As I understand it, Laura Prepon, who plays Alex, is leaving the show, so the prospect of a Piper/Alex romance is … not good.
Works for me! 
I thought that was interesting, too. I think maybe Vee represented a more hardcore type of prisoner who just did not fit in with the prisoners in Litchfield, which as I recall were minimum security prisoners. I saw it as them rejecting Vee the way the body rejects a virus. Thing is, Vee might have won, if she had not had that little problem with being willing to kill and/or betray any of her associates to advance her position. Classic sociopath, undone by her inability to understand the basic things that make for social cohesion.
Vee was the cold Lioness to Red’s hot blooded Tiger. Both were prideful, but Red had a humanity that Vee was incapable of. Red loved to cook, to garden, to do for others on the outside and the inside. Even she and Piper came to an understanding, and a respect for each other’s lives. Red’s mothering included slaps to the side of the head, but mostly for their own good.
Vee’s backstory couldn’t be more different or more chilling. To basically molest her foster son’s fantasy about her and then dispose of him like he was trash by what he thought in his dying moment was a white on black hate crime was ingenious and incredible in never being able to pin it on the nubian queen.
She was definitely hardcore and should have been elsewhere in the system. It must have been great fun to play her though. Not only could she manipulate “smart girls” like Tastee, to be the Jago to Suzanne’s insecurities was just so wickedly interwoven and despicable, it just illustrated how someone with mental illness (Crazy Eyes) can be taken down a garden path with such ease and lack of remorse by the Vee character that it rings so true. Human nature can be a beast. I think of the people with vulnerabilities and how some families just take advantage of them without a hint of remorse. These were probably the most satisfying scenes of the season.
The scene that really got me was when Pennatucky was shunned by her friends and had her moment with Healy after he was shunned by his Russian wife.
Actually, as I understand it, she is back for season 3.
I’m perfectly OK with that, I like the character of Alex, and I hope I am wrong.
Also, I didn’t mean my answer to sound snarky, but it may have - not intentional.
I hope we haven’t seen the last of the Suzanne backstory. The glimpses paint a picture of her having always been the odd-ball, but when did she go from odd-ball to “crazy”? How did she end up in Litchfield? She seems to have some serious mommy issues, too. Maybe the flashbacks explained why and I just missed them. All I remember is that her mother wouldn’t let her hold the baby and how she made her go to the slumber party meant for six-year-olds.
In one of the last few episodes she made a passing mention of having attacked a neighbor. I think that’s the only clue we’ve been given.
The Today Show had four of the actors from OITNB as guests today. One was Laura and she said Alex is in every episode for season 3 - and they started filming season 3 yesterday! She didn’t say it wouldn’t be her playing Alex, so it seems she’s on for at least one more season. Also the actress who plays Suzanne was there and she was unrecognizable with long straight hair, makeup and a dress.
I love Laura Prepon.
I just hate ‘star-crossed lovers who ruin lives but, oh, the PASSION’ storylines.
Hopefully (imo), they take it somewhere different.
I think when any parent lets their child know they could never aspire to be anything above their station, and certainly never to be like them, something must die inside that child. It seems almost alien to us, parents are often our greatest allies and cheerleaders. So all the coaxing in the world to get up in front of her senior class can never erase the indoctrination of worthlessness she has been given all her life. The damage has been done. That sense of worthlessness can possibly manifest in self mutilation or in rage episodes. Suzanne gets rejected she either slaps herself or someone who represents the source of her sadness. For Suzanne it’s the unattainable, a society white woman like her mother.
On the other hand when an African American woman comes along and speaks in that soothing manner that Black nurse did in the hospital when her mother shunned her from the baby, Suzanne responds favorably.
Whoa, you’re seeing the mother as being cruel and exclusionary? I see her as doing her damnedest to encourage and support Suzanne, who seems to have some kind of neurological or psychological issues predating and independent of her placement in that family.
