Seven Seasons, and a million emotions. For the ones that have stayed here from the starting would know how the underrated yet ground-breaking TV show Orange Is the New Black set new limits to the beauty of television shows. It managed to convey the gravitas of imprisonment, growth and development in ways never explored before.
For those who haven’t followed Orange Is the New Black, here’s the general breakdown:
Plot
Piper Kerman, a white woman in her thirties, lives her life quietly, legally till one day, she suddenly is thrown into prison. Why so? Because almost a decade ago, she had transported a bag of cash for her then-girlfriend Alex Vause, who was at this point in time, serving time for working in and smuggling in an international drug-smuggling ring. Piper gets caught and gets sentenced to fifteen months in a minimum-security prison. The rest of the series revolves around this stint of hers, the relationships she makes, and the hardships she’s to go through.
What Follows
However, the next seasons soon show that Piper’s story is merely a smokescreen made to lure viewers in and that their main focus is the real victims of the prison system, black and Latina women. Throughout the entire series, the show’s creators revolve the stories around piper, Taystee, Warren, Alex, Daya, Aleida and, with each of their lives opening up into a new account in the last season.
Piper is finally released from prison on early parole and is out to begin a new chapter of her new life, except, it is not exactly a new chapter. While her time in prison put her in an indefinite pause, the rest of the world has moved on. And they have developed prejudices. Nobody sees her as just her anymore. They see her as just a felon and nothing more. However, the show has always been about the protagonists learning from their mistakes, and Piper does just that. The show ends her story on a very satisfying note: that of her finally having achieved peace and feeling clean.
Taystee’s stint in prison doesn’t end with the ending of the TV show. In this, the creators of the show push off the curtains and make us face the cruel reality of American society, that of privilege and injustice. Even though Tastyee does get out of prison, her life fails to begin anew, her penniless situation and her position in society mocking her, pushing her back into the evils of illegal work. She ends up back in prison and turns briefly suicidal but in the end, shines a new light of hope on herself and others, ending up as a lecturer in the correctional facility.
Daya and Aleida show the toxic system of generational trauma, where the mother figure or parent figure’s bad choices end up costing the family more than what they can afford. The show ends with them squaring off and Aleida hitting Daya and almost contemplating murdering Daya to stop her from bringing her little siblings into the same illegal system she has been a victim too.
What Made The Show So Special
Perhaps the most poignant of all was the story of Maritza, whose fall from grace, only stands to show that nothing in life is permanent. Even after following all the rules, not having set goals too high, Maritza falls victim to the ICE, a draft made by the American government to detain and deport illegal citizens of the country, i.e. citizens who made it into the country without proper documentation. Her story serves as a shocking reminder of how race rules all and no matter how much you get looked at, or how popular you are, you could anytime be the victim of this vicious system.
