But her story (Piper’s that is) gets waaaay more interesting.
An interesting article from someone who considers Season 3 to be the best season (and the more I think about it, the better the season looks):
The entire article is well worth the read, but here is the main point:
My thoughts as well. The season really seemed to take its sweet time to get going – I almost forgot Piper was on the show – and I got to the point of losing interest, but thought it finished up strong. I’m a sucker for a (mostly) happy ending.
So, can we assume that Alex has been offed? I sure hope so. Not because I don’t like her – although I never really cared for what she brought to the show and I wouldn’t miss her – but because it would be just be too cheesy if she somehow came out of that. PLUS, it sets up a potentially excellent Season 4. It will interesting to see if Piper goes into full-on Walter White mode or does her usual waffling, the latter somehow seeming more appropriate and I dare say even better for the show.
I still see Healy and Red hooking up – hopefully right at the moment he fully commits to his Rushkie mail-order wife.
Still a lot of contrivances on this show, characters going in directions and changing viewpoints seemingly on a whim (see Red’s change of heart, above), but viewed as a whole, mostly a great watch.
Though I did like the romance twixt Red and Healy, which is odd because I don’t like either character.
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- Bennett leaving all of a sudden. Seemed to sudden and unrealistic to me, given his previous behavior.
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I kept assuming he’d come back.
Daya’s poor baby: not that she’d have been anything but richer necessarily with Mother Pornstache, but certainly it would have been better than with Cesar even before the raid.
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- Stella and Piper. Makes me lose my last sympathy for Piper. Really seems like they are running out of ideas.
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I don’t have any sympathy for Piper, but did like the way she screwed over Stella as revenge for stealing her money.
And while I’m pretty much 100% homo, Stella almost registers on my schwingdar.
We have one more ep for season 3. I’ve totally lost interest in the Piper/Alex story lines. I love you, I hate you, I love you again. It’s just soap opera in a prison setting. I like the backstories for the most part, but it seems like each scene in the prison is an excuse for the main actor in that scene to chew the scenery to her/his utmost. Guess that’s what happens when a series gains traction. At least they’ve gotten away from the whole “men are all rapists, violence-prone, racists, cowards or perverts, or a combination of those” meme somewhat, although it’s still a prevalent theme.
I finally did go ahead and watch the rest of season 3 after getting stalled by all the shit the characters were put through in the first three eps or so. Then it got better, with subplots developing that were fun and interesting. I really liked the subplot with Crazy Eyes writing the way out there erotica that enthralled some of the other prisoners. I kind of thought it was a shout-out to the erotica writers on Amazon. I could be wrong, but given that Amazon has dinosaur pron and stuff, it seems very possible.
I also liked Piper becoming a heavy-duty prison mafia bitch. I think she will thoroughly get bitten in the ass by that, but we’ll see.
And I do wonder if Alex will survive. I’m thinking maybe she gets shot but not killed because some unseen prison guard puts a halt to the assassin’s plans. I don’t care much whether the character Alex lives or dies, but killing her off so quick and easy is just too easy.
Then again, maybe it’s a Game of Thrones influence.
Other than Piper, who has a federal drug conviction, I cannot see the crimes the other’s did to put them in such a place?
Three-strike laws, maybe, although I’m not sure if that applies to federal charges. A lot of the people in federal prisons are there because of drug violations. The nun chained herself to a federal facility, but I don’t see where that warrants more than a fine and probation. Some of the stories are sketchy, for sure.
Well, from vague memory:
-Sophia committed credit card fraud. That’s federal, right?
-Flaca’s drug scam surely violated federal drug laws.
-Pennsatucky violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
-Alex, y’know, international drug ring thing.
-Red was involved in mob activity, probably met some nice FBI agents citing RICO statutes.
-Same for Chang.
-Norma committed murder at a spectacular outdoor location which may well have been a national park.
-Miss Claudette likely went down for human trafficking.
Ok I only recently discovered OITNB and I’m 5 episodes into S3. Love the show. Hate Piper and Alex, but mostly Piper. Could the show survive without her? I think so.
I finally got through all of Season 3 and I give it an B+. The last five or six episodes saved it, because its rocky start almost made me give up on it. The hate-love-lust thing between Alex and Piper got old real quickly.
I like that they finally gave Cindy some depth. Up until the finale, she has consistently played the loud and comical buffoon. Her converting to Judaism was unexpectedly convincing and touching, and it represented an opportunity to for us to really see what this actress could do.
I noticed that the characters were wrestling with similar issues. For instance, Caputo, Red, and Piper–while experiencing different things–share one thing in common: the desire to reign supreme at something. All three have a need to feel important and have his importance validated by others. In the end, all 3 get what they want, with mixed results. (Taystee also finds herself in an “important” role, but doesn’t know what to make of it. I can’t see her abusing her power like the others, though.)
Soso and Poussey wrestle with loneliness. Gloria and Sofia struggle with their sons. Multiple characters manage crises of faith. Boo, Doggett, Lorna, and Suzanne forge new and unlikely relationships.
There were lines in the last few episodes that cracked me up. Like when Poussey went off out on the Amish girl and insulted her teeth. And “black people don’t know this song.”
I finally finished this season.
Agreed; she’s actually become one of my favorite characters. She’s just so damn funny.
Don’t forget that Leanne cooperated the authorities and helped them arrest all of her Amish friends, hence her shunning. She’s definitely in prison for something she did afterward.
What is Piper even going to do when she gets out? She’s not going to be in quite the same boat as Stella (& wouldn’t Stella be immediately deported back to Australia). Her family hasn’t disowned her (& as bad as her mother is it’s still better than prison).
There are several things that struck me as odd abought that. Daya had everything all set up for Mrs. Mendez to adopt the baby even after she knew the truth, but her cousin was just able to show up and that was that? :dubious: So did she not bother making any attempt to contact her to let know to pick the baby up or what?
Speaking of things that would never happen in a real prison; how does the whole prison panty factor legal? 
I thought it was illegal in the US to use prison labor to make goods used in interstate commerce; they can only make stuff for other government agencies.
It’s going to be so much fun watching Martha Dean in prison. 
I can’t see how Caputo keeps his job after the lake fiasco though.
Gloria’s in for foodstamp fraud (it’s a federally funded program). I’m not quite sure how Norma was caught though. They were alone in the middle of nowhere, and her pushing him off a cliff like that leaves exactly as much evidence as him slipping & falling off a cliff.