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

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Orange is
the New
Black

Season 3

Netflix