Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Directors: Various, Roadshow Entertainment.
Cast: Taylor Schilling, Natasha Lyonne, Uzo Aduba, Danielle Brooks, Jackie Cruz, Lea DeLaria.
Life behind bars, anywhere, is tough to take so Litchfield Prison is no exception. It’s a dangerous place, full of hardened characters … and some who were not so violent couldn’t go the distance.
It’s a women’s correctional facility – with both minimum and maximum security. Ever-present, though is a sense of endangerment. Everyone feels vulnerable as they are sitting on the edge of a precipice of even higher levels of violence.
Season Five is volatile as it unravels over the course of a few days following an inmate takeover of the prison. The power dynamics at Litchfield – over 13 episodes – shifts dramatically as the inmates react to tragedy at the prison.
A riot sparked by the death of Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley) quickly escalates when the inmates gain control of the prison. Once they get a taste of power, chaos erupts. It’s not long before the standoff turns into a full-blown riot. That’s when the inmates take advantage of the turmoil by ‘conducting séances, holding prisoner auctions and preening for the morning news’.
With cracks starting to appear in friendships and relationships, life at Litchfield is very unstable. Can it ever return to normal?
The television series created by Jenji Kohan for Netflix is based on Piper Kerman’s memoir, Orange Is The New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison (2010), about her experiences at FCI Danbury, a minimum-security federal prison.
Special features in Blue-ray include Gag Reel, 72 Hours in 6 Months: Stories of the Season and commentaries.
