Orange Is the New Black: Welcome to Prison

Women often have a better chance to portray complex and engaging characters on television than film. While summer movies have been dominated by male superheroes and incompetent grown-ups, summer television offers a welcome respite for those of us with two X chromosomes. After the success of House of Cards and Arrested Development, Netflix is continuing its hot streak with the new comedy-drama series, Orange Is the New Black, which is based on a memoir by Piper Kerman. Set in a women's prison, the first season delivers 13 episodes featuring nuanced and elegant performances from its leading ladies.

The show opens with Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) preparing to surrender herself to Litchfield, NY's women's federal prison. Piper is a Smith alum who currently runs an artisanal soap company with her best friend - this is not the best preparation for prison life. She has been sentenced to 15 months for transporting drug money across international borders ten years ago, which she did because she was in a relationship with a woman who worked for a drug cartel. In the first episode, Piper is introduced to the prison system and a cast of motley characters whose stories we will gradually get to know over the course of the season. Most importantly, one of her fellow inmates is Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), the woman who had Piper carting drug money all those years ago.

Although the series focuses on Piper as she navigates the prison system and deals with both real and imagined dangers, the supporting characters all have their chance to shine. Each episode weaves in the story of a fellow inmate and uses flashbacks to give us a sense of these characters and how they ended up in prison. It's very reminiscent of the flashbacks in Lost, but this show is much more tightly scripted and the writers know how to infuse these moments with insight and genuine surprise. Laverne Cox delivers an amazing performance as Sophia Burset, a transgender African-American woman who is a former fireman, while Kate Mulgrew is vastly entertaining as "Red," the Russian cook who has a tough exterior but takes care of the drug addicts who end up in the prison. The inmates' stories are endlessly fascinating and the show is careful to paint each woman in shades of grey rather than black and white. It isn't poor naive Piper against a group of hard-bitten criminals. Instead, everyone in there is a victim of circumstance or just bad luck, and they all deserve equal amounts of empathy.

The show effectively deals with the themes of sexuality and race, topics that are always brought to the forefront when dealing with prison. The prisoners divide themselves up according to race, but insist that what they're doing is "tribal, not racist." There's plenty of lesbian activity going on, but it is dealt with very matter-of-factly, and the fluidity of sexuality is constantly acknowledged. Piper's fiance, Larry (Jason Biggs), is worried that she might restart her relationship with Alex now that they're together in prison, but you'll have to watch and see if his fears are unfounded. 

Orange Is the New Black features a darkly comic narrative told by incredible actresses who are delivering performances of a lifetime. The men of the show, who play the prison guards, seem a lot more one-dimensional and predictable, but that's my only quibble. This is a show designed for binge-watching, so log on to Netflix and get acquainted with the inmates of Litchfield.