy Is a Boner Killer - Luschek finds a buyer for Nicky's heroin, but is furious when Nicky says it has been stolen. Alex and Piper continue to have a contentious relationship. Caputo denies rumors from the staff that the prison is shutting down, but the staff is suspicious. Bennett disappears, worrying Daya. New staff member Rogers starts a theater class, where Alex and Piper reconcile during a performance. It is revealed Nicky was keeping the heroin for herself, but it was discovered by the meth heads. Luschek takes the heroin from them, but it is found by Caputo, causing Luschek to rat out Nicky. Healy recruits Red to help him talk to his wife. Caputo blackmails Figueroa into helping him keep the prison open, and she points him to a private company that was interested in acquiring it in the past. Flashbacks reveal Nicky's longtime struggle with her drug habit, including stealing a taxi and fighting with her mother. In the present, Nicky says brief goodbyes as she is sent to maximum security prison, lamenting that even after kicking her drug addiction, she may never lose her self-destructive tendencies.

3.04: Finger in the Dyke - The inmates deal with the loss of Nicky. Caputo takes the private company, MMR, on a tour of the prison. Crazy Eyes continues to deal with the death of Vee; Daya worries that Bennett has run off on her. It is Piper's birthday and she has a tense visit with her family. She and Alex begin to grow close again. Pennsatucky reveals she is still getting money from the anti-abortion group that considers her a martyr. Big Boo gets a makeover hoping to convince the religious group to give her funding, but she flies into a rage at the man instead. Red and Healy develop a friendship with romantic undertones. MMR agrees to take over operations of the prison, saving it from closure. Flashbacks reveal Big Boo's tense relationship with her uptight parents, especially her mother who does not approve of her being a lesbian. Her mother dies of an illness, estranged from her.

See also: Lesbian Bed Death

3.05: Fake It Till You Fake It Some More - MMR invests in new mattresses and improvements in the prison, but cut the guards' hours to part time. A new work detail that pays ten times the wage of other prison jobs is introduced, prompting the inmates to jockey for the new positions. They take a test and several, including Piper and Flaca, are selected. It is revealed they will be working in a shop making women's underwear. Daya tries to figure out her next steps without Bennett. Alex is paranoid that her former boss is trying to kill her. Poussey tries to stop animals from stealing her fermented alcohol. Flashbacks reveal Flaca's past life using psychology to trick students in her high school into believing she is selling them LSD, until a classmate who believes he is high jumps from the building and she is arrested for fraud.

3.06: Ching Chong Chang - Caputo interviews more part-time applicants, to the consternation of the other COs. A new prisoner reveals that a more appetizing kosher meal may be requested from the kitchen. Celebrity chef Judy King (Blair Brown) is arraigned on tax-evasion charges. As the prisoners begin making Whispers underwear, Piper flirts with a new prisoner, Stella Carlin. Lorna is visited by a series of civilian pen pals looking for romance, and takes a shine to a Jiu Jitsu enthusiast. Healy cons Caputo into getting Red back into the kitchen. Dreaming of love, a lonely Poussey makes and drinks hooch. Chang secretly prepares specialty foods for herself and watches Chinese movies on a cell phone stashed in a garden shack. In flashbacks, a young Chang rises and thrives in an underworld Asian crime ring, and exacts violent revenge on a man who rejected her.

Piper has a topless scene

3.07: Tongue-Tied - Suzanne displays a talent for writing bizarre, erotically charged fantasy stories. Stella agrees to contribute soiled Whispers underwear for Piper’s planned dirty-panties business. Piper recruits Cal to assist in the operation. Daya wrestles with who should raise her baby. Commuting to the prison together, Mendoza’s son teaches Sophia’s son rude behavior, causing the two mothers to clash. The controversy, paired with Ramos nearly slicing her finger off, leads to Red running the kitchen again—just as the new regime introduces “boil in the bag” meals. MMR’s failure to properly train the COs leads to a botched pepper-spraying incident. As Norma’s reputation as a miracle-performing mystic grows, flashbacks explain how she became one of many wives of a Svengali-like prophet in her younger years, and how she came to murder him later in life.

