Friday, August 31, 2018

2.5 Low Self Esteem City

'I am an adult who is in prison. I can handle things.'

I didn't know that 'screws' had ever been a word in US prison parlance. Interesting to see that when Vee produces it it's received as dated by her interlocutors.

It would have been nice to see Cal and Neri at the prison in series 1, their vitality would have lifted the carceral gloom. This series though has already been sprinkled with comedy sugar, so the contrast is dimmed.

I wasn't taken in by Vee's display of vulnerability at all, and there doesn't seem to be anyone else online who was either. Odd how I can see that, but spend 2 hours trying to get my head round Piper's 'I spent 3 weeks in solitary confinement thinking "winner"' before I realised she was being sarcastic.

Surveillance cameras are a thing now. I was thinking in series 1 'lucky there aren't any spy cameras in this prison' when all the guard/inmate sex and guard/inmate suicide faking was going on. Did you know Britain has more surveillance cameras per person than any other nominal democracy on the planet? I'd filed the action in OITNB under long ago (2013) and far away (the US), where people were going about their business without the constant background perception that they were being watched, whether they were inside or outside prison. You can join the dots of this metaphor yourself, I'm not typing it all out for you.

Observe how Caputo and Fischer, discussing phone monitoring and camera surveillance, are obliged to put on a show of omniscient authority for the passing inmates, just as the latter are obliged to put on a show of compliance for them.

Forgot to mention the scene where Piper remonstrates with Healy for letting Pennsatucky attack her last season. 'I could've been killed.' Subtext: 'Whatever were you thinking? That's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing.' I don't think I've seen that before in prison drama - the victim of corrupt authority insisting that the oppressor use his powers for their legitimate purpose.

And maybe that's why Healy is receptive to Caputo's suggestion later that they should start giving more of a shit.

2.4 A Whole Other Hole

'Fuckin' String Cheese'

'Largely a comedy episode, and I think it's the best of the funny ones so far, it didn't feel as forced or contrived as some of its predecessors. Even the Sophia bits were less awkward than usual. I'm not keen on Sophia, I feel she's letting us down by pandering to stereotypes of trans women. A lot of projection from me there though probably.

Notice Leanne moving her lips when she's reading Piper's copy of Atonement.

Vee starting to live up to her billing. Wonderful face for the part, hard and rapacious like a bird of prey.

'Remember when that was you?' Piper clearly doesn't. My reaction to the 'pimping out' scene interested me, I was seduced into seeing it as funny when it is, as Big Boo says, a horrible thing to do. Now I feel guilty.

Thursday, August 30, 2018

2.3 Hugs Can Be Deceiving

'Long before the screen door slammed, she was out of Xenia'

I'm annoyed with this. I made a big emotional investment in series 1 as a whole, and particularly the series 1 cliffhanger. I had actual nightmares. And now I feel cheated on both counts.

We have a cartoony tone generally, and a suspiciously tidy resolution for the questions I raised about in the last reaction. Penn and Piper lying side by side in the snow, neat as a fairy tale indeed.

I'm almost too annoyed to admit that there were three things I liked. But:

Firstly, seeing the show we saw put on for the newcomers in 1.1, but from the other side.

Secondly, 'I spent a lot of time wondering if it would matter if I died.' That's a sentiment that really fits with the horrible claustrophobia of the Chicago detention centre. I would have liked to see it given a bit of space so it could sink in.

Thirdly, 'The whole "I'm the star of my own movie and everyone else's too" complex'. Interesting in the light of the discussions we've had about Pipercentricity.

2.2 Looks Blue, Tastes Red

'I am in jail'

After the last ep's Piper-centric doomfest, one with no Piper at all, and lots of humour. I'd previously heard about the peanut butter bit, but I didn't expect it to be delivered with such finesse. I believe it's the most tasteful bestiality gag I've ever seen on television.

I felt let down by the apocalyptic Piper/Pennsatucky encounter from the end of series 1 being interpreted by the authorities as a fight for which both bore responsibility. Being used to Pris I assumed that the screwdriver would be produced as evidence and used to send Piper to max for good. Then again, Healy is just a clumsy, pathetic amateur compared to Joan Ferguson.

Fig is interesting - mostly I find the way she moves and speaks quite terrifying, I'm glad I don't work with her, I'd be afraid at any minute she was going to stab me. But there's a sort of jagged likeability as well.

