Review - Orange is the New Black

You know, I think I'm just going to stop watching netflix series.

I'll explain why in a moment, but first, let me sum up the new netflix series for you.  Orange is the New Black is about a woman who goes to prison because a drug pusher she was screwing ten years ago fingered her in an indictment to get her own sentence reduced.  It's fairly funny here and there.  The characters are memorable.  The little glimpses into their lives really aren't all that necessary, but they make decent filler material to let you know how each girl ended up where they are.  So, i guess that's fine.  So this girl, Piper, the main character, is serving 15 months for money trafficking or some shit like that.  And she ends up meeting the woman who she was screwing, the drug dealer, in the same prison that she ends up in.   And the first (and most likely, only) 13 episodes of this series focus on her first few months in prison.  Basically, 3 months since she arrives at prison in the fall and the last episode ends at xmas.  So, it's basically like a soap opera for the Logo channel.  Lots of lesbian love, sex, tits and ass.  And drama.  And not even good drama.  Bad, bad drama.

I wasn't going to finish watching this series at first.  Lesbian sex and tits and ass are all well and good, but they really show less and less of piper (and I don't mean screen-time) as the show wears on, instead of more and more, which is really what I was hoping for as a heterosexual male who doesn't get out much.  Plus, there are no monsters to keep me interested in between the nudie bits.  So I was starting to lose interest as the episodes wore on.  And yes, the other characters are interesting and all, but they aren't particularly attractive, so watching them engage in lesbian sex, while probably more realistic in terms of what goes on in prison, was starting to sway me more towards fast forwarding to the end.

But, I persevered.  Mostly because, "Red" played by...  Kate Mulgrew, thanks IMDB, is a talented actress and i really wanted to know how her side-plot with pornstache worked out.  Yes, Pornstache.  He's a guard at the correctional facility who looks like a moron but is apparently somehow capable of running a successful drug dealing business at the prison.  Also, he's NOT the most terrifying guard at the place.  He runs a close second to healy, who is Piper's counselor.  So there's lots of plots and side plots and sideboob and uh...  well, you know, stuff like that there.

The show really had me going.  I thought things were going to work out for piper.  I was kind of rooting for her.  She seemed like such a fish out of water in there.  Like healy says in the first few episodes, piper is not like the other girls there.  Most of them are poor, uneducated, and had few choices outside of how they ended up there.  I figured she'd sort things out and this series would end on a rather positive note for a change.  BUT I'm an idiot, as most of you may have gathered by now, because if everything works out for Piper, then there is no second season.

Which brings me to why I am just going to goddamn stop watching netflix series.  There is NEVER a second season.  Seriously.  I"ve seen like, 3 or 4 netflix series in the past 4 years.  Not a single goddamn one of them has ever had another run of 13 episodes.  They just DON'T.  NetFLix might want to make you THINK you're watching a series.  But what you are watching is a cleverly designed ploy to pump Netflix up.  Yes, netflix is using you as a dumbell to work out with.  It's true.  Don't feel bad, they used me too.

So here's what Netflix does to piss me off.  They spend a buttload of money on 13 episodes.  They get great location shots.  Good actors.  Good writing.  Great characters.  Toss in nudity, blood and as many surprises as possible.  They make you care about the people in the story.  And then they do two things that are really going to fuck you over for life.  The first thing is that (1) There is never a second season, and (2) they always end on a cliffhanger.  Yep.  I mean, I don't know who the FUCK told netflix how to make a good series, but this is NOT the way.

Let's look at this logically.  If the series sucked, or was poorly done, or was badly written, or didn't have any nudity or lesbian sex or whatever, you wouldn't really care so much if there wasn't a second season.  I mean you could go "well, that ending blew, but fuck it, the whole series was really doomed from the start because (fill in the blank here)."  So you wouldn't give a fuck about not seeing season 2, much like bad series on network television.  You stop caring about the series long before it goes off the air.  Which would work PERFECTLY if this is how netflix wanted to do things.  But they don't.  They fix it so you DO care.  You want to see these characters again.  You WANT to know what the fuck happens to them.  And even if they ended the series with everything wrapped up nice and tidy, you still would be looking forward to season 2.  BUT THEY DON'T.  No, they leave you haging with a goddamn cliffhanger over people you care about and then DON'T FUCKING SHOW YOU ANY MORE EVER.  Well, fuck you Netflix.  Sonsofbitches.