3.08: Fear, and Other Smells - Suzanne’s sci-fi story gains a cult following in the prison, but its latest chapter aggravates Poussey’s alcoholic depression. The prisoners despise the new cafeteria food, and are angry at the rising prices of commissary items. Piper conscripts her fellow prisoners to wear panties stolen from the factory, and sells them online for a profit. Counselor Rogers objects when Healy prescribes antidepressants to Soso, causing him to angrily pass Soso's case on to her. Pennsatucky bonds with Coates, a new CO and part-time doughnut-store employee. At a meeting in Utica, executives at MMR are shown to be totally devoid of compassion and solely concerned with cost-cutting and profits. Caputo grows to despise Pearson, who proves unsuccessful in pushing through his suggestions about prisoner job training, legal books for the library and other upgrades. Sophia and Mendoza commiserate about not being around to raise their respective sons. When Daya learns from Mendez’s mother that Diaz arranged a financial deal to raise the baby, Daya confesses to her that Mendez is not the child’s father. Alex suspects that a new prisoner, Lolly, may have been sent by Kubra to kill her—a paranoia mirrored in her flashbacks to her time in Paris, when Kubra targeted Fahri following Piper’s arrest. Lolly is later seen keeping detailed notebook records of Alex's every move.

3.09: Where My Dreidel At - With the help of Cal and CO Bayley, Piper’s used-panties business is a rousing success. Prisoners continue to obsess over Suzanne’s comically pornographic serial novel. Red is humiliated having to serve slop from a bag instead of real food, repeatedly disavowing any responsibility for the offending meals. A rabbi quizzes prisoners about their alleged devotion to committed Jewish beliefs, resulting in a short list of approved kosher meals. A nude Stella chats with a visibly impressed Piper in the bathroom; they later share a kiss. Mendoza and Sophia clash again when Sophia’s son is arrested on battery charges; Sophia learns that Mendoza’s son fled the scene. Celebrity chef Judy King once again appears on the TV news. Outside of the prison, CO Coates kisses Pennsatucky. After Lolly breaks a window in a shed, Alex notices that a large shard of glass has vanished from the debris. Leanne bullies Soso and acts as self-appointed vocal leader of Norma’s spiritual group, while flashbacks reveal how she broke free of her Amish roots and was arrested for possession of meth while attempting to return to her family. Norma tries to teach kindness and tolerance to Leanne, but Leanne ignores her. To her horror, Alex discovers that Lolly has been secretly monitoring her moves.

3.10: A Tittin' and a Hairin' - When a young inmate begins pursuing Suzanne romantically, Suzanne tells Morello that in spite of her erotically charged novels, she is still a virgin and confused about sex. Judy King is found guilty, but it seems that her ultimate destination will not be Litchfield. After observing Stella making moves on Piper, Alex confronts the pair in Piper’s bunk. Visited in jail by his mother, a shaken and traumatized Mendez is told that he is not the father of Daya’s child, which he refuses to believe. Mendez's mother informs Daya she still wishes to raise the baby, and after painful deliberation, Daya agrees. Morello uses Vince, her pen pal, to exact revenge on Christopher. Leanne and Soso continue to antagonize each other, with uncertain Norma caught in the middle. Using veggies grown in the garden, Red prepares a small pan of ratatouille for her kitchen staffers. Enraged that Sophia has cut off her son’s ride to the prison, Mendoza picks a fight with her in the bathroom, but gets herself injured. Meanwhile, in the white bathroom, Alex attacks Lolly, but comes to realize that she is just highly paranoid and delusional, not an assassin. CO Coates is reprimanded for being late after spending time with Pennsatucky; in a rage, he rapes her in the prison van. In flashbacks, Pennsatucky is shown as a teenager who swapped unpleasant casual sex for drinks. She meets and falls in love with a new boyfriend who teaches her to enjoy sex, but when he moves away, she is once again raped by a former "customer".

3.11: We Can Be Heroes - Caputo agrees to help the guards unionize against their heartless corporate overlords, while he sleeps with Figueroa. Due to a computer error, Leanne’s sidekick Angie is mistakenly released; Caputo later recaptures her at the bus station. In flashbacks, Caputo sacrifices a career as a musician and takes a job as a guard at Litchfield in order to support his girlfriend, who is pregnant with Caputo's former bandmate's child. Later, she leaves Caputo when her child’s biological father becomes a successful musician. Big Boo learns of Coates' abuse of Pennsatucky and vows to help her get revenge. After injuring Mendoza, Sophia becomes a pariah and her salon empties. Suzanne’s manuscript lands on the staff’s radar, leading to its confiscation, and counselor Birdie is unfairly put on leave over the scandal. Suzanne appears relieved to be done with the project and apologizes to Poussey for attacking her under Vee’s tenure. After Soso confronts Norma for letting her group bully her, Leanne cuts off Soso’s hair while she sleeps. Flaca encourages Piper’s girls to stop wearing the panties until they get paid real money. Piper agrees to set up a payment plan using cash cards, but then fires Flaca for instigating the uprising. Repulsed by seeing this side of Piper, Alex quits both the business and their relationship.

