This review won’t be terribly long because the headline pretty much says it all: season 2 of “Orange is the New Black” is even better than the first one, which wasn’t too shabby to start with.
The first season was strong, but suffered slightly from too many unwieldy subplots, gross out gags, and an over-reliance on the show’s three least interesting characters: the snooze-fest love triangle that is pampered lead Piper, her sociopathic ex-girlfriend Alex, and her mealy-weakling fiancee Larry.
This season wisely shuffles Larry to the side-lines and only features Alex in a handful of episodes. [Laura Prepon is an appealing actress but her character is unlikable in all the wrong ways.] But introduces a fantastic new villain in Vee (who’s unlikable in all the right ways), a quasi-mother figure to Tastee and major rival to Red for supremacy of the prison’s power structure.
OistNB’s focus on humanism and finding all the dimensions in all its minimum-security convicts makes the show refreshing and unlike any prison show you’ve ever seen before, but it’s still nice to have a villain as skillfully manipulative as Vee there to play all the cons off each other. Played by Lorraine Toussaint—-who’s like a Viola Davis that’s fully allowed to let loose with her wicked side—-Vee is so good, you might find yourself rooting for her over some of her lamer rivals (like Poussey, who treats prison like it’s an adult summer camp to make soul-mate friendships).
The show’s one sour note: the shrill and loathsome prison bureaucrat Fig, who’s the least likable character but not even a convict. Still, the rest of the cast is overflowing with great performances and flawed, but fully-formed characters you can’t help rooting for. Grade for Season 2: A
I also love the show. Great review.