Unfortunately for Suzanne, I do. Suzanne was never quite good enough to hold the baby or chum with white girls her own age. That subtle racism was perpetuated by mom. I think the show is also very clever at demonstrating just how damaging growing up in an environment that really doesn’t value you as a person, and sees your color before they see you. Suzanne knew deep down she was just the dog and pony show for her liberal minded Mom and Dad, thus the self mutilation at the commencement, and when a baby them comes into the picture they become precious, not only because it’s a baby but they even spelled it out, the baby “looked like Mommy” and Daddy. Suzanne could never ever be that precious to them.
If Suzanne has some neurological disorder then asking her to do the impossible at the commencement was cruel. They knew better and yet the optics of their strange little black daughter standing at the podium so people would admire such loving parents won out.
I’m not seeing the racism angle.
From the baby-sister-in-the-hospital scene, I see a few things. 1) A young couple with a very smart but unusual little girl, whose 2) blackness is treated just like the fairy costume she’s wearing–cute but not important–and 3)who sees that her little sister is more special and precious than she is. I don’t know what to think about the temper tantrum she throws. It’s meaningful somehow (maybe it indicates how alienated she wil be from her family going forward?), but I can’t figure out how.
From the slumber party scene, I see a mother that thrusts Suzanne into an environmet where she doesn’t belong, not because Suzanne wants to be there, but because the mother wants to make a statement about how progressive and racially tolerant she is. And if people have a problem with this, then she gets to go all self-righteous on them. It’s all about her, not Suzanne (which reminds me of Vee).
From the graduation scene, I see a black girl thrust in a sea of white faces, expected to perform for them against her will. Who thrust her onto the stage? Her mother. Why? I don’t know. But I guess it’s because her mother is more interested in the symbolism of Suzanne (“black girl overcoming all obstacles with her parents’ love”) rather than who she actually is.
I wish they’d fleshed this out more. I’m fine with reading between the lines, but I think Suzanne’s story is more ambiguous than the other characters’, which seems strange to me.
I think we’re on the same page in terms of what we are viewing, for me it’s racism for a white “well intentioned” mother to use her black daughter to elevate her so called “tolerance” As you pointed out this does absolutely nothing for her daughter. Racists aren’t just confederate flag carrying rednecks, often the worst among us is those desperate not to be viewed that way.
I like how you compared her to Vee in terms of being selfish. Vee uses race to her advantage when she has her foster son killed.
Whether it’s for “good” as Suzanne’s mother or pure evil as Vee in both instances for me it’s about what the audience saw in terms of color that shaped their choices.
I saw a quote that I thought applied to Suzanne rather well “They laugh at me because I’m different, I laugh at them because they are all the same.”
I think Suzanne throws temper tantrums because she’s fighting in her gut what she knows is true. Her parents will never love her the way she needs it, unconditionally. It appears Suzanne must always give something in order to receive that love. Her acting up is a way to get noticed, she doesn’t care how she’ll be noticed.
It’s very difficult to be black and therefore invisible in this white world. She knows this and hates herself (hurts herself) because of it.
Just finished S2. It was very good, but I think Season 1 was better. Some things just seemed too contrived and sensationalist this time around. Case in point is the very end. While it is somewhat satisfying to see the villain get her comeuppance, the way it happened made my eyes roll a bit.
I did like the flashbacks very much. I would like to know more about Crazy Eyes’ past, though. What we saw made me sympathize with her, until she became the vicious enforcer for Vee. I know, she was doing it because she craved approval from her new momma, but she was pretty enthusiastic about beating people up and intimidating them.
I don’t really care about the pregnant inmate and her CO boyfriend anymore. Boring.
Piper’s brother staging an impromptu wedding at their grandmother’s funeral was hilarious and ingenious.
I liked the way Vee died for its black humor aspects. After all the horrible things Vee had instigated, all the people she had used and betrayed and and had beaten and tried to kill … Vee is killed by someone she had made give up her seat in the lunchroom.