A reminder btw that these posts are my reactions. I'm not setting out to represent the whole audience of the show, it's not necessary to tell me off for mentioning Piper all the time. I wouldn't be watching this in the first place if I wasn't interested in her.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

2.1 Thirsty Bird

'It's so hard to keep up with what's black and white for you' That was hard work. Three reversals of direction leaving me as bewildered as Piper. Good news, Pennsatucky (sp) isn't dead. Bad news, courtroom moral dilemma. Good news, creative phrasing solution. Bad news, Alex may have been even more creative?

Taylor Schilling does do 'rueful agreement' expressions well (at 'you know how the feds hate spending money').

That bit in the exercise yard where Piper realises she does know what it's like when the bones crack.

It's a measure of how horrible this episode is that the bit where she's asked to piss faster comes across as light relief.

Piper is beginning to annoy me a bit now though. I've watched all kinds of nasty things rather than bail out and leave her frozen in time forever, but she's digging herself in deeper. Sort yourself out, or I will leave you there.

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

1.13 Can't Fix Crazy

'But she is fucked up'

As with many other 'Christmas pageant' episodes, it's not the characters we're seeing acting in the pageant, it's the actors. Annoys me that does. You want to have fun pretending to be amateurs, you do it in your own time. I've got a spoiler-induced sense of doom to resolve here. But it was pleasant to be suddenly reminded of the 'theatricals' in The House of the Dead.

Very interesting meeting of Fig and Piper. Fig comes off the worse. But then. Is it her subsequent 'lesbian witchhunt shit' warning that motivates Healy to give Pensatucky a free run at Piper in the final scene?

I'd been led to believe by what I'd read about the final scene that the crucial flaw is the famous Piper temper. A misapprehension, I don't see what else she can do other than let Pensatucky kill her.

So now I know what all those infodrops about people getting sent to max in the last few episodes were for.

Series 2 is going to be hard work I can tell. ('Our experience?')

1.12 Fool Me Once

'This is changing you. It's changing me'

Extraordinary oblique conversation between Bennett and Pornstache in the bar, the former giving the latter advice that he himself should have taken.

Here's the real candid judgement of Piper that we saw prefigured at the wake in the last episode. 'You a mean person.' Just imagine being told that by someone you look down on in multiple ways.

I keep calling her Punxsutawney instead of Pensatucky. Culture wars again, and archetext from Dubya. The question is, how can you relate to the 'Hussein Obama' people? At first it seems like we might get away with a touching illustration of how Piper and Pensatucky can only converse through prayer. But no. It revolts Piper's instincts to go through with the baptism, and it revolts Pensatucky's to understand why it does.

I've been on that ride myself I should add. I got baptised, confirmed and welcomed into the church on the same day, and I meant it all quite sincerely and don't regret having done it now. But at the crucial moment, there was no water in the jug. The minister had to send one of the elders out to fill it for her. How's that for poetry?

Apologies for this turning into Shallow finds catharsis for her issues with class, authority and religion. 'This is changing you. It's changing me.'

1.11 Tall Men With Feelings

'Did you really just say menses?'

Good shift of perspective at the officers' meeting where Healy makes a show of resistance before being threatened into compliance by Fig. He seemed invincible when he was gloating over Piper in solitary.

The interview broadcast was good, I liked the way that Larry was allowed to redeem himself a little bit by showing an inkling of respect for the people behind the 'female prison tropes'. In cliched terms about making the day meaningful, but still.

'Wide-eyed ice princess uptight look'. Prefiguration. There will be another candid assessment of Piper which isn't so funny.

And I'm guessing the comedy 'Private Benjamin' janitorial punishment is prefiguring something much worse at the end of the series.

It's interesting that only 7 episodes ago this show was making me cry real tears. Now I've got hardened to the unpleasantness.

Monday, August 27, 2018

1.10 Bora Bora Bora

'It's the truth that's going to make you her bitch'

Bennett's concerns about going to jail as a sex offender - and the doomladen music accompanying Pornstache's discovery of Tricia's dead body - show us that the oppression machine doesn't discriminate. The inmates are closer to the cutting edges, but the COs aren't much further away. The machine will chew them up just as happily.

The 'family meeting' with Bennett is hard to read: is he being subjected to blackmail, or just reminded to do the right thing?

Pornstache may be utterly repellent, but he has a real sense of ceremony, occasion and the poetry lurking within prose. 'Walk - in an orderly fashion'.

