If you aren’t already knee-deep in Season 2 of OITNB, then you need to sort out your priorities immediately. After twelve months of perpetual agony (is Pennsatuky dead? Will Larry move on?), Piper, Red and the Litchfield Ladies are back and more fabulous than ever. There will be drama. There will be girl-on-girl action. There will be amazing Taystee quotes such as “So I'm sittin' there, barbeque sauce on my titties, and I'm like, "What the fuck? Again?" And with all thirteen episodes available for streaming (plus all of Season 1 for the newbs), there really is no excuse not to waste an entire weekend binge-watching the whole thing.
For those of you unfamiliar with OITNB, I’ll shake my head sadly and briefly explain it. This Netflix Original Series centers on Piper Chapman, a typical girl-next-door whose experimental college years come back to bite her in her tight, Pilates-shaped butt. She is sent to complete a short sentence at Litchfield, a minimum-security women’s prison in upstate New York, where her blonde hair and manicured toenails stick out like a sour thumb among the jail’s colorful inmates. The series, created by Jenji Kohan, is actually based on real WASP-turned-convict Piper Kerman and her incarceration for laundering money for a drug operation. This is one based-on-a-true-story that won’t actually have you rolling your eyes a la Lifetime.
My friend once said that he wouldn’t mind being imprisoned at Litchfield because it seemed “like camp.” Of course, he is mostly delusional. But he is right about one thing: OITNB makes prison, if anything, a cesspool of entertainment. So strip your clothes, bend your knees, spread your cheeks and press play.