Orange is the New Black's Season 4 darkest, and possibly best yet
Netflix series about women in prison delves into relevant issues as new season released for streaming
Just when you thought you'd seen just about everything at Litchfield Penitentiary, Orange is the New Black has entered its darkest —and possibly best — season yet.
Season 4, which was released on Netflix on Friday, marks a strong and addictive return, with the dire effects of prison privatization and painful power struggles looming in every cell block.
Even as the series tackles ongoing issues of racism, rape and abuse, there are surprising moments of levity.
Warden Joe Caputo refers to the overpopulation as "inmatepalooza." Lolly breaks the neck of a man attacking Alex Vause, only to turn around in the same breath and casually invite her to go swimming in a lake with the others after.
The show also reaches new heights tapping into some hot-button issues. Piper Chapman, the central character played by Taylor Schilling, is inadvertently brought into a race war.
Vause (Laura Prepon), her ex, shows promise of becoming a Dexter protégé. Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) is dealing with the deeply raw aftermath of rape.
And transgender inmate Sophia Burset, played by Laverne Cox, suffers a slow degradation in the Special Handling Unit she was thrown into at the end of season three.
Cox, who sat down with CBC for a recent interview in Los Angeles, said landing her OITNB role in 2012 came at a time when she was at a crossroads.
"I was really interested — and still am — in feminism and women's studies and gender studies and I was thinking I might study that in grad school," she said.
Since joining the mostly female cast in 2013 about women in the American prison system, Cox has been able to merge her passions, since the show has become a case study in itself when it comes to gender equality and diversity.
"I've gotten to meet incredible people who love this show, who say that the character I play has inspired them to live more authentically," she said.
Cox's storyline this season is one of many exploring oppression and new depths of desperation and loneliness. The show, which has been nominated in comedy categories at the Emmy Awards before, might not be able to get away with that label this season. But considering the new territory it's entering, the drama is worth it.
Warning: the series trailer below contains explicit language.