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Orange is the New Black S4 |OT| Welcome to the block - June 17th

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P

Pendas

Banned
Episode 13 is probably one of best episodes of TV I've ever seen. Right up there with Ozymandias from Breaking Bad. All the political / controversial / emotional hits are perfect.


Tony Iron Man Stark said:
Episode 12 and 13 spoilers.

I thought Poussey was going to be okay right and medical quickly appears to resurrects her. I thought she would walk outside surprising everyone that she's alive. Sadly she died. She had quite the journey back in New York when Poussey is trying to meet with her new friends, but went through complications since her phone got stolen. From there, she made new friends and had fun at an unusual party and bike rides with pretend monks to the beach. It was very humanizing of Poussey to see her smiling at the audience (us) before season 4 ends. RIP Poussey, one of the most pure, innocent inmates. :(
Click to expand...

Me and my G/F think this whole scene wasn't her past, but the afterlife. I remember she said in a previous Season her perfect place was New York. This is her "Heaven." Her breaking the fourth wall and smiling at the end is basically showing that she's happy to finally be free from the prison, life and has ascended beyond the show.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Pendas said:
Episode 13 is probably one of best episodes of TV I've ever seen. Right up there with Ozymandias from Breaking Bad. All the political / controversial / emotional hits are perfect.
Click to expand...

I think like Ozymandias you need surrounding episodes. 12 and 13 are a unit. (And probably
S5E1
)
 
V

Velikost

Member
Season was nuts. Something confused me about the last two episodes though:
why did no one do anything after it was clear Poussey wasn't breathing? Some of the guards are veterans, surely someone would know CPR?
 
M

manakel

Member
Pendas said:
Me and my G/F think this whole scene wasn't her past, but the afterlife. I remember she said in a previous Season her perfect place was New York. This is her "Heaven." Her breaking the fourth wall and smiling at the end is basically showing that she's happy to finally be free from the prison, life and has ascended beyond the show.
Click to expand...
I really, really like this interpretation.
 
C

Chase17

Member
Finished up the season. Much improved over S3 although I still do have some problems. Biggest thing is that I think you have to drop the flashbacks. Don't even need to replace them with anything, just let the episodes be 10-15 minutes shorter. Last few episodes were great, and the highlights of the season.

I think that the show should probably wrap up next season or at most S6. Already felt that they were recycling some plot elements this year.
 
C

Chase17

Member
Oddduck said:
The show has been renewed through Season 7.
Click to expand...
Oh wow. Surprised to see it renewed so long in advance. I've seen many shows I like run for far too long so I'm a bit cynical when it comes to this. I suppose they might have decent plans/a general outline already if they renewed it this far ahead.
 
S

sappyday

Member
The season is a lot better than last season. Actually I'm enjoying it more than all the seasons so far. I'm only at episode 6 so far though
 
F

flaxknuckles

Member
Piper still sucks.

But good on Caputo for not putting Bailey under the bus since the kid really did make a mistake. Giving him his job back was dumb as shit though and will surely backfire when he cause countless riots and assassination attempts.

Holy crap they are redeeming Healy's sexist ass? Great because I was getting tired of his "nice guy" antics.

I wish Loli didn't have to go down like that. She didn't even kill the dude. Alex can go sit in the lavabath with Piper for that. But then again, Lolly was crazy as fuck.

And lol at all the pointless flashbacks, they were kinda entertaining but what were they even there for? They never led up to anything and didn't give anymore insight on the characters.

I hope
Daya shoots the guard
so they can both get written out of the show. And bring back Pornstache!
 
V

VeryGooster

Banned
Finished the season yesterday. I think this is its best season and though I was weary about the direction it was going at first but I'm happy where it led to and what it wanted to address. I think it paid off as much as the ending could allow. Sometimes I feel like the antagonists/just unlikable characters on the show are written like cartoons where I find it frustrating (I did not like the whole Vee arc in S2 at all, for example). Sometimes I found myself eyerolling at Humphrey but I think he was used effectively by the end. I can't wait to see where S5 goes. And yeah, we're approaching Arrow levels with those flashbacks.

Also holy shit I didn't even see that Matthew Weiner directed episode 12.

I like that interpretation about Poussey in NYC btw. She starts out lost and then it all starts to make sense for her in a way. RIP :(
 
B

Bluth54

Member
I just finished the last episode. Really excellent stuff and now we have a long wait until the next season. I really like how this season had a bit more focus on the entire cast of characters and not just Piper.

