YOU SHUT UP THAT EPlSODE WAS HILARIOUS
:mad:
I laughed when Red complained that the Spanish women were going to do crazy Santaria voodoo stuff if they caught the chicken, while all she wanted to do was “eat the chicken that’s smarter than the other chickens and absorb its power.”
I just finished watching the entire series and I’m halfway through the book.
I think that part of what makes Piper and Larry so unappealing is that they’re treating prison as sort of a novelty. They don’t know anyone who has been in prison and aside from the books Piper read before she went in, have no real experience with it, so they have no place to fit it in to their mental landscape. They’re also spoiled yuppies who expect their lives to take a predictable trajectory and reject anything (and anyone) that isn’t along that trajectory. And I think Larry is a real asshole for dining out on Piper’s story then dumping her.
Pennsatucky uses her religion as an excuse for her choices and actions, either consciously or unconsciously. I also think she’s genuinely mentally ill, but whether that’s from the meth, the religion, or something else I have no idea.
I also hope Pornstache winds up in prison himself, just like Michael Rudkin.
Well, I’ve watched more episodes now, and I am feeling less hostile towards Piper. She does indeed own quite a bit of her own shit, but she’s still a self-involved upper-middle-class princess sort. I guess it’s a testament to the writing/acting that I don’t totally feel like she’s getting exactly what she deserves.
This is a spoiler for those who haven’t made it all the way through: I thought the scene where Piper and Larry actually meet was amazingly well done. He’s really is just an immensely lazy and unmotivated guy with no interest in working or thinking very hard. She seems empty and lost (and probably high) and disconnected. I don’t know if you pin her absence entirely on drugs, and I guess we only get a glimpse of pre-Alex Piper and she seems normal enough – but it looks like without a partner she’s a little blurry. It’s almost like they’re saying it doesn’t matter who would have been sitting in the apartment – if it was their housesitter who owned a pizzeria in Sheboygan, she’d have spent that 10 years in Sheboygan helping run a pizzeria. It’s not like Larry was all that compelling a guy.
A really telling moment for Larry is that all of his “journalism” is basically “this is now this makes me feel” and he doesn’t consider any other perspective at all. I liked that they made it clear than it took an actual, non-lazy journalist to figure out the corruption story lurking within his NPR piece. He’s more narcissistic than Piper, probably.
Yeah, Larry’s no prize, either.
Until I read this, it never occurred to me that he was supposed to be a reporter, or even a “reporter on life,” like Jodie Foster’s character in The Brave One. I just thought he was a writer, and not a particularly successful one, and rather than paying the bills by working as a waiter, he’s just sponging off his parents.
Aside from the amazing casting they’ve done here, the writing supports a style of story that Joss Whedon mentioned he strove for, particularly in Firefly: Everybody’s the main character. Pornstache comes off as an ass most of the time, but if you watch the scenes from his point of view, he thinks he’s the hero of the story. So does Healy. So do most of the characters. Piper and Larry are the only ones who are so self-absorbed that they can’t see the forest for the trees. Or, as Malcom Reynolds put it, “the forest is the only place I can see a clear trail.”
The casting really is amazing. I thought Laura Prepon was a pretty weak actress, but she’s excelling in this role. I also thought Kate Mulgrew was the worst actor on “Star Trek:Voyager” (she always looked like she was acting in that series), but her over-the-top Russian character is just perfect. Even FootFace (I mean, Piper) is pretty damned good.
Ethilrist: Actually, I don’t know whether Larry thinks of himself as a journalist or a memoirist or whether he has no idea what he wants to do. He does jump on fake-Ira-Glass’ dick pretty quickly – he’s desperate for anything he can glom onto.
While I’m here, I’d like to credit the writers and actors for doing two things pretty well that I don’t see done that often on TV series:
- They made me interested in a lot of characters pretty quickly. There are a bunch of minor characters that I’d really like more backstory on, even though they’ve had very little screentime compared to the top 6-8 characters – like Poussey, or Morello, or Big Boo). (I wish the men weren’t 100% hateful creeps, though. Heaney and Pornstache are caricatures compared to everyone else, and Caputo is almost as bad.)
- They are smart with how they use their timeline – for example, they did a great job with how they doled out information about Suzanne in little parcels here and there (and we still don’t know the whole story). Which gives me hope that the show won’t be incarcerating Cousin Olivette in season 7.
How can pornstache possibly think she is into him?
Maybe it was all the sex she was having with him.
That whole arc makes me think Bennett is truly stupid, and Mendez is a lot smarter, but an emotional cripple.
Her own mom said she was good at making men want to have sex with her… in spite of his drunken confession to Bennett, I don’t really see Mendez as being a whole lot deeper than that.
By my count they did it twice. The second time not even to fruition.
You think Mendez is really used to having sex twice in one week, or a second time with any woman?
No. So I figure twice to him means she really loves you and wants to have your baby.
Oh, sorry. We’re agreeing. Never mind. Her current, latest nightmare: What if he wants the baby?
Don’t forget Miss Claudette! I love her character and find her as strong an influential figure as Red is. Also it’s always a pleasure to see James McDaniel again as Baptiste.
Question for anyone that can help! My friends and I are trying to figure out the name of the movie showing on Movie Night at the end of episode 2. When crazy eyes makes her move…
I loved Miss Claudette, but I knew as soon as her & Baptiste started talking about what restaurant she’d like to eat at her story wouldn’t end well.