Risk pays off in ‘OITNB’

TV REVIEW

Villianless Season 3 
fares well for Netflix 

original series

By CHLOE GILKE

Managing Arts Editor

Season 3 of Netflix’s “Orange is 

the New Black” doesn’t designate a 
clear villain. Sure, every character 
has an adversary 
or two (“Orange 
is the New Black” 
is a drama series, 
and what’s drama 
without 
some 

good fights?), but 
character 
con-

flicts are more 
isolated this year, 
and 
no 
feuds 

spill 
from 
fac-

tion to faction like the ones with 
Pennsatucky and Vee in previous 
seasons. This time, “Orange is the 
New Black” is more interested in 
problematizing an abstract villain 
— authority figures.

Everyone is at the mercy of a 

malevolent higher-up, and Litch-
field’s guards and staff are no 
exception. Caputo (Nick Sandow, 
“Boardwalk Empire”) has to con-
tend with a patronizing new boss 
(Mike Birbiglia, “The Fault in Our 
Stars”) who claims he’s around 
to help Caputo and represent the 
inmates, but is clearly more inter-
ested in saving money and sat-
isfying his own boss. Birbiglia is 
brilliantly cast — he appears at first 
to be humble and well-intentioned, 
but his sweet smile transforms 
into a smarmy smirk faster than 
you can say, “I’m not the warden.” 
The incumbent correctional offi-
cers who answer to Caputo see 
their hours reduced and pay cut, 
and can’t protect their rights with-
out corporate’s cooperation. With 
their agency slashed to a corporate 
minimum, the guards are essen-
tially as powerless as the inmates. 
“Orange is the New Black” hadn’t 
given much screentime to its more 
benevolent guards in past seasons, 
so it’s great to see them utilized so 
seamlessly. 

The part-time guard system also 

exposes other cracks in the admin-
istrative system. While the expe-
rienced C.O.s were left to take on 
second jobs, the newbies proved 
themselves 
massively 
incompe-

tent — and often dangerous. Officer 
Coates (James McMenamin, “Olive 

Kitteridge”) is introduced as a hap-
less guard who lets Pennsatucky 
(Taryn Manning, “Sons of Anar-
chy”) show him the ropes of his 
new job, but he quickly turns terri-
fying as he exploits their burgeon-
ing friendship for something more 
sinister. Tragically, the administra-
tion wouldn’t believe Pennsatucky 
if she told anyone about what he did 
to her in the van; she wouldn’t have 
the “proof” that pregnant inmate 
Daya (Dascha Polanco, “Gimme 
Shelter”) did when she dealt with 
a similar assault. Manning plays 
these scenes with quiet heartbreak, 
and her flashback scenes in the sea-
son’s tenth episode fill in the details 
about this misunderstood charac-
ter.

Pennsatucky’s flashbacks, like 

all the best ones, inform who she 
is in the present — someone with a 
warped sense of a woman’s role in 
sex, who has rape so ingrained into 
her experience of relationships that 
she almost normalizes it. The other 
flashbacks this season mostly work, 
especially the episodes that spot-
light characters who viewers didn’t 
know much about before. New 
details about Big Boo (Lea DeLaria, 
“The Edge of Seventeen”), Flaca 
(Jackie Cruz, “The Shield”) and 
Chang (Lori Tan Chinn, “Glengarry 
Glen Ross”) pull these supporting 
characters from the periphery and 
give a heightened understanding of 
their place in Litchfield.

Certain other flashbacks are not 

as successful, because they don’t 
give any new information about the 
characters. The show has a long-
standing tradition of honoring its 
female inmates with flashbacks, 
but this season, “Orange is the New 
Black” dedicates flashbacks to three 
of the male prison employees. I’m 
all for expanding the scope of flash-
backs and exploring the nuance 
of other Litchfielders, but there’s 
no point wasting time searching 
for new information when we can 
glean everything from how these 
men interact with the prisoners. 
When a character’s actions in flash-
backs and the rest of the episode 
are so similar, like Bennett’s (Matt 
McGorry, “How to Get Away with 
Murder”) moral uncertainties dur-
ing his time in the military and 
fatherhood with Daya, the flash-
backs lose their poignancy. I thank 
the “Orange is the New Black” 
writer-gods for the opportunity to 
see Matt McGorry dance shirtless 
to “Hollaback Girl,” but otherwise, 

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to 
get out of that episode.

“Orange is the New Black” has 

been criticized for its heavy-handed 
introduction of Piper (Taylor Schil-
ling, “The Lucky One”) into the 
Litchfield action and for highlight-
ing her instead of more diverse (and 
more interesting) characters, but 
this season integrates her much 
more smoothly. Piper has always 
had a streak to her personality 
that enjoys organizing danger, and 
becoming the Vito Corleone of the 
prison panty business is the per-
fect way to employ the aspect of 
Piper that’s most compelling. Now, 
Piper functions as a character in 
the ensemble rather than the star 
of the show — and frankly, “Orange 
is the New Black” is much better off 
letting her take a smaller but more 
streamlined role.

