But it was the new arrival Judy King who showed the most surprising amount of comic potential. The kind of zingers viewers have come to expect came from familiar jesters like Lolly (“What’s your friend’s name? Stout? Cylinder?” “Piper”) and Cindy (“I’m bored! Can’t we have a race war?”). If she so gravely misjudges the women who’ve been her company behind bars for so long, it’s likely she’ll make even bigger errors when dealing with the new arrivals.ĭespite all this change-including the fact that this kickoff episode featured no flashbacks-the main appeal of the show seems to remain intact: the banter. Her confusion (and FOMO) is a joke, but it's also serious.
But the ratio of those traits is totally out of whack at the start of season four, with her mistaking the clamor about the lake to be fearful scurrying due to her cold revenge against Stella. Once upon a time, her character was defined by her smarts as much as she was by her obliviousness. Though the newbies mostly remained blank faces for this episode, a few stood out as possible sources of intrigue: a soft-spoken but sharpminded Polynesian roommate for Piper, a properly face-tattooed rival for Piper, and a celebrity homemaker in possession of even more privilege than Piper.Īh yes, Piper, the onetime protagonist turned roaming, glassy-eyed troll. It means a whole batch of new stories and characters that should have no reason to be less fascinating than the old ones. The old Litchfield inmates looked at their new neighbors in fear and trepidation (well, except for Big Boo, hyped for the incoming “mandala of pussy”), but there’s reason for viewers, at least, to be excited at the fresh cast. It's also looking for ways to reinvigorate its formula. But the image of sunflowers disguising a decaying corpse-set to the joyfully ridiculous aggression of Papa Roach-suggests the show is embracing that duality with more enthusiasm than ever.
Orange Is the New Black has always, like all great modern TV shows, embraced emotional duality.
Desi Piscatella, Piper’s infected tattoo, everyone else’s infected post-swimming flesh. But there were smaller moments of grim emotional whiplash after the lake, too: Suzanne’s unraveling romance with the loopy Kukudio, the arrival of unfriendly C.O.
“Work That Body for Me” overdelivered on both fronts-it was a gloriously brutal comedown, and an excitingly major reset.Īlex’s saga-being barely saved from strangulation, having to deliver a coup de grace to her incapacitated attacker, and then chopping him up-created some of Orange’s darkest scenes yet. The season four premiere therefore had two tasks: orchestrating a comedown after all the lakeshore euphoria, and demonstrating how the show can stay fresh after three years in one confined setting.
If it were on a traditional network, perhaps facing threat of cancellation for being too racy or weird, you might have wondered if the scene was insurance of sorts: The series could have ended after that episode and been considered a classic.īut Netflix’s business model may dictate that Orange keeps going until the sun burns out or at least the American correctional system is totally overhauled (ugh, is the former more likely imminent?). Orange Is the New Black’s third season ended on one of the most joyful television scenes ever, with Litchfield’s women splashing together in a lake and enjoying a fleeting moment of peace and freedom on a show normally defined by conflict and confinement. Spoilers abound don’t read further than you’ve watched. For the fourth season of Orange Is the New Black, Spencer Kornhaber and Sophie Gilbert are discussing the series via recaps, taking turns to analyze one episode at a time.