It should be noted: this post has spoilers, y’all! You have officially been warned. Now, let’s talk about Piper Chapman. “Orange is The New Black” is back and though there may have been a partial change to the location and setting, some things have remained the same: like Chapman’s total inability to listen to herself and what she knows is right for her. Oh, Chapman — when are you going to learn?
The most frustrating inmate in all of Litchfield just made us even angrier with her latest stupid move: lying under oath in court. She took her one chance to really come clean and blew it. Blew the whole thing up and possibly further implicated herself. Piper! No!
Chapman is an interesting case, isn’t she? She has an almost knee-jerk impulse to do the opposite of what she knows is right for herself and everyone around her. But “OITNB” isn’t about Chapman’s reformation — not yet — it’s about her greater understanding of herself and what she’s capable of… even if those abilities put her further in the muck.
The biggest happening in the premiere episode involved Chapman and ex-girlfriend/drug mule Alex Vause’s arrival at a Chicago maximum security prison where they were set to appear in the trial that got them sent to Litchfield in the first place. And while the whole episode led us to believe that maybe, finally, Chapman would think with her head rather than her heart when it came to doing what was best for herself in spite of what Vause says or does, turns out? Yeah, nope.
Chapman listened to Vause’s instructions to lie under oath, and it got her into even bigger trouble than she was in before. After which Vause told the truth and ended up getting out. It was cold. And we’re so mad at Chapman.
As evidenced through several flashbacks to her childhood, Chapman knew that lying was wrong and always struggled with telling the truth as it often ended badly for her: she was considered a nervous geek and her so-Connecticut-it-hurts mother (we can say that, we’re from there) got mad at her instead of Chapman’s father at the news of his affair.
Still, after her time locked up thus far, it had seemed that Chapman learned the importance of being in control of yourself. Particularly after all that time in SHU following the epic Pennsatucky beatdown that ended the last season. But did she really learn after all of that? No, no she did not.
At one point in a later episode in the season, corrections officer Susan (Lauren Lapkus) remarks about the inmates: “It’s so interesting, all these lives. It’s like reading Dickens.” And for Chapman, hers is a tale of two cities (metaphorically speaking), and it looks as though the worst of times are still very much ahead for her.
What’d you think of the premiere episode of Orange is The New Black? Are you glad it’s back? As annoyed at Piper as we are?
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