But the season’s most successful 

risk was dismantling some of the 
barriers of race and gender that were 
holding up the walls of Litchfield. 
Sophia (Laverne Cox, “The Mindy 
Project”) has rarely had her gender 
identity questioned by the other 
inmates, but when she blames Glo-
ria’s (Selenis Leyva, “St. Vincent”) 
son for her own child’s sudden bad 
behavior, the fight turns personal. 
Gloria attacks Sophia with trans 
slurs, beats her and threatens her 
life. Sophia battles back with the 
resolve of a woman who has prob-
ably dealt with this shit too many 
times before, and Cox delivers a 
stunning performance that Emmy 
voters will certainly reward come 
September. Soso (Kimiko Glenn, 
“Hairbrained”) is depressed because 
she can’t make friends with the other 
inmates, but also because she doesn’t 
conform to any of the racial cliques 
at Litchfield. Like Sophia, her other-
ness is used as an excuse for abusive 
and cruel treatment by the inmates, 
and the administration’s interven-
tions do more harm than good. Past 
seasons have explored the construc-
tion of Litchfield’s racial cliques, but 
“Orange is the New Black” tells a 
powerful story by highlighting the 
difficulties for people who don’t fit 
neatly into those socially construct-
ed boxes.

Season 3 marks “Orange is the 

New Black” ’s riskiest venture yet, 
but also the one with the most pay-
off. By taking a break from the clear-
cut villain characters, the show 
exposes the darkness of authority, 
power and the convoluted systems 
that imprison these women.

The Ark’s 50th 
& Jeff Daniels

COMMUNITY CULTURE RECAP

By DANIELLE RAY

Daily Arts Writer

Maybe it was because I had just 

finished watching the series finale 
of “Breaking Bad” earlier in the 
day and was already drained from 
the emotional rollercoaster that is 
Walter White, Hank Schrader and 
Jesse Pinkman, but Jeff Daniels 
was a little too much for me. His 
set included everything from talk-
ing about colonoscopies (funny) 
to making fun of his “Dumb and 
Dumber” days (really funny) to 
singing a birthday ode to his wife 
(sweet) to discussing a song he 
wrote for a good friend who has 
since passed (rather depressing) 
to spending a good two to three 
minutes introducing Brad Phil-
lips, Daniels’ accompanist on sev-
eral different instruments, who is 
getting his doctoral degree at the 
University, and practically beg-
ging non-existent University HR 
reps to hire him (rather strange 
and awkward).

Daniels’ show was arranged to 

commemorate the 50th anniver-
sary of The Ark, and after a some-
what lengthy introduction by The 
Ark staff, they reached the main 
point: Daniels donated his fee to 
their fundraising campaign. This 
was obviously made a big deal of, 
and when Daniels came out, he 
started his show strong, making a 
crack about not only donating his 
fee, but also his sperm at the local 
sperm bank. The first 20 minutes 
of his show were spectacular — 
this is when all the funny came out 
(perhaps it was all he had in him). 
He would play a line or two of his 
opening song and then seemingly 
interrupt himself with those ran-
dom thoughts about colonosco-
pies (apparently he’s already had 
two!) and “Dumb and Dumber,” 
although I’m sure it was all actu-
ally scripted.

Before I continue, though, I 

must say, there’s no doubt Jeff 
Daniels is extremely talented. 
Apart from his magnificent work 
as an actor in “The Newsroom,” 
“Good Night, and Good Luck.” 
and, let’s face it, “101 Dalmations,” 
he is also a very talented musician. 
His guitar work was flawless, his 
voice was smooth but growly at 
the same time, he really seemed 

to understand and feel the blues 
influences apparent in his work 
and his comedy songs were hilari-
ous, including one he wrote as a 
tribute to Dave Letterman, which 
detailed a couple having sex every 
night while watching Letterman’s 
show: “How much fun the three of 
us had.”

Where it went wrong was the 

rest of the set, namely the song 
for his deceased friend. One of 
Daniels’ strong suits was that he 
gave a great introduction to all 
of his songs, which really made 
you understand why he wrote 
them and what inspired him. He 
gave a lengthy synopsis of how he 
wrote this song from a poem his 
deceased friend had written and 
how he sang it to his friend on his 
deathbed. It was quite touching. 
But, coming from a completely 
unserious beginning to land in a 
pool of sadness was quite the turn. 
The song, called “Roadsigns,” was 
beautifully written and quite the 
masterpiece, but it was difficult to 
enjoy it after thinking about Jeff 
Daniels shitting to high heaven in 
preparation for his colonoscopy. 
“Roadsigns” was also shortly fol-
lowed by “Big Bay Shuffle,” a song 
about two drunk women Daniels 
met in a bar at 11 a.m. in the Upper 
Peninsula. Having been to Big Bay, 
I wasn’t surprised.

Daniels implied throughout the 

night that he wanted his set to be 
representative of life itself, and I 
suppose he did that. One minute 
you’re crapping your pants from 
sadness, and the next you’re pee-
ing them from laughter. But maybe 
art shouldn’t always imitate life 
exactly. I just wish he would have 
picked one direction to go in or the 
other; “Breaking Bad” already had 
me feeling some type of way.

It’s also perhaps true that I 

didn’t get a feeling of cohesiveness 
from his set because I was prob-
ably the youngest person in the 
room by about 20 years.

The set ended approximately 

with a love ballad to Michigan 
and The Ark. The song itself was 
rather sleepy, although I could 
definitely see it appearing on a 
Pure Michigan commercial. Pure 
Michigan: The Home of Jeff Dan-
iels, and many more, but mainly 
Jeff Daniels.

6

Thursday, June 18, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

A-

Orange is 
the New 
Black

Season 3

Netflix

