If you haven't done so already, switch immediately to Netflix streaming for two reasons. Number one: what are you waiting for? This is the future for watching movies at home. Don't be a Luddite. Number two: the best TV series of the year has been released in toto on Netflix streaming.
Orange is the New Black is amazing. It's based on the book of the same name, but the main character in the TV series, Piper Chapman, is more likable here. As the trailer above notes, this nice, white, Smith College grad smuggles drug money once for her girlfriend who is part of an international drug cartel. Ten years later, Piper has a fiancé (male), an artisanal bath products business and the comfortable bourgeois life she was raised to have before her drug money detour( until girlfriend Alex gives Piper up two years short of the statute of limitations in return for a lighter sentence).
The draw of Orange is the fascinating and poignant array of characters. Girlfriend Alex has a smoky Catherine Zeta-Jones vibe that will make you question your sexual orientation. Kate Mulgrew fom Star Trek: Voyager is nearly unrecognizble, but astounding, as Red, a Russian cook, who runs the prison kitchen. Natasha Lyonne (Weeds, Slums of Beverly Hills) is funny and street smart. Each episode probes more deeply into the women's backstories. You learn why Yoga Jones, a font of zen wisdom, ended up in prison, as well as a mother/daughter duo. But it's not mawkish bathos. After being asked why she is in prison, Piper answers that she read you weren't supposed to ask that. Her cellmates respond incredulously, "What? You studied for prison?"
Great one-liners are almost too numerous to mention. Before entering prison Piper bemoans, "By the time I get out there will be 3 new generations of iPhones!" To the nun who's in for chaining herself to a flagpole at a nuclear test site, one of the gay women says: "Sister, you know you would have gone my way if you hadn't married Jesus." After Pipes disses the food as if in a Yelp review and then is made to pay by being starved, Piper assumes she can make it all better with a sincere apology, as her nice life has taught her. But Red sets her straight, "You seem like a sweet girl, honey, but I can't do shit with 'I'm sorry'."
Piper goes into Litchfield prison assuming she can make use of the experience, Martha Stewart-style, by becoming 'ripped' through exercise, reading everything on her Amazon wish list and learning a craft. But the women further down the economic scale teach her hard truths about life she never learned at Smith.
The music is fabulous, from the opening credits:
to the Staple Singers "I'll Take You There" (enjoy the Soul Train dancers in this version):
to Nico singing the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning":
Prepare for watching this series because you will end up bingeing on it. Don't start late at night unless you want to stay up all night. Watch for the episode directed by Jodie Foster (#3).
What's the French connection to the series? Not much, except Piper smuggles the drug money from Paris to Brussels. So here are some synonyms for amazing:
extraordinaire
stupéfiant
incroyable
étonnant
époustouflant
formidable
fantastique
épatant
étourdissant
inouî