'Are you seeing this'. I'm reluctant to comment on the Piper/Alex reaction to Pennsatucky's miraculous healings. Minor spoilers I've seen suggest I'm being misled. And I'd need a better understanding of American society to really get it. We've done race, we've done class, now we're doing culture wars.

Inmates and officers alike are having fun with the Scared Straight sequence. Even Piper. 'Pablo Neruda'. If I'm ever locked in prison, and I say or write to you 'Pablo Neruda', you'll know I'm OK. Don't forget. It could happen.

1.9 F*cksgiving

'That leaves you on the outside'

I really liked the exchange between Piper and Alex over the discarded 'Tasty' banner. They're acknowledging what they have in common.

I didn't find Piper being hauled off to solitary as upsetting as the earlier manifestations of official cruelty, because this was 'hot' cruelty coming from Healy personally, not the cold passionless cruelty of the oppression machine. Even Pornstache tried to dissuade him - 'she's kinda right.'

The Red/Pornstache confrontation was interesting. I've not seen her retreat before, as she did when it wasn't clear what he intended to do with his 'weapon'.

'Are you real?' - I'm sure I've seen something like Piper's bodiless interlocutor before in something else. Maybe the X Files, or that Buffy episode Normal Again, set in an alternate universe where she's in a cell in a mental hospital. Piper keeps reminding me of Buffy actually.

Larry's sudden return of concern. I was surprised that his phone calls had any effect on the prison administration. I've clearly been over-awed by their power having seen it only from the inside perspective up to now.

Btw, it's become clear that I completely misinterpreted Alex's position when she first appeared in the cliffhanger to 1.1. I assumed from the way she subsequently challenged the food blockade that she had backing of her own, but I realise she hasn't got any, only the force of her personality. I'm concerned for her now.

One problem with not having watched any US TV* since Buffy is that my ability to understand American accents seems to have deteriorated. I keep having to rewind scenes and watch again with the subtitles on.

*Game of Thrones doesn't count, because they don't have American accents. Surprised me that did. But that's another story.

1.8 Moscow Mule

'That was my life'

The Michael Jackson bit. Accomplished, but too wacky. It's like they thought 'The chicken bit worked, let's amp it up a bit.'

On the other hand, the surreal conversation with Alex in the drier didn't seem forced, it worked.

Did I see the future Mrs Healy browsing the shelves at Red's place?

Is Polly's partner supposed to be from London or Australia?

'That was my life.' Yes it was. I must stop thinking of Piper as an innocent fallen angel. She is not me.

1.7 Blood Donut

'Just take the doughnuts'

The 'road less travelled' scene. I like it, but it feels like a scene. 'Let's re-emphasise the cultural distance between Piper and the others.'

As a longstanding Prisoner Cell Block H fan I enjoyed the laundry scene, which also had Alex being addressed as 'Lurch' just like Alice in Pris. I'm sure she shouldn't have threatened Pensatucky, even in that elegant way. There'll be trouble. She's too bold, just like she was when she tried to break the food blockade. And to think I was calling Piper's urge to apologise to her in the previous episode 'misguided'.

Larry chooses a margarita in the bar scene, just like Piper was drinking in the flashback to when she met Alex in 1.3.

Maybe the screwdriver episode has institutionalised me, but I was filled with terror every time Piper handled the hidden mobile phone. I was telling her 'No! no! put it back!' This show really is pushing my buttons. And I try not to watch things that will do that. Of course I have to carry on now.

1.6 WAC Pack

'Oh my'

A lot of lines in this ep that sound like lines. Piper's 'I am no different' speech, the bath metaphor, 'Pretend it's the 1950s. It makes it easier to understand.'

But I did enjoy Piper's mother's delivery of 'Oh my'.

And I really liked 'Our experience?' That scene could have been made more of.

1.5 The Chickening

'Please don't get dragged into the prison drama.'

Polly and Larry aren't just bored with Piper's big news from her small world, they can't stop her seeing that they are. Imagine how discouraging that would be.

Piper and Larry mutually withholding information about Alex. But what is the right thing to tell her? I'm inclined to agree with Larry's dad. Then again, what if they did keep it from her till she got released, and then told her? She's so full of resentment she might go after Alex then.

'They're not like you and me.' Imagine how that would feel: the people trying to cosy up to you are the climate change deniers. Mark Steel tells a story about being arrested after the Brixton riots, and getting released with a friendly caution while the police are beating up the black arrestees. 'The bonhomie was worse than the violence.'

