Orange Is the New Black Review: We’re Not Gonna Have To Eat That, Are We? (Season 7 Episodes 5-9)
On our second installment of the Orange Is the New Black Season 7 review, we are smack in the middle of so much heartbreak — and there is no turning back now.
I need to clarify something quickly. In the first installment of reviews covering Season 7 Episodes 1-4, I said I felt a tinge of nostalgia from some episodes. Any nostalgia is gone from these episodes. Nostalgia implies joy.
While earlier episodes have a little bit more joy, this review, which begins with Orange Is the New Black Season 7 Episode 5, “Minority Deport,” might refer to callbacks from other seasons. There is no joy in immigration detention and deportation, recidivism, xenophobia, misogyny, assault of any kind, betrayal, psychotic breaks, educational oppression, or genital mutilation.
These are a few of the subjects these five episodes explore. This review will not cover all of those topics in depth. That is impossible. But it’s important for me to write as many of them down as I can because I see what this final season is trying to pack in.
They tell some stories better than others. But in an industry starving for representation and authenticity, a good effort should be commended.
Let’s begin with the immigration issues that Orange Is the New Black Season 7 Episode 5, “Minority Deport” covers. Fans may be wondering how realistic the conditions of PolyCon’s ICE detention centers are.
There is nothing luxurious about them, but the room is pretty upscale compared to the current reported conditions.
Orange Is the New Black Season 7 was filmed last summer and was planned six months prior to that, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The crisis has become dire and the conditions more inhumane than producers and writers could predict.
They did visit the centers to research the story. So, it’s as realistic as a fictional dramedy can possibly be. Detainees probably don’t have access to inmates with good hearts who help them find relatives and lawyers, but the show needs a plot.
It’s difficult to discuss the story because it’s actually happening to real people. Ideally writing “these conditions are real and deplorable, we all need to do what we can about them as soon as we leave this website,” would create change.
It won’t, so it’s difficult to know what to write about the whole story. It was probably just as difficult to conceptualize, write, produce, direct and act the ICE storylines.
Small details and scenes increase the impact of the stories. Quite frankly, they take my breath away in the worst way.
Maritza is targeted because she has a good heart and passes around information to other detainees about how to find a lawyer.
Her story doesn’t just end. She literally disappears from the screen. The person — and therefore her life, her entire life — disappears.
Maritza has always been one of my favorite inmates. She might be gone but her story matters.
The show also addresses the issue in a less personal way by depicting the xenophobic, racist, and misogynist thoughts that created the issue in the first place.
On Orange Is the New Black Season 7 Episode 7, “Me as Well,” Blanca gets a verbally abusive guard to turn the computers back on after he unplugged them because Karla snapped at him.
Blanca has dealt with being treated like that for years in prison and tells her fellow detainee,
I tried to stand up to them once and it was worse [English translation]. All I got was beaten and f*cked up even more. If they treat you like an animal than act like you’ve been tamed. [English translation.]
This particular plot and Blanca’s words stick out to me because of the truth behind them.
Minorities within any institution often have to work with the oppression they experience in order to get what they need. It’s human nature to push against it and force a guard to see you as a person worthy of respect.
If you are OK with suffering for your cause, walk that path. But Karla’s kids are understandably more important to her. So, she needs to learn to stroke the guard’s ego to get to the information that will get her to her kids.
This is unacceptable and ridiculous to ask of anybody. But to get at the very limited resources that exist for many minorities in a variety of situations, this is what needs to be done.
It’s enraging, but I don’t begrudge anyone for doing whatever it takes to get what they need. If you are oppressed, your rage is always valid but can be manifested in very different ways.
Let’s move on to the main issue within Orange Is the New Black Season 7 Episode 7, “Me as Well” — the show taking on the #MeToo movement.
I believe women but within the TV industry since the movement began it’s my opinion that too many shows have been telling these stories just to get in on the trend, so they don’t do real-life experiences justice.
Unfortunately, Orange Is the New Black falls within the group that cheapens the #MeToo experience in one very fixable way.
It’s not because Joe’s actions toward Susan were ever right. Especially on earlier seasons of the show, Joe is weird and difficult to figure out.
Susan’s feelings are valid. But Orange is the New Black missteps by juxtaposing Joe’s issue with CO McCullough and Alex’s kiss and then showing the women having consensual sex on a later episode.
#MeToo is about power dynamics regardless of gender. If Joe and Susan were to hook up after she explicitly explained to him how his past actions made her feel uncomfortable, would that be OK or would the show officially villainize him?
I don’t have an answer but I hate the fact that Alex and Artesian have sex and the reason has nothing to do with Alex having sex while Piper is realizing she wants to be monogamous.
Watching that storyline unfold immediately along with Joe and Fischer’s takes away the power of the latter story. It’s actually quite a complex one because there are valid reasons to feel sorry for Joe.