A Human Becoming said:
I'm not sure how I feel about the season as a whole, but it's quite the ride. All episodes spoiler:
Does anyone else think the show made almost all the veterans look like assholes? The woman was the clear exception. There were some instances of hesitation, but as a whole it painted them in a bad light. I'm sure there was some meaning about the effects of war, but the writers did an incredibly poor job illustrating it.
Click to expand...

I figured a lot of that was because they got no training and were basically treating the prisoners almost like enemy combatants. Of course there was the one guard who had serious mental issues.
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
Bluth54 said:
I just finished the last episode. Really excellent stuff and now we have a long wait until the next season. I really like how this season had a bit more focus on the entire cast of characters and not just Piper.



I figured a lot of that was because they got no training and were basically treating the prisoners almost like enemy combatants. Of course there was the one guard who had serious mental issues.
Click to expand...

Spoilering just in case:

While the veterans were
a little exaggerated, it serves two purposes:

1) Militarization of our police force (and by extension, penal system)
2) The "thin blue line" means if you're part of a group that covers for one bad individual, the group is complicit.

I have a feeling that the female guard
is going to be instrumental in taking them down and she may leave the group and become a regular. She seems to be the most well-adjusted of them and the show is setting her up to be sympathetic to the inmates plight.

But yeah, overall this season was like Shakespeare compared to the others. And people saying that the flashbacks served no purpose are missing the point that (some of) this season's flashbacks were specifically made to humanize the inmates instead of showing what they did wrong, for once. That ties directly into the overarching themes of this season.
 
S

Storm Chamber

Banned
Pendas said:
Me and my G/F think this whole scene wasn't her past, but the afterlife. I remember she said in a previous Season her perfect place was New York. This is her "Heaven." Her breaking the fourth wall and smiling at the end is basically showing that she's happy to finally be free from the prison, life and has ascended beyond the show.
Click to expand...

sUa7CG68.png
 
G

GK86

Homeland Security Fail
Bladenic said:
Man I swear to fuck I think some asshole posted a MASSIVE spoiler on a goddamn interview video on Youtube. Fuck the Internet, it was a mistake.
Click to expand...

One of my friends got spoiled (probably the same thing you are talking about) yesterday. It really sucks that people have to be assholes.
 
A

Alienfan

Member
Episode 12
i have no idea how they're ever going to redeem Suzan's character or the "nice" security guard after that.
 
D

Dishwalla

Banned
Just want to say that that Ferrari/Maserati dealership is pretty much the stupidest car dealership on the planet, you'd think after one/maybe two high end cars tops goes missing they would crack down on it. The way it was set up it made it seem like several cars have been picked off from the dealership.
 
J

Jonbo298

Member
StoopKid said:
Episode 13 spoiler

daya
is fucked either way. If she
shoots
or
drops it.
Click to expand...

Somebody else will pull the trigger if she doesn't, I can almost guarantee that. Mob mentality is at an all time high at that ending.
(season spoiler)
It really annoys me that
Bayley was the one who killed Poussey and caused this escalation. They set up his back story as a young adult who gets into the wrong crowds, which understandably is what happened here, but also show that he means well by understanding the inmates and helping them vs the other guards not really giving a shit. I expected Humps to be the one to hold her down until death due to the Abu Ghraib comment earlier in the season.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Jonbo298 said:
Somebody else will pull the trigger if she doesn't, I can almost guarantee that. Mob mentality is at an all time high at that ending.
(season spoiler)
It really annoys me that
Bayley was the one who killed Poussey and caused this escalation. They set up his back story as a young adult who gets into the wrong crowds, which understandably is what happened here, but also show that he means well by understanding the inmates and helping them vs the other guards not really giving a shit. I expected Humps to be the one to hold her down until death due to the Abu Ghraib comment earlier in the season.
Click to expand...

P sure that was the entire point.

Something like this should never end up that cut and dry. It's too real and complicated an issue. If they'd had Humps be responsible it would have been a boring and pat Good v. Evil situation. It also would have made the aftermath with MCC conflictless, because Humps' psychopathery would have been inevitably revealed in the oppo research they were doing, and Caputo would have felt like he could now take MCC down (a ludicrous scenario, they are handling it much more realistically with his resigned attitude and just trying to save who he can) for putting someone like that on the staff. By making it Bailey it also builds in a wealth of new conflict, with Caputo feeling he's in the right to defend Bailey as the perpetrator of a terrible accident and for Taystee et al to feel like there's once again a wall of white people standing together against them no matter what.

