Orange is the New Black “Mother’s Day” (season 3) – Recap

One thing that Orange is the New Black has consistently improved upon with every episode is developing a sense of contrast. This is best reflected in the early moments of the episode; which, much like last Thursday’s Hannibal season premiere, instead of beginning with some obligatory “5 minutes later” scene after the previous season’s climax where there’s sirens and people running around everywhere and shouting “what the fuck just happened”, chooses to depict the consequences of the previous season’s climax by jumping to some months later, to a time when things have toned down considerably.

Warning: As this is a recap of a sole episode, spoilers are to be found here.

Much like Hannibal, this season premiere depicts a new leaf being turned over for Litchfield. That’s not to say that everything is better per se, but consider the fact that tyrannical superbitch Vee is no longer in the picture, and pressures at the prison have lowered considerably. But of course, things don’t seem to be much better for Piper (Taylor Schilling). Larry (Jason Biggs) admitted to her in the previous season that he’d been fucking her best friend behind her back, and was leaving her for said friend too (what a slimebag). And so this means she pretty much has nowhere to go, and nobody to go to when her 15 months are up… for the time being. Of course, most of you who have seen the trailer know that Piper getting a new girlfriend, so we’ll see where this goes.

Elsewhere in Litchfield, as the title suggests, Mother’s day is well on its way. A good portion of the women in the prison are mothers. And so the episode can be divided into two halves: the first half of the episode deals with the new beginnings taking place at Litchfield, and the second half deals entirely with visitors for Mother’s day. If there’s any real drawback here, it’s that it does cost the episode its pacing. The episode is rather slow-paced, and is quieter than ever- which isn’t always a problem, but it does get in the way of some of the more interesting elements about what could be happening in the background at Litchfield.

Ultimately, in true Orange fashion, Mother’s Day is at its best when it’s focused on character backgrounds. In fact, it only took us three seasons, but we finally get a good look into why Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) is so fucked in the head: her mother, of course. Right in front of her, her mother forces her to chug a 2L bottle of Mountain Dew, in hopes that she can successfully scam social security. And one powerfully disturbing moment shows us a look into Healy’s (Michael Harney) childhood, where we find out his mother was either schizophrenic or suffered some other form of mental illness, thinking she can talk to the lord and tossing a filthy ashtray at him for bringing her breakfast.

As expected, Alex Vause (Laura Prepon) is also back, but her impact is considerably soft compared to seasons 1 and 2. But you had to see that coming- Piper had her ex-fiancee and his new girlfriend report Alex to her parole officer for fraud. Of course, knowing Piper, she’s going to pretend she doesn’t have any knowlege of this, which is what made their scenes together such a fiendish delight. Piper is no angel, and the audience is well aware of this, but considering this is the first time we’ve seen her really embrace it, it also makes it more thrilling to consider that Piper is going to get some better chracter development this season. As of writing I have just finished the third episode of the season, and her new girlfriend hasn’t arrived yet, but it should be interesting to see exactly how this will drive a wedge between Piper and Alex’s chance to rekindle their relationship.

The Mother’s Day scenes are interesting to watch too- but the most interesting part happens during a scene away from all the parties and shenanigans, where Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) and Pennsatucky sit at a makeshift graveyard for the “child victims” of planned parenthood made out of popsicle sticks, and Big Boo, dressed as a clown (and she shockingly pulls it off well) mentions a segment of the book Freakonomics, about the business side of abortion clinics. It’s an interesting way of showing that for all her irreverence, she is capable of making strong arguments and educated statements. This is nothing new for Jenji Kohan, as Weeds was full of these types of contrasting elements. But this is one of the great things about Weeds that she brought into the frame, and while long overdue, it was definitely welcome.

While the third season of Orange has indeed gotten off to a promising, if rocky start, things are definitely looking to burn much slower here. Last season had Vee, who was introduced as early as the second episode, but at the same time, the same thing as last season would be repetitive, wouldn’t it? One can only hope that Jenji doesn’t write herself into a corner with this show like she did with Weeds, where she seemed to have some bizarre fascination with putting her protagonist through as much trouble as she could, and so far it doesn’t seem as if this fascination has carried over- that said, this show has too much potential to turn into a Weeds clone. Let’s hope it lives up to this potential.

Side notes:

-Of course, it just so happened to be when I had woken up from a nap and gone upstairs to make myself dinner when the news of the third season being uploaded to Netflix early was broken.

-Poussey has continued to be endearing. In fact, her flashback to her relationship with her other and reading the comic strip was one of the most “awww” inducing moments in the whole show so far.

-I won’t lie, I think Penn looks kinda cute with her new haircut.

-The episode also picks up a few months later- made clearest when we find out that Miss Rosa is long gone by this point. Hey, she went out with a bang, flattening Vee with the van. One of the finest exits in TV history? I think so.

-Slightly unrelated: that also marks two premieres during pride month, of shows that deal with LGBT content (the other being Sense8, which I’ll review too). Last weekend (as of writing- June 11th to be exact), I went to the pride parade with my buddy who mentoned to me that he’s frustrated that homosexuality still isn’t being properly addressed in schools, even despite that LGBT visibility is continuing to catch on. And he kind of has a point. All I could remember were passing mentions of it in school. Of course, lesbian relationships are a huge part of this show, and Sense8 takes place during Pride, with one of the central characters being a transgendered lesbian. And so it makes sense that it’s becoming more visible through media too. In fact, one of last year’s most talked about shows was BBC3’s zombie drama In the Flesh, where the protagonist is openly gay, and the zombie aspect is used as an allegory for homophobia.

-Back on topic. Is it weird that I think the outdoor scenery of Litchfield looks pretty, for a prison?

-Crazy Eyes’ presence is rather minimal here, but she gets a trademark moment where she is barred from access to children, despite the fact that she’s excited and wants to fly a kite. Crazy eyes is adorable.

-And lastly, Laverne Cox is as fabulous as ever here.