He’s there on the screen facing consequences. He’s not someone’s dead grandpa whose bad qualities are retconned in for the sake of getting credit for addressing a current issue.
But it’s so hard to give the show credit when elsewhere in their universe they have two women with different amounts of power hooking up.
We are getting to Taystee quite late in this review, but that doesn’t make Danielle Brooks’ performance any less exceptional.
I don’t relate to Taystee’s suicidal feelings or the circumstances that lead her to them but I completely understand why she is at the place she is emotionally until Orange Is the New Black Season 7 Episode 8 “Baker’s Dozen.”
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, black people are seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than white people. It’s a real problem and very difficult to get something like that overturned.
Taystee might be the smartest character on Orange Is the New Black. Perhaps she’s in a grief stage until Tamika wakes her up, but we shouldn’t diminish her as just trapped in the stages.
It’s heartening to watch Taystee regain hope and watching Doggett learn is one of my favorite happy elements of this season so far. But no matter what Taystee decides, I’ll be standing with her as a viewer — even if I’m sobbing as I do.
Watching Taystee earn the drugs she needs to kill herself just as she’s finding a reason to live on is enough to send chills down every viewer’s spine. Thankfully they are hidden away for now. But they haven’t been destroyed.
Taystee sends the letter to Cindy’s daughter Monica while depressed and it’s so difficult to untangle all of the feels involved in this.
It’s a cliché, but an eye for an eye really does make the whole world blind.
Taystee’s actions are understandable, but Cindy doesn’t necessarily deserve the life she might have because Taystee sends a letter. Then again, Cindy has the choice to stay at her mother’s house and face the consequences of Monica knowing the truth.
She chooses to leave. But she’s not completely at fault for the flaws within the court system that lead her to believe that she needs to lie about Piscatella’s murder in the first place.
This doesn’t change the fact that she hurt her friend. So thinking about all of the “what ifs” here would just send us in circles. The situation just is what it is.
Cindy is worth rooting for, too. I hope we see her again. Someone we may not see again is Lorna. But do we even want to?
Her xenophobia and participation in so many of the bad “isms” is gross. But she is still to be pitied.
I don’t pity anyone with mental health issues. I have anxiety and I know how help changes lives. But I do pity anyone in a stigmatized community who hates people within other stigmatized communities.
Of course, Lorna has never seen her reality clearly. But her prejudices are not a result of her mental illness. They’ve caused her to believe that she is better than many people in prison with her.
I pity her because maybe these people could’ve helped her. She deserves treatment no matter her bias. And she doesn’t deserve harassment from men.
Her crimes were committed accidentally or as a result of mental illness.
Everything about Lorna is confusing. It’s hard to decide if this is the ending she’s earned.
Viewers get a sense that she’s not ready to move past any pain at the end of Episode 9, “The Hidey Hole.” So if she is alive, the pain that she’s in on future episodes is going to be extremely hard to watch.
Whatever happens or happened, I want to know what’s on the other side of that door.
The title of this review is a quote, but it’s also a larger reference to the storylines so far.
Most of them are very hard to stomach, but they are also what makes saying goodbye to the show such a sweet experience as someone who appreciates carefully crafted TV.
Nothing is happy at the end of Orange Is the New Black Season 7 Episode 9, “The Hidey Hole.” But the season is enjoyable to watch nonetheless.
I’m long past hoping for happy endings abound, but hopefully, my heart will be intact by the end of the final Season 7 review.
Shades Of Orange
- Piper’s storyline will hopefully become more tolerable now that we know she’s having trouble “finding herself” and is owning her past as an inmate. For most of the season so far she’s literally just been missing Alex and being privileged. That’s not a real struggle that’s easily recognizable
- The drug business in prison is happening. There just isn’t anything new about Daya or Aleida’s storylines so far this season.
- Why does Caputo ignore Fig’s suggestions? His life would be a lot easier if he just let her help him. Dear Men, sometimes you are wrong and that’s OK.
- The kitchen is definitely just a callback, as the season goes on it’s very clear there’s very little nostalgia to be found there.
- It’s so very hard to watch Red lose herself
- All is not lost in the kitchen though, because Nicky and Shani are super cute, even though they both have difficult pasts
- The chicken’s return does bring a little bit of good nostalgia
- Tamika does have a seat at the table and I’m proud of her for that. But I was perhaps a bit naive in my first review when I didn’t acknowledge how hard it would be for her to make real change. She has so much against her.
- I’m so mad that Yadriel is not Pepa’s biological father (implied). He’s so good and someone deserves a mostly good support system on this show. Pepa was my hope.
What did you think of these episodes of Orange Is the New Black? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Orange Is the New Black Season 7 is streaming on Netflix.
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Esme Mazzeo
Esme Mazzeo is a lifestyle and entertainment journalist from Long Island. When she's not writing for work, she's writing for fun, or searching for something to satisfy her sweet tooth. She thinks rainy days are the best kind of days. Certified night owl.