Yes, there are undeniably evil authority figures who have straight up murdered defenseless African Americans, but if that had happened here, it would have led to a very pat sequence of events devoid of any nuance or character development, and would have been out of step with the themes of the season, where even a genuine rapist is looked at with sympathy by his victim.
 
O

Oddduck

Member
I haven't watched the last two episodes yet, but this might honestly be one of the best seasons of Orange.

How I'd personally rank them: S1 = S4 > S2 > S3

And here's one major reason why:

In Season 4, the guards are assholes again -- and that's a good thing.

When George Mendez left the show, the show lost 90% of its tension between the guards and the inmates. There was a lack of tension in Season 3 (which made that season feel aimless).

Prison didn't feel like a scary place anymore because the guards and the inmates were too friendly / chummy toward each other. It started to feel less like a prison and more like a low-grade boarding school drama

S4 feels like a reset -- going back to S1 when prison felt like a SCARY place because guards abused their power and control.

My only big issue with Season 4 were the flashbacks. I believe that S1, S2, and even S3, all had much better flashbacks than S4.

Otherwise, it is great television.
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
SynthFetish said:
This hits my big issue with the show, Piper only had 1 year. How can they continue for this long?
Click to expand...

Well, the show WAS originally not about Piper; it only became Orange is the New Black because they couldn't get a show made without a white lead. I'm really hoping
Piper dies during season 5, a death that is the catalyst that ends MCC or that her sentence is reduced for good behavior (lol). Another option is that she could be snitched upon and have her sentence extended, but that would mean that she would still be in the show and making it worse.
No disrespect to Taylor, she plays Piper well, I just think Piper at this stage is a boring, obnoxious character. She was fine as far as a POV character goes (ie, the fish-out-of-water character), but at this point she's a distraction from better characters.
 
B

BewareTheBatsie

Member
SynthFetish said:
Well. I have gripes...

I thought Piper only had 1 year, how is she still in this prison? Has all this happened in under 1 year??Why were the new guards all sadistic fucks?
Click to expand...
Piper had fifteen months I think on her original sentence. But I think at the start of season 2 it was mentioned or at least implied that because she beat the hell out of Tiffany at the end of season 1 she got more time added onto it.
 
C

Catvoca

Banned
Piper's arc this season was great I thought, I'm surprised to see people were bothered by it. It was the best written Piper stuff since season 1 IMO. Not sure where they can take the character next though.

Man, I loved this season. Not crazy on the cliffhanger ending, but otherwise it was incredible, easily the best the show has ever been. It really is so much better when it isn't trying to be fun and goofy like last year and instead just tells these tragic human stories. It was very well plotted too, the way all the small plot threads slowly came together over the course of the season was making me think The Wire at times. This season is actually maybe the closest a show has gotten to that "novel on TV" feel since The Wire.

Oh, and I really liked the flashbacks this season. I like how it no longer has to rely on them and instead just uses them to flesh out aspects of characters we already know. They've gotten very good at having the flashbacks compliment the main story quite eloquently, using them to explain character motivations more clearly and having them tie into the main theme of the episodes or season really well. Like Suzanne's or the young guard's flashbacks are so good at this. It's also nice to sometimes have a breather from the oppressive atmosphere of the prison.
 
M

Murkas

Member
Great season, probably on par with S2.

EP13 Spoilers:

I fucking hate cliffhanger endings, just do it or don't, only bad thing I had about this season. Also I miss that African slave owner lady, was hoping to see her return
.
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
Murkas said:
Great season, probably on par with S2.

EP13 Spoilers:

I fucking hate cliffhanger endings, just do it or don't, only bad thing I had about this season. Also I miss that African slave owner lady, was hoping to see her return
.
Click to expand...

It would have been nice if we at least had a neat scene between Nicky and Miss Claudette, yeah.
As for the
cliffhanger
, I thought they handled it well;
they could have very easily given us a pretty shit cliffhanger like other shows have had.
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
Isn't this loosely based on a book or series of books by the real-life person Piper Chapman is based on?

Have they exhausted and surpassed whatever original material she may have seeded the show with?
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
Arkeband said:
Isn't this loosely based on a book or series of books by the real-life person Piper Chapman is based on?

Have they exhausted and surpassed whatever original material she may have seeded the show with?
Click to expand...

Well IIRC, almost everything in the show was made up. I think the only people who aren't are Piper, Larry, and Red (though obviously they are fictionalized versions of their real selves). The book though is pretty much just a Trojan horse intended to tell a story about WOC in prison
 
B

Bladenic

Member
Man, sucks to see this thread so dead.