3.12: Don't Make Me Come Back There - Daya goes into labor, and won't let her mother Aleida help as Aleida was trying to solicit money from Mendez's mother. Red runs an open lottery to determine who will attend her fancy dinner party. Following Birdie's suspension, Brooke returns to Healy for counseling, and he continues to recommend medication. Boo cajoles Pennsatucky into exacting revenge on Coates, but they back out before doing so. Sophia gets attacked, and beaten by two other inmates. Gerber refuses to carry the panties out of the prison, so Piper comes close to following through on her promise of sexual favors, but Stella intervenes and convinces Gerber to continue. Daya's labor does not go according to plan. An encounter with Frieda causes Taystee to realize that she is the new "mother" in the group. Poussey finds Brook unconscious in the library from overdosing on pills that she stole from the Doctor's office after being given a prescription from Healy. Piper reaches out to take Stella's hand while they watch a movie, but Stella reveals she is getting out soon. Flashbacks show Aleida dropping a young Daya off at camp to get rid of her for a few weeks; Daya initially protested and cried, but when Aleida comes to pick her up, Daya has made new friends and adjusted to her surroundings.

3.13: Trust No Bitch - Poussey, Taystee and Suzanne come to Brook's rescue and save her from her overdose. Piper confronts Flaca about stealing the proceeds from her panty business, but soon comes to realize that Stella is the culprit, as she will have no money to live on when she gets released. Piper exacts revenge by framing Stella for possession of dangerous contraband, resulting in Stella being dragged off to maximum security prison. Morello marries Vince, while Black Cindy shows a newfound sincerity in her attempts to become Jewish. Complications arise concerning Daya's baby after Cesar is arrested, and for the first time Norma faces losing her followers after Poussey angrily confronts her for her role in Brook's attempted suicide. Tensions between Flaca and Gloria come to a head, as do those between Leanne and Norma. Caputo after promising to head up the staff union, accepts a promotion from MMR, causing the staff to walk out. When a construction mishap allows all the prisoners to escape to a nearby beach and play in the lake, Brook is taken in by the African-American group, while Suzanne bonds with Maureen. Alex is cornered in the greenhouse by a new guard sent by Kubra, and her fate is left uncertain. As the prisoners frolic in the lake, several busloads of new prisoners arrive at Litchfield.

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Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, May 12, 2014 -- What's Jenji Kohan been smoking recently? The force behind the long running Weeds, a series which saw its heroine do a bit of jail time here and there, has now moved on to Orange is the New Black, a series built entirely around a young, well to do woman ending up in the pen due to a long ago peccadillo. Based on the bestselling memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman, the series attempts to forge the same combination of wry humor and convoluted interpersonal relationships that made Weeds so successful. Judging by this first season, Kohan doesn't quite have her mojo working for her, at least in the early going, but the good news is the series gets markedly better as it goes along. Part of the problem is a structural artifice that sees the show repeatedly cutting away from the prison saga to offer background vignettes about various characters. The creative team attempts to knit these segues together smartly, but it's an inherently disruptive approach and one which tends to hobble the narrative arc of the piece. The humor in Orange is the New Black is also (perhaps unimaginably) even drier than Weeds, to the point that some viewers may be wondering if the show is indeed a comedy. It's ironic that President Obama brought the house down at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner with a joke about how the recalcitrant Republicans had turned on John Boehner, treating him even worse than they have been treating Obama, with Obama scoring big time with the punchline, "I guess orange really is the new black." There's nothing quite as raucously in your face like that going on in the series, but there's a certain undercurrent of uncomfortableness that may appeal to those who like their humor on the low key and often awkward side of things.

Weeds' Nancy Botwin was a character who at least seemed to always be in control, her mental wheels cogitating all sorts of simultaneously possible outcomes in the hopes she could navigate the treacherous waters of her lifestyle. Of course, it was all an illusion, as Kohan and her writing team repeatedly demonstrated throughout that show's long and healthy run. With the slightly renamed Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), Kohan is dealing with a character who has absolutely no control over virtually every aspect of her life, once she's found guilty of an almost forgotten about money running scheme when Piper was a closeted lesbian in the throes of a hot and heavy relationship with drug dealer Alex Vause (Laura Prepon).