Piper is beginning to fight back in this ep, with her request for masks, and rejecting Red's criticism of her behaviour. But from the spoilers I've read, this feistier attitude is going to get her in trouble later on.

The abrupt change of tone when the alarm goes off during the chicken hunt. What we thought would be a jolly diversion is stamped on by the passionless cruelty of the incarceration machine. It sends cold shivers through me.

I read some hope into the final scene. Piper may be behind multiple fences, but we pull back to see her under the big sky, and she loves to be outside.

Sunday, August 26, 2018

1.4 Imaginary Enemies

'In the morning when I wake up, there are these few seconds before I realise where I am.'

This episode only increased my sadness at the human condition. The dehumanising alarm, at the sound of which all the inmates have to lie face down on the ground. The coerced 'volunteering' to be felt up by Pornstache.

The whole screwdriver thread is absolutely nerve-racking - so much so that bathos is the only way for it to end. Double bathos in fact.

There were compensations - the moment shared by Alex and Nicky, Piper telling Miss Claudette what's what, the resolution of the 'Mercy leaving' thread against expectations, and Miss Claudette and Piper's reactions to Mercy's departure.

I was surprised to find that this episode made me cry real tears, and that hasn't happened since I was living through my own version of Sophia's back story. It seems my soul wasn't pickled in vinegar after all.

1.3 Lesbian Request Denied

Piper's rueful nod at the question 'Does that really happen?'

Of course I followed Sophia's past and present story with interest. Even in British prisons it's a full-time job getting your prescriptions.

The flashback to Piper and Alex's first meeting reminded me strangely of the flashback in Buffy to Spike and Drusilla's first meeting.

It's true though isn't it. 'You carried that bag. No-one put a gun to your head.'

A gradual widening of perspective so that we have more and more non-Piper threads.

I have to say, my friends, this show is compelling, but it's filling me with a vast sadness for man and woman's inhumanity to woman. What is it Jack Kerouac says about 'jails and iron sorrows'?

1.2 Tit Punch

'He called you "inmate".'

I didn't find this one quite so distressing as 1.1. The naked malice of the starvation campaign is upsetting at first, until Red explains she couldn't accept an apology even if she wanted to. She's as much a victim of the oppression machine as Piper is.

Piper goes along with the code of omerta by refusing to take the food offered by Alex. In one sense she's collaborating in her own oppression - in another, she's avoiding a worse moral compromise.

The broad Rrrrussian flashback comedy a little too broad for me.

I suppose Healy's prurient interest in lesbian sex is holding a mirror up for the prurient audience to look into.

The Mad Men binge-watch references both amusing in relation to my own undertaking here, and as a metaphor for infidelity.

'Everyone saw how hard you worked.' That crystallised an uneasy 'practice level' feeling I had. It reminded me of that video game where you have to trap the rat to put in the stew to get the cook sacked to get his job to get paid the pieces of eight. But on the other hand I really wanted Piper's plan to work.

1.1 I Wasn't Ready

I watched the first 15 minutes separately, because my lunch was cooking, and that bit was upsetting enough by itself. 'They'll call me "sweetie"'. I liked the way the monstrous power of state oppression showed its first claw with the phone bit.

I thought the 'you do not have to have lesbian sex' joke was a bit obvious, but I did enjoy 'You studied for prison?' That was the first bit that made me react with anything other than sadness and fear.

The different levels of flashback were well handled. I particularly liked the way we worked our way back round to the shower breast compliment aftermath point, and then continued with the 'present' timeline.

Some of the jump cuts between past and present were predictable. I saw the initial shower one coming immediately. I didn't expect the cliffhanger though.

As I say, I found this episode really, really upsetting, and I watched all of Game of Thrones without turning a hair. That, of course, is because I don't really expect to be tortured by Ramsay Bolton or dismembered by the army of the dead, but there are lots of ways I could end up in prison, so I can't prevent myself from identifying with Piper.

My friend with the modern telly was quite right though, there are lots of reasons not to like her. I can see why people wouldn't. In some respects she's shallow and foolish, and as they said at the breakfast table, she does think she's fancy. If I wanted to detach myself from the action by refusing to identify with Piper, I'd do it by focusing on those attributes. But there's more to her than that.

I'm doing a watch-through and react to Orange Is The New Black on a forum, and I'm posting my posts here first for copyright and permanence purposes.