Holy shit, just finished episode 6. That was one of the best episodes ever. That ending. Holy shit. So happy seasonal rot hasn't happened yet (like with Weeds).
 
P

Pendas

Banned
Another interesting thing that was pointed out about the last two episodes.

Poussay and Bayley both got arrested for the EXACT same crime (Small Marijuana Possession and Trespassing) Yet she ended up in Prison, and he got a "boys will be boys" from the cops. Really show's the level of detail in this show and how it speaks to current events.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Pendas said:
Another interesting thing that was pointed out about the last two episodes.

Poussay and Bayley both got arrested for the EXACT same crime (Small Marijuana Possession and Trespassing) Yet she ended up in Prison, and he got a "boys will be boys" from the cops. Really show's the level of detail in this show and how it speaks to current events.
Click to expand...

I wasn't paying attention and missed this.
Wow.
 
D

Dandy Crocodile

Member
Arkeband said:
Isn't this loosely based on a book or series of books by the real-life person Piper Chapman is based on?

Have they exhausted and surpassed whatever original material she may have seeded the show with?
Click to expand...
We're past book material.
You can see some people in the book that characters are based off of, but as far as events that carry over we've already had mother's day and the Martha Stewart expy stuff.
It's never followed it closely anyway, which is good since book Piper is pretty racist and transphobic.
 
S

schadenfood

Member
Full Season 4 Spoilers ahoy!

I liked this season a lot more than s3--as mentioned, the presence of scary guards and a main "villain" (the head CO/bear fella) gave the season a tension that season 3 lacked.

I didn't quite follow Healy's arc through the season though. I liked his interactions with Lolly (the scene they had in the time machine was really sweet), but where was he in the final episode? During Caputo's statement, he's in a lobby or a waiting room doing some sort of arts and crafts?

As for the cliffhanger, it didn't really bother me (coming off of The Walking Dead's most recent season, it was comparatively fine). Daya was barely in this season and I've never liked her character (Bennett's abrupt departure last season kind of killed her character), and Sophia was also barely around, but I assume that was due to scheduling conflicts.

Also, regarding sentences--didn't they make a whole stink last year about how Red was almost due for release? I know Piper's remaining time is vague, but I don't see how she can stick around for the entire series if it goes 7+ seasons. At least the show's committed to the fact that she's mostly awful--hopefully they kill her off or release her never to be seen again. It drove me nuts how Weeds kept their protagonists from surviving peril after peril.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Pendas said:
Another interesting thing that was pointed out about the last two episodes.

Poussay and Bayley both got arrested for the EXACT same crime (Small Marijuana Possession and Trespassing) Yet she ended up in Prison, and he got a "boys will be boys" from the cops. Really show's the level of detail in this show and how it speaks to current events.
Click to expand...

Literally the only thing in our current social climate not discussed in this season was
Donald Trump

AR-15s
Poussey spends a night in a gay club
Police brutality/I Can't Breathe
USA Network Mediocrity

It's all there.

schadenfood said:
Full Season 4 Spoilers ahoy!

I liked this season a lot more than s3--as mentioned, the presence of scary guards and a main "villain" (the head CO/bear fella) gave the season a tension that season 3 lacked.

I didn't quite follow Healy's arc through the season though. I liked his interactions with Lolly (the scene they had in the time machine was really sweet), but where was he in the final episode? During Caputo's statement, he's in a lobby or a waiting room doing some sort of arts and crafts?

As for the cliffhanger, it didn't really bother me (coming off of The Walking Dead's most recent season, it was comparatively fine). Daya was barely in this season and I've never liked her character (Bennett's abrupt departure last season kind of killed her character), and Sophia was also barely around, but I assume that was due to scheduling conflicts.

Also, regarding sentences--didn't they make a whole stink last year about how Red was almost due for release? I know Piper's remaining time is vague, but I don't see how she can stick around for the entire series if it goes 7+ seasons. At least the show's committed to the fact that she's mostly awful--hopefully they kill her off or release her never to be seen again. It drove me nuts how Weeds kept their protagonists from surviving peril after peril.
Click to expand...

Healey checked himself into a Mental Hospital
 
M

Miles X

Member
StoopKid said:
Episode 13 spoiler.
She
pulls the trigger.
Click to expand...

I echo earlier sentiments in the thread
I want Daya to shoot him, and have her put in Max for the remainder of the show. Can't stand either of those characters.

I really wanted to like Piscatella for being a
big gay bear, but he's clearly fucked in the head as well!
 
