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Sunday, February 1, 2015

Sunday Review: The reviewer

Can't get my mind around anything today

By Morris Dean

Sure I'm super busy today, trying to start on my income tax and preparing tomorrow's column. But my main problem when it comes to reviewing something is that I don't seem to be able to get my mind around anything.
    Or at least not around why Piper Chapman, toward the end of the second season of Orange Is the New Black, is no longer mad at Alex Vause, who double-crossed Piper by taking the prosecutor's deal to get out of prison after urging Piper not to take the deal, which Piper didn't (and that's why she was sent back to prison).
    Over lunch with my wife, she explained it to me. Piper's problem – and the problem of many of the inmates in the series – is that she can't navigate her mixed emotions. She has always been ambivalent about Alex, who was her lover in a life of drug transport (about which Piper was only vaguely aware) until they got caught and convicted. After an indictment was brought against Alex's boss, Kubra Balik, they were brought to Chicago to testify (in Episode 1 of Season 2). Alex suggests to Piper that they lie about knowing Kubra, because he will exact revenge if they tell the truth. Alex tells her that she will be screwed over if they don't tell the same story.
    But now that Balik has gone free on a technicality, Alex is in hiding and fears for her life. Piper's old ambivalence about Alex, my wife explained, has again kicked in and her anger about being double-crossed has given way to her, too, now fearing for Alex's safety.
    I asked my wife to write a review of Orange Is the New Black, but she said absolutely not.
    I've got to go log in to TurboTax.


Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean

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