Women's Portraits

Orange is the New Black is so poetic.

There’s something so poignant and beautiful about this show and that’s how the writers show us vulnerability. The usual and undeniable human vulnerability. And then the diversity and human flaws. And then you know the rest. Yes, Season 2 is all of this and all of this is, sometimes, poetic.

Sometimes Orange is poetic. It truly is. Because with Orange, you might be in the brink of becoming, I don’t know, skeptical, beginning to think this is nonsense, but then at the end of the scene or the climax of the episode, or a particular line, it hits you with the reality, the truthful honesty, whether we’re talking about Red’s utter fear for someone that turns her almost delusional or blind or even how she fights over her smuggling activity, only for us to realize that what she’s fighting for is something way beyond the apparent. Or Ealy’s delusional agendas that make absolute sense to be shown, because the more his ideas seem completely delusional the more you realize the number of people who think exactly like him and it is pretty essential to have a man actually say this, it is important to remember how ridiculous it all is.

The ultimate gift of this show is that it’s truthful.

(Healy) “Which lesbian is that? – (Pennsatucky) With the fat stomach and the haircut. – Black? She’s, like, the worst one. – No, she’s white. You know you can’t say that shit around here. Trust me… - No. No, no, no. You’re talking about Boo. ‘Black’ is her last name. You should stay away from her. – You think I can’t handle myself? I will say this. She’s got some sick, like tattoos, like her ink. Have you seen it? – That’s how they get you. Being cool, doing cool things, and before you know it, you’re part of their agenda. – What? – You know, you should read this book. It’s called The End of Men. In it they talk about how, pretty soon, men are gonna become irrelevant. Now women are more educated, they’re gonna make more money and pretty much run everything.- Really? – Mmm. Well, then, who would, like, be the President? – Exactly. It’s the lesbians that started this whole thing. They’re making babies out of a tube. That’s why they’re walking around all the time like they’re better. Waiting for us to go obsolete that’s what they’re doing. – No offense, but, uh, men being in charge has never done me any good.”

So poetic.

"Okay, right inside the big ol’ hole there’s another hole. Like a little one. – Wait, what? I thought you said it was a whole other hole. – It’s a hole in a hole. – For the love of God, girls, the hole is not inside the hole..."

Poetic AND pretty historic!

Some Piper face time.

Gail Fucking Peck.

Lez be honest, I don’t really watch much of Rookie Blue these days. It is a nice show but if there’s one thing they excel at is with Gail Peck. A fascinating case.

This is such an accomplished character, so well written, and many times, it is all in these two minutes scenes, sometimes a minor storyline from the entire episode, and still, it’s so successful.

Here’s the deal, on how female characters should be – real. I love Gail Peck, I just love her. I love her consistent witty sarcasm, unpredictability and just strong character. She’s strong and she’s vulnerable. We may identify with her because she’s so often alone, or because we realize how hard it is for her to open up and let someone in. She’s just this strong female character you rarely see being portrait anywhere. It’s how dimensional she is, we get to be connected to her because she’s a human being. It’s seems so simple, so why there aren’t more Gail Pecks out there? Someone we look at in the screen and feels real? Like in the likes of Cosima? Another female character I could go on and on describing how real and truly a rarity of sorts she is. It goes down to the detail, obviously, thanks to Tatiana Maslany. Cosima is someone with such a strong personality, so I’m just going to steal from someone else and just say that Cosima loves, This is a woman who just loves. And it is beautiful to watch, she’s so passionate.

A sisterhood like no other.

Thoughts on Orphan Black’s season finale – the stomach was aching and it felt just astonishing. It was a beautiful episode, full of drama and excitement.

First thing I would mention about this season is that it is quite different than the first season. Yes, we’re still part of a sisterhood like no other, oh if we are, but I also feel like we don’t have a clue of what we’re looking at. This season reminds me of something like Game of Thrones, where we have these different lines, but with Orphan Black each line stands on a world of its own (instead of a King…?). Ok, I don’t know what I’m saying and surely it is nothing to do with Game of Thrones. Each line stands on its own, with its particular agendas and modes as well as with each character of this show. It goes something like this, it feels like each character works for someone we don’t have a clue, and these people in its turn works under different codes and bosses and so forth. 

The thing about this season, to me, is that it didn’t really give much answers, it just kept throwing wood to the broad fire. But that’s also what makes this show, apparently. It keeps you tangled. You don’t really trust any characters and with every new plot point comes the inevitable skepticism. At the end of the day, everything’s possible.

Season one is revealing, season two is tangled around another tangled bubble of tangled balls…or maybe not that tangled.