Kohan plays with time repeatedly from the first episode of Orange is the New Black, contrasting Piper's regimented and often threatened existence at the penitentiary with several flashback anecdotes capturing her at various points leading up to her present sad state of affairs. We're introduced to her boyfriend and ultimately fiancé Larry Bloom (Jason Biggs), a seemingly nice, normal Jewish guy who calls Piper his shiksa and who rather amazingly doesn't freak out when he finds out about Piper's somewhat questionable past. We also meet Piper's super WASP-y family, who react with typically patrician reserve when they hear of her predicament, offering little bon mots like, "Was that when you were a lesbian?"

The problem with this approach is that it takes several episodes to meet and get to know the main cast of characters, both inside the penitentiary and to a somewhat lesser extent outside. The opening three or so episodes feel anecdotal rather than organic, though things perk up rather quickly once Alex shows up at the same prison (she's been there all along, simply waiting for the suitably chaotic moment in Piper's life to make her new entrance). The best part of the opening set of episodes is probably the introduction and development of Red (Kate Mulgrew), a seemingly hard hearted and ruthless bitch of a woman who is in charge of the kitchen. When Piper makes an ill advised complaint about the food in front of Red, lines are drawn and some unorthodox "food" is served. Mulgrew is absolutely riveting in this completely de-glammed, kind of smarmy but resilient, characterization.

Kohan and the writing team slowly but surely introduce the little groups that make up the strata of cultures in the prison, and critical mass is when we've finally gotten a handle on some of the intrigue surrounding Piper's cellmate Miss Claudette (Michelle Hurst). While Kohan's kind of quasi- Lost ping ponging between "before and after" doesn't always work (and is in fact perhaps a dramatic miscalculation at least some of the time), in Claudette's story there's a clear connection between traumatic past events and present day behaviors.

In other ways, Kohan tends to try to make Orange is the New Black fit into some kind of preordained niche that it really isn't meant to. A number of times overly dramatic situations break out, including a late developing arc involving Red and her hold on both staff and inmates, as well as Piper supposedly coming into her own as a force to be reckoned with. This kind of trite approach may have passing visceral impact and adrenaline raising potential, but it doesn't augur especially well for a more convincing examination, humorous or otherwise, of Piper's crumbling world.

Kohan's slightly skewed sense of humor can be an acquired taste. I know people who think Weeds is one of the greatest shows in recent television history, and others who find it impossibly self-conscious and precious. Those two groups will probably feel pretty much the same about Orange is the New Black, but here there's an additional issue with the storytelling style, which tries to do too much in the early going, threatening to disenchant viewers. Those with a little patience will find the series getting more interesting—and maybe even more darkly funny—once the main characters have been introduced and at least the outlines of their backstories depicted. Orange is the New Black feels like it's still finding its thong-laden feet in this first season, but considering the fact that the real life Kerman didn't spend that much longer than a year in prison to begin with, Death Row may come for this series sooner rather than later. While not perfectly executed (to continue with our prison analogies), Orange is the New Black generates enough interest off of its motley crew of characters, brought vividly to life by a great cast, to come Recommended.


[CSW] -2.8- I agree with this reviewer:
I can see why the show garnered such critical acclaim, but it is not for the faint of heart. It’s an unvarnished look into the realities of prison life, some of it sordid, sometimes surprisingly moving, emotionally wrenching, but always absolutely riveting. Appallingly foul language, explicit sexual material and human nature stripped raw, but with just enough moments of genuine laughter and heart to prevent it from being unbearably depressing. Believe it or not, there’s a sweetly romantic scene involving chewing tobacco. Full of carefully curated windows into the lives of the inmates, guards, and loved ones on the outside, it forces you to see them not as just fictional paper dolls, but as real people whose stories resonate with the viewer, whether you want them to or not. And Captain Janeway, how you’ve changed! Kate Mulgrew plays Red, the iron Russian chatelaine of the prison kitchen in a magnificent, charged performance. The writing showcases an infinite spectrum of humanity and like the terracotta soldiers guarding the emperor's tomb, every one drawn in precise detail but each totally unique. You might not like them all, but you've got to admire the craftsmanship. Enlightening and surprisingly profound, a real slice-of-life exposé that will leave you changed in some indefinable way. Acts of basic kindness and compassion abut petty cruelty and malicious tyranny, with the narrative pulling no punches. 'Orange is the New Black' is a human petri dish dumped into a crucible but in spite of all the gritty darkness, there’s some deliciously twisted humor. "

Streamed Netflix (HD) -- [V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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