M

Maengun1

Member
Just finished this. I loved this season, right up there with the first 2 and even better in some respects. Judy King stuff was hilarious. They did a lot of great pairings of characters this year ... the Lolly/Healy subplot worked especially well I thought. I even enjoyed what they did with both Piper and Alex this season after finding them to be incredibly tiresome in season 3.

On episode 12:

I accidentally got spoiled about Poussey's death being careless on twitter Friday night, but it was still heartbreaking :(

On the end of the finale...wall o' text:

The decision to have Daya be the one holding the gun to Humps's head in the cliffhanger is baffling to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't she one of the only major characters we didn't see having an altercation with the awful guards at some point? I mean they even had Maritza be the one who knocked the gun out of his hand, and then Daya picks it up? Reverse their roles there and it make 100% more sense. I knew they were setting up something with her mother getting out and warning her to stay out of trouble, but that seemed to be hinting at her getting into Maria's drug business. Even that would have been out of character for Daya, so if they thought doing this instead would be a good subversion of expectations or something I think it's a huge mistake, because it just doesn't make sense for her. The only thing I can figure is maybe they're planning to bring Bennett back next season and thought they needed a major reason to justify it, but I dunno. I mean if she killed Humps (which I think is unlikely), she is NEVER getting out of jail. But even as is she must be looking at a move to max and MANY additional years, no? If they try to handwave this away next season I'll be really annoyed.
 
J

Jonbo298

Member
BenjaminBirdie said:
P sure that was the entire point.
Click to expand...

I think you're right. There's some similarities in his backstory that hit me at home due to my brother and cousin. One of them realized it and is successful now. The other didn't change and facing practically life in prison. So I wanted my hope for
Bailey
to be accurate.
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
Pendas said:
Another interesting thing that was pointed out about the last two episodes.

Poussay and Bayley both got arrested for the EXACT same crime (Small Marijuana Possession and Trespassing) Yet she ended up in Prison, and he got a "boys will be boys" from the cops. Really show's the level of detail in this show and how it speaks to current events.
Click to expand...

That's actually a pretty neat observation. Just the very notion that
both committed the same crime and received different degrees of punishment.

Poussey was an accomplished person who had a bright future ahead of her; Bayley was a fuck-up who had no direction in life and never seemed to take his job seriously. Bayley got so many chances that he fucked up and killed a model inmate and Caputo moved mountains to protect him.
 
K

KarmaCow

Member
Maengun1 said:
On the end of the finale...wall o' text:

The decision to have Daya be the one holding the gun to Humps's head in the cliffhanger is baffling to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't she one of the only major characters we didn't see having an altercation with the awful guards at some point? I mean they even had Maritza be the one who knocked the gun out of his hand, and then Daya picks it up? Reverse their roles there and it make 100% more sense. I knew they were setting up something with her mother getting out and warning her to stay out of trouble, but that seemed to be hinting at her getting into Maria's drug business. Even that would have been out of character for Daya, so if they thought doing this instead would be a good subversion of expectations or something I think it's a huge mistake, because it just doesn't make sense for her. The only thing I can figure is maybe they're planning to bring Bennett back next season and thought they needed a major reason to justify it, but I dunno. I mean if she killed Humps (which I think is unlikely), she is NEVER getting out of jail. But even as is she must be looking at a move to max and MANY additional years, no? If they try to handwave this away next season I'll be really annoyed.
Click to expand...

You're right that she doesn't have a personal grudge but she's naive and makes bad decisions all the time, picking up the gun isn't out of character. To her the ultimate way to show she's tough and will fit in the group even if she probably doesn't have the will to actually kill the guard.

What I'm guessing is that she backs down or Mendoza defuses the situation by pointing out that killing the guard wont help anyone. Then they all implicitly agree to not mention the incident since the mere presence of a gun in the prison fucks both the inmates and the guards, especially after all the shit that went down in the past week or so.
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
KarmaCow said:
You're right that she doesn't have a personal grudge but she's naive and makes bad decisions all the time, picking up the gun isn't out of character. To her the ultimate way to show she's tough and will fit in the group even if she probably doesn't have the will to actually kill the guard.

What I'm guessing is that she backs down or Mendoza defuses the situation by pointing out that killing the guard wont help anyone. Then they all implicitly agree to not mention the incident since mere presence of a gun in the prison fucks both the inmates and the guards, especially after all the shit that went down in the past week or so.
Click to expand...

I'd be disappointed if
the prison becoming taken over resolved right away. IMO, that needs to be the main storyline of season 5.
 
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