Orange Is The Next Black.... Season Two

Spoilers, spoilers everywhere. Read at your own risk.

Season 2 of OITNB is on Netflix and I watched it all, the last 2 episodes today. And I have a few thoughts.

And seriously, spoilers.

The new character: Vee. Played by Lorraine Toussaint.She's amazing. One moment she's drop dead gorgeous, the next minute she's hard and vicious. She's sweet, she's sociopathic, she's the worst fucking mother-figure to ever be shown.

I loved her.

Now the real woman is 54 years old (I know, right??). I mean, we should all be that gorgeous. Was it necessary to see her breasts?

HUGE complaint here: this season was so many breasts: wassup with that? We saw everyone but Boo's tits and uh, thank you for keeping her covered up.

As a female viewer though, I really didn't need to see everyone's breasts. It pissed me off. It was gratuitous and since I'm willing to bet there's a high demographic of women watching, it was unnecessary and mildly insulting.

Red showed her age. Awesomesauce.

There was a lot of crap about lesbianism going on this season. From Boo and the dog (what the fuck was that all about?) and then the bet to see who could fuck more ladies. Oh but it doesn't end there. The newbie SoSo who we had to see being eaten out (why?) and then Tastee and P. with the kiss and the kitchen girls and their kiss and then we had the warden and her boy smooching husband.

Seriously, not necessary. Too many breasts, too many same sex kisses. It was numbing.

And Larry and Polly. Nobody cares!

Really, nobody cares!!

I liked how Vee came into the prison and took over the black women, creating some interesting divides in the relationships. There's obviously racial divides in prison and this season was about them. It was well done. And watching Tastee and P unravel their friendship was heartbreaking.

Samara Wiley rocks!!

Poussey is one of my favorites. She's so true as a friend, sweet. It was excellent to get some of her back-story (and again, didn't need to see her breasts). Love her.

I loved what they did with Suzanne, Crazy Eyes. Her relationship with Vee brought her into a good space, she needed a mother who could calm her. After she beat the shit out of Poussey and started to flip out, Vee brought her down. 

Pennsatucky is pretty off the show.

I hated Pennsatucky and the stupid friendship with Boo. Her relationship with Healy was real, two people lost in their feelings and reaching out for connection. I liked them together and wished they could have had more time to develop their relationship. But to have Jesus freak Pennsatucky connect with Boo and become a faux-lesbian made no sense at all. Although she looked good with her haircut.

Loved this episode.

Where was Sophia? 

There were problems with this season. Too many gratuitous breast shots. The Daya/Stumpy storyline was old. The shit with the warden was kind of drawn out throughout the season but then ended with a whimper instead of a bang. There was an abundance of lesbian poking and some of it felt unfriendly. 

I hope in Season 3 that Larry and Polly disappear. Bring Alex back because Laura Prepon is sex on wheels. Intelligent and affecting. And a million times cooler than Piper.

And by the way: biggest spoiler ever: the ending with Vee was so suck-ass as to be HORRIBLE. Really? She tears up the prison, starts race wars, destroys people's lives, is one of the best drawn characters in like forever and then she escapes from prison and gets hit by a car? Give me a fucking break. They wimped out. She needed to be killed in prison by one of the white women, protecting Red. Otherwise it was a cop out.

Guess if truth be told, OITNB is better than a lot of stuff on TV. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite good enough this second season.