Here’s Uzo Aduba (Crazy Eyes) auditioning for every part in the show.
Just finished Season 2 and I have to say that I really liked it! It may have even been as good as Season 1 to me, but they are vastly different in their aims. Season 1 was more expansive and the story lines were more fragmentary (not a bad thing - it allowed us to be introduced into the world of Lichfield and see that each character had their own story, even if it didn’t seem to fit in with everyone else’s). There was a central storyarc, but it wasn’t particularly central - ie, the whole Piper is a Trojan Horse to introduce you everyone else.
Season 2 was far more narrowed - there was quite a significant central story arc this season. And while we had tons of stories from the other inmates, this season seemed to be more about how everyone’s story impacts everyone else (at least in small ways). And things seemed to fit together - Rosa’s constantly bringing up how Vee was rude at various times during the season or Poussey’s rejection by her lover’s father seemingly manifesting itself again in later eps when she was seeing how Vee was taking Tastee away, for instance. I think the show couldn’t keep up the expansive story telling for much longer than 1 season and so the narrowing was a something necessary and very well done.
She is all kinds of awesome.
This is an interesting observation. But I wonder what her parents should have done instead? If Suzanne doesn’t belong in front of a sea of with people, then where does she belong?
I don’t see the racism, but I think Suzanne does have issues with being raised by white parents.
Let’s not forget that something bad must have happened to Suzanne for her to end up with her new parents. At the very least she was abandoned by her birth mother, and if not, then something terrible must have happened for Suzanne to be removed from her.
Suzanne’s new parents are able to conceive children, so they pretty much took in a child they knew was troubled (best case scenario here is she was abandoned at birth.) The show has done nothing to suggest they did to have black child that went along nicely with their Kale garden.
Suzanne most likely has abandonment issues that no one knows how to deal with. Her white parents are doing everything normal parents would do to a child that doesn’t fit in. They force Suzanne to socialize in the hopes that her problem is simple insecurity that will go away after some exposure to socialization.
But it doesn’t work in Suzanne’s case because she’s always reminded that she doesn’t fit in. More by racism from other children and parents than from her own parents. But most troubling is that she is reminded by her white parents that she was abandoned at some point by her birth parents. It’s a haunting problem that has no easy solution. Should she be placed with a black family? Should she not be encouraged to socialize with white people? No one knows, which is why she ends up in prison.
Orange Is The New Orphan Black
I didn’t see a racism element in it either. I can imagine that even by the age of four or five, Crazy Eyes’ behaviour could be obviously odd and/or unpredictable to her adoptive parents (or at least her mother), hence some apprehension about letting her hold a newborn. Heck, this could be true even with parents and their own natural children - we know of some forms of mental illness that can manifest very early on.
Her parents are (or were) still trying, though; I recall a first-season scene where they visit the prison. Having to deal with a severely mentally-ill child is something I don’t wish on anyone. So the mom wanted to stash Crazy Eyes at a slumber party for the night? I can see that just as wanting a break from her for a little while, and lashing out at the other mom is a sign of that impatience.
One thing I wasn’t expecting is to get through the entire second season without another appearance by Lori Petty. I kinda got the impression they were setting her up for a bigger role.
And I also hate rude people. The tunnel may be Bugs Bunny, but the ending was pure Wile E. Coyote.
Maybe they could have her put in an environment where she’s isn’t the only black person all the freakin’ time? Not to say that she wouldn’t have still been an odd-ball around other black people (the other treatment of her by the B-dorm girls is a testament to this). But at least it would have reduced her sense of alienation by some degree. To be “crazy” alone is hard enough. To be the lone black person on top of that sucks tremenduously. (In fact, members of stigmatized minority groups are at a higher risk for developing schizophrenia because of the alienation).
I was reading a thread on Episode Two but couldn’t comment there because it would be spoilertastic. But I can comment here, so I will. A poster was saying he liked that Larry and Ellen were getting together and hoped they would hook up.
I dunno, I don’t have a lot of interest in Larry. He seems like a nice guy in a bland sort of way, but he is also kind of aimless and drifting. I thought he sort of drifted into the relationship with Ellen, not that he was all that crazy about her. But Ellen and Larry do have a unifying thing going on … both were abandoned by their significant others. Larry was abandoned by Piper when she went to jail, Ellen was abandoned by her husband when he went to Alaska. I don’t see any guilt for either of them here … left to their own devices, they bonded with one another and took care of what was important, which was Ellen’s baby. Good on them.
As for Piper’s self pity … if she had had the VERY elementary intelligence not to become a drug mule for her girlfriend, she would not be in prison. She would still be with Larry. Others in the story are victims of circumstances, but Piper has all sorts of opportunities and shreds them by being just plain DUMB. She should have known better, she had other opportunities, unlike the other women in the prison.
Polly?
Right, Polly. Brainfarted the name there.
I kind of disagree with you.
The other women may have had harder circumstances, but their crimes were still driven by selfish, stupid reasons. Take Gloria, for instance. Yes, she had an abusive boyfriend, but that had nothing to do with her committing foodstamp fraud.
Janae was a pretty, athletic, college girl with her whole life ahead of her. But she wanted to be popular and cool and have a boyfriend, the big dummy. And Yoga Jones made a choice to value her weed crops over a little boy’s life. No one forced her to do that.
The only one that I have full-on sympathy for is Taystee. I think most people would find slinging dope for Vee preferable to being all alone in a fast food uniform.
Which isn’t to say I judge these women for making “wrong” choices. It’s just that I don’t see Piper as being any less deserving of compassion. Piper fucked up just like they did.
I did not think they were always keeping her away from black children since we only saw two instances of them trying to make Suzanne fit in. But the high school they sent her to was awfully white.
I don’t think their efforts would drive a normal black person crazy though. Suzanne started out bad, and good intentions were not enough to fix her.
I don’t think their efforts drove her crazy. I just don’t think they were at all helpful.
I also don’t think Suzanne started out “bad”. I think she was just a weird, eccentric kid. How she went from being a weird/eccentric to criminal is the one piece that hasn’t be shared with us quite yet.
Hmm, slinging dope for a sociopath/child predator vs. being all alone in a fast food uniform. I’ll take the uniform and a peace of mind, but that’s just me.
Regardless, I don’t think that’s why Taystee chose Vee. Recall the scene when she broke down and reached out to Vee asking for work. Taystee clearly stated that she couldn’t take living where she was anymore. Later, in prison, when she and Vee clashed, Vee made reference to giving her shelter while allowing her to escape a creepy foster father.
I agree with your sympathy for Taystee, just disagree on her motivation for joining forces with Vee in the first place.
Admittedly we only have Jones’s account of events and not even a flashback but as I recall, the shooting was accidental. She thought she was shooting at deer that had been nibbling on her crops.
Granted, she CHOSE to grow weed…
She seemed riddled with guilt about having shot the kid, I tended to take it at face value.
Indeed. It’s her parents who have completely immersed her in the white world. They think it’s better than a black environment. It’s not better, it’s different and the parents have yet to reach out or recognize it. That’s racist.
I am going to predict race was at the heart of her criminal activity.
So did I - it’s certainly possible to feel guilty about causing a fatal accident.
I don’t think we’ve been shown anything indicating that the parents think white is better. Because that would definitely be racist, and that would stick out to me. I think it’s just as likely that her parents gravitated towards that which they know–a “white” world. Few parents ever stop to consider that “what they know” may not be best for their kids.