So let's recap.  Piper was doing great up til episode 10 or so.  And let me recap episode 10 (i think it was 10) because it was pretty funny at one point and gave me a great feeling that piper was actually going to make it.  The prison is hosting one of those "scare the crap out of the wayward kids so they don't end up in jail" things.  And the inmates are TOTALLY FAILING, because it's a minimum security prison and the worst things they can show the kids are the mold in the shower stalls and the lack of a bathroom door on a couple of the stalls in the ladies room.  Now don't get me wrong, I was terrified, and I'm never ever going to end up in prison just to avoid those two things, and that's just in the ldies prison.  But I'm a fucking pussy.  I'm pretty sure these kids, like most street kids, were not intimidated.  So Piper happens to end up in the bathroom while this tour is going on, and she's left alone to deal with a particularly tough little handicapped girl who looks like she could eat glass and shit out miniature glass figurines.  And I think maybe Piper is going to just bond with the kid and the kid is going to learn a lesson about how not to end up in jail just because Piper is going to relate some meaningful life experience.  And she ends up scaring the shit out of the kid with the plain truth of piper's situation.  That it's not the other inmates, or the prison, but yourself you have to face.  And then Piper walks out of the bathroom and all the other inmates and a guard and the other kids are out there, listening, and one of the inmates says "That was stone cold, piper."  And piper says "Bitches gots to learn."  And I LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED.  That shit was funny.  I'm still giggling about it hours later.

And then the whole goddamn series, and piper's life, goes to hell in a handbasket over the next 3 episodes.  I've never seen anyone's life get so emotionally destroyed so quickly.  Honestly, if Piper had just left the psycho religious bitch in the Psych ward, everything would have been fine, but NOOOOOO.  She fucked that one up pretty bad.  By trying to do the right thing.  Which pretty much reinforces what I've always thought.  Good deeds don't go unpunished.  And then they leave it with a CLIFFHANGER ENDING.  Well, it was sort of a cliffhanger.  Piper does some serious shit but you don't get to see what happens to her after because it's the LAST EPISODE.  And, you're fucked.  Because you want to know what happens to Piper but you know it's NetFlix, there will never be another episode.  Ever.  Why won't there be another episode ever?  Because fuck you, that's why.  They are NetFlix.  They don't have to do another season.

So that's why I am never watching another goddamn netflix series.  It's like hooking up with a hot chick and finding out she's a man just as you pass out from drinking too much.  You know bad shit is about to go down and you feel really bad, but then it's just fucking GONE and you don't know how your life ends up.  Why the hell would anyone WANT to make you feel like that?  Assholes.  And I wouldn't mind so much if it was JUST this one series.  But it's EVERY GODDAMN NETFLIX SERIES I HAVE SEEN SO FAR.  Wtf.  Pisses me off.

In other news...  It's fuckin warm.  I think there's a day this weekend when it's supposed to drop down near 80.  And then it heats back up again.  I know, I made a prediction for a cool wet summer, and it has been rainy as shit until the recent heat wave.  But, this is july and we do get warm weather this time of year, so I'm not wrong yet.  We'll see how the rest of summer shapes up.  Personally, I do enjoy the heat because the longer the heat lasts, the less my sinuses act up.  The minute the cold weather arrives, shit goes all bad with my head.  Sigh.  I really need to move somewhere with a warmer climate.  Maybe arizona.  Florida.  Christ I feel like an old person, feeling the need to move somewhere warmer for my HEALTH, instead of going there to see bitches in bikinis.  lol

That's all for now.  My blog seems to get hits now and then but no one ever leaves me comments anymore.  I am sure brando is probably still a frequent reader, but since yahoo lost the chat rooms, I stopped chatting there.  I love a good chat room.  I just go in there and start ripping off one-liners like a stand up comedian who has absolutely no act prepared.  From what I hear about stand up comedians, this is what they all aspire to, to be able to be funny and witty off the cuff like I am able to do in a chat room most nights.  Now that I can't find chat rooms any more, my stage of choice has been closed down.  Oh well.  Perhaps the time for chat rooms is past, or maybe they will come again.  I'll just have to stick around until the cycle spins around again and chat rooms are back in fashion.  Maybe my buddy rich in australia is reading, but he's got a new baby and we all know what a bitch those little brats are.  And I have NO idea who the hell else reads these blogs.  lol

Right, I know, stick to movie and series reviews and quit whining.  Got it.  Til next time!