Because the protagonist muddles your brain.
Do you like her? Are you like her? Lover of whole foods and ambiguous of sexual orientation, Piper Chapman is your average upper-middle- class girl. Except, she’s in the slammer with hardened criminals for having ferried drug money for her ex-lover, Alex Vause – and is scarily, funnily unravelling. It’s interwoven with parallel commentary on race, gender bias and class with a liberal dose of dark humour.
Because Donna’s a lesbian now.
Laura Prepon, Donna from That ’70s Show, is all grown up. She’s replaced Eric Forman with Piper Chapman; traded her ginger mop for a goth black to become Alex Vause. This former member of an international drug cartel is reunited with her old flame behind bars. Cue steamy shower-room sex.
Because you need a strong stomach
The kitchen is nasty; general mother hen Galina ‘Red’ Reznikov wants nothing more than to head the kitchen. Kitchen = Power. (Piss her off and revenge is a blood-soaked tampon between breads.) It’s also a convenient gateway for drugs.
Because love sucks.
Chapman’s fiancé is making inroads at big publications by leeching on her ‘adventurous’ inmate life. Meanwhile, conversations between Vause and Chapman are all sexual frisson. Slightly delusional inmate Lorna Morello is a temporary lesbian who is planning a wedding to her fiancé back home. Sweet ol’ Daya Diaz is madly in love with an adorable officer – insert red flag – and will go to any lengths to keep their baby.
Orange is the New Black season 2 premieres June 6 on Netflix
