Changed the title to reflect season discussion, as it seems this thread is doing.
That makes more sense for Netflix series and other shows where they release the whole season at once.
I watched it over the weekend; as in stayed up entirely too late both Fri and Sat nights so I guess I sort of binged. On the one hand I obviously couldn’t “put it down” yet on the other I have to agree it is the weakest of the three seasons. For me it’s due to a lack of, er, continuity(?) Some see the characters as having evolved and that may be what the writers intended, but I just see some stuff as out of character. Piper’s a crime boss; the usually cool Alex is paranoid; Pennsatuckee turns the other cheek (in the extreme). I don’t know, some of it just doesn’t sit right. The Norma storyline isn’t very interesting and for a second at the end I thought they were going to have here escape and I was glad. Black Cindy is unattractive and unfunny at best and the whole conversion thing is just strange. Caputo and Figueroa are implausible but worse than that they’re just gross. It’s extremely rare that sex scenes make me cringe but those two together are just bleccccccch. And I really could have done without the puking scenes. SoSo’s sort of made sense and at least they made it humorous but what the hell was the deal with Healy’s flashback? I mean I guess it’s some kind of metaphor for how religion / god have shit (or in this case vomited) on him but it just seemed odd and gratuitous, like Ms, Kohan said “and for the last hurrah, let’s make it really edgy and have not one but two gross out scenes”. Finally, I don’t care much about the love triangle aspect but I developed a big old girl crush on Stella and was sorry to see her character go.
I know it sounds like I hated it but I’m just mentioning these things to see what other people think. We already know what we all love about the show.
Also, did anyone ever hear why Natasha Lyonne left mid season and if she’s coming back for the next one? I’d be very surprised if Laverne Cox wasn’t coming back though we saw her getting sent to SHUE(sp) What about Laura Prepon? I supposed the outcome of her cliffhanger depends upon her contract negotiations(?)
I kind of enjoyed the evolving of characters. As Piper’s brother said, Piper wasn’t Walter White, but its very easy to go down that path - especially since one you start a business in prison, you can’t be seen as a weakling. I actually thought her final actions of the season were at the same time horrifying and completely bad-ass. So I’m interested to see how that moves forward. And I can see Alex backing away due to seeing what this is going to turn Piper into.
I was quite surprised that they made Pennsatucky a sympathetic character, but it worked and now her friendship with Boo is arguably the best part of the show.
The Norma stuff was interesting in the beginning and I thought it was going to have more of a payoff, but I guess it just fizzled (though her noticing the lack of fence and running through was pretty nice - and may gain her more adherents).
I did love the ending - the pure unadulterated joy of being able to swim in a lake. And I liked how SoSo got included in the black gang (Tiger Woods of prison gangs!). Tastyee is a great “mom” for that crew.
I dunno if I want to say that it’s the weakest of the three seasons - it’s definitely a transitional season, but the resolution of the Vee storyline I thought was a bit lame. So I’ll have to think about that.
Sophia was sent to the SHU (Secure Housing Unit i.e. solitary confinement) which is different from what the others referred to as “down the hill,” a maximum security facility, which I don’t think we have ever seen. Other characters have spent time in the SHU but I don’t think anyone comes back from Max.
I found this to be a great recap of the end of Season 3 (and the final 15 minutes is one of the main reasons I’m not ready to call this the weakest season):
I’m manly enough to admit I cried like a little bitch. Also I really want to use Luzschek’s “…NOPE.” as a ringtone or something of the sort. Maybe an alarm clock 
I’m really happy for Lorna. I’m glad she didn’t end up stringing along a bunch of guys and instead found someone as crazy as she is to marry.
I forgot to mention - the flashbacks to Dayanara’s childhood were mighty sad and I can’t tell if we’re supposed to now understand/ empathize with her mother or what. Elizabeth Rodriguez has done a tremendous job at making me hate her and I’m not sure if her actions regarding the baby are supposed to redeem her in our eyes, but obviously that plan turned to shite. Do you think Pornstache or his mother will be back next season?
For me, it just made me dislike her more. I guess you kind of feel bad that she feels she’s losing her daughter, but the only time she even seems to remotely show affection is when she’s not the center of her daughter’s world. Which comes off as really narcissistic. “I don’t love you, but I don’t want you to have anything else but me.” Easy to see why Daya slept with Cesar, though!
By the way, does anybody else think Red’s Russian accent is too over the top? It started to grate on me a little this season.
I couldn’t tell if we were supposed to think that her changing her mind and having Cesar actually adopt the baby was a good thing or not! I thought that was a pretty horrible thing to do, the baby could have had a good chance at life with Mary Steenburgen. But it seemed like the show was trying to say that having Cesar take the baby was a good outcome? I don’t know.
We were to be sad when we heard the baby died, then happy when we found out it was a ruse and Dayanara would be keeping her. Then sad to find out that it was all for naught because Ceasar got raided, and the baby presumably won’t be going to Dayanara or Mary Steenburgen at all.
I loved that scene where she realized that she was the mom.
Yeah, for me the end of the Vee story was so bad it kind of ruined season 2 for me. I enjoyed this season more, though there were a lot of cartoonish scenes I could have done without, and I didn’t care for Piper’s story much at all this time.
Looks like things are about to get a lot more crowded in Litchfield.
Someone mentioned to me the possibility that the new prisoners are from the max ward? Which doesn’t make sense to me but she reminded me that there was talk about there beingspace or something(?) Like maybe the new owners are going to make some weird decision to combine the population and sell the other property or whatever. Was there any particular sign of things to come in the last shot of the new women arriving or was it just a generic scene of a new batch?
It turns out the new beds they were getting were bunk beds. That was a clue to the next shot of the women getting off the bus.
As for where they’re from…hmm, I can’t think of anything. I just took it as a generic “we closed some other federal facility so here they are” sort of thing.
I love Pipers attempts to appear tough. You know though that in the face of someone actually tough she’d fold instantly.
Not with what happened to the baby in the finale. The earlier scenes with Cesar and Bennett also seemed to indicate what the bad idea that was going to be.
I doubt it’ll be prisoners from Max. That would make no sense whatsoever and didn’t MCC say they decided not to buy the Max prison because of the additional costs? They probably just indicated that they would take more non-Max prisoners.
I think so too. Litchfield was supposed to close before it was “rescued” by MCC. My take is that MCC acquired another minimum security facility whose equivalent of Caputo didn’t want to play ball, so they closed that one.
Oh, in case you’re wondering, I’ve had my username for 12 years, and it’s not related to the subject of this thread.