Orange is the New Black: 1x03 Lesbian Request Denied.
Piper Chapman is at her most interesting when she struggles with the question of identity that becomes almost inescapable once she’s in prison, and confronted with this version of herself that she’s never had to deal with before – but there are other inmates whose fight to retain their identity in this environment is more pressing and intense than Piper’s. Lesbian Request Denied, directed by Jodie Foster, is the first episode where it becomes clear what Orange is the New Black is attempting to do: under the guise of being a story about the privileged white girl in prison, it gives marginalized characters who would have no opportunity to shine otherwise a chance to win their own fights, and not on the margins of the narratives, but right in the centre of it.
The episode follows Sophia, from her past as a firefighter, to the effect that her transition has on her family, the attempts to buy her son’s love back with money she does not have, the precarious but still loving relationship with her wife, who is incredibly supportive because she’s aware of the price of denying Sophia this – and her furious and brave attempt to not lose this identity that she lost so much for in prison when the administration denies her access to the hormone treatment she needs. This is what resilience in prison looks like: on the one hand, holding on to the small things that suddenly mean so much (Alex’ eyeliner, Sophia’s beauty salon, the comforts Red has reached through her privileged position in the kitchen), on the other, a very real fight for survival in the most profound sense – retaining your sense of self in a place that does everything to take away the most basic requirements for intimacy and identity. Like Sophia says in the beginning of the episode to Piper, who is still adjusting to not having private space, not even in the shower or in the toilets – “there’s no point in playing shy, baby, you’re home”. Figuring out that new home and its specific rules is what Piper’s story is about – but almost everyone else has been here for a while, and adjusted in their own way.
There’s an interesting twist to the issue of inmates not receiving proper medical care as well: Healy could not care less about Sophia, and her attempts to save the thing that she’s sacrificed so much for, but he does know that the prison only works under certain circumstances, and denying prisoners medication is ruining his system, so he campaigns against it. Healy is never a good guy (at his best, he is accidentally helpful, at his worst, an example of power being in the hands of someone utterly morally and socially unqualified to handle it) – but he’s sometimes not on the wrong side of an issue because it happens to correspond to his own interest. He knows that this new policy will create chaos, and he hates chaos, even if that means that he’s on the side of the inmates for once.
I think this show deserves award recognition just for the scenes between Sophia and her wife in the flashbacks – the tenderness that still exists in that relationship, in spite of the strain that Sophia’s transition has put on both of them. They are so loving with each other, but none of that changes the resentment. And either of those sentiments don’t invalidate the other. Sophia loves her wife, and her son, but being herself is just as important because it’s a question of survival, both inside and outside the prison walls. So she asks her wife to bring her the hormones that the prison system is no longer providing for her, even if it means putting the people she loves in jeopardy.
Crystal: how fucking selfish can you be.
Sophia: Crystal, if they take this away from me, this’ll all have been for nothing
Crystal: I married a man named Marcus. And I cry for him all the time. But I stayed, and I supported you, because I could see how much pain you were in. I know it was saving your life.
Sophia: It was.
Crystal: I figured it was better my kid had two moms than a dead dad, at least he’ll be around. Which is more than my father was. At least he’d be at his baseball games even if it was in a dress. So I put up with you becoming a woman, but I never signed on for a life with a criminal.
Sophia: I’m gonna get my shit together, I promise. I’m gonna make it up to you.
Crystal: Oh, you wanna make it up to me? Do your time. Get the fuck out of here, so you can be a father to your son. Man up.
The other story is Piper confronting herself with the fact that Alex is there as well, that she can’t escape her past, regardless of how she’s prematurely shaped this experience of being in prison. She can’t run away from the fact that she is in there because she ran money for a drug cartel. She can’t run away from the fact that this was her choice, regardless of how much she insists that the fault lies with whoever ratted her out to the police. We’ll find out later that Alex is completely and utterly lying, both when she tells Piper that she wasn’t the informant and (more grievously), when she tells her she’s never lied to her seconds after telling the greatest lies of all – but this isn’t Alex’ story yet, it’s Piper learning to accept the fact that she is in there for a reason. She isn’t in there for the anecdotes that she tells her friends and family when they come to visit (and part of her path will be to accept that those anecdotes are her life now, and that the people in them are real), and this isn’t like being in a spa, working out to get ripped for a romantic hipster wedding. The people outside are continuing to live their lives, but it’s just as true that the people inside are living a life as well, one that becomes increasingly more difficult to communicate to anyone who isn’t sharing the experience.
None of this is an anecdote. When Alex tells Piper that she wasn’t the one informing on her, she needs it to be true, because it’s such a blatant betrayal of who she thinks she is. When Sophia asks her wife to risk everything to retain her identity, she doesn’t have a choice, she’d do anything to not lose this fight. And to Larry and Piper’s best friend, Suzanne may be nothing but a joke – but she’s genuine and serious, and this is the only way she knows how to express how heartbroken and disgusted she is by Piper’s behaviour towards her.
Random notes:
Fantastic choice of music once again for the closing scene – Tuneyards’ Gangsta.
Nicky: They’re gonna put you in the suburbs, with the other white people.
Janae: If I want noodles, I’ll eat noodles. Now back off across your floor before I make you that mess you hate so much.
Janae is amazing.
ONE OF US. ONE OF US.
The scene where Sophia mutilates Healy’s toy is so fucking great. “I’d like to report an emergency”. This show is about resilience and resourcefulness and it’s glorious to see characters who are up for that challenge of constantly, just because of how the system works, being up against forces much more powerful than they are, and still winning.
I’ma call you dandelion, cause they’re pretty, and yellow, just like you.
The great thing about the sad, sad story of Suzanne’s terribly misplaced affection is that it sheds more light on Piper than on her: on Piper’s lack of understanding and generosity, on the fact that Piper immediately does not take Suzanne seriously, despite the fact that Suzanne’s been nothing but helpful and supportive. The point is that nobody takes Suzanne seriously, but it always says more about the people who deal with her than about Suzanne herself.
Suzanne: I threw my pie for you.
When Larry and Piper’s brother hang out, there’s this really revealing line that Piper’s brother says: “Piper going to jail might be the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” – which is exactly the point. The only way either of them tackles this experience isn’t trying to be empathic, or attempting to understand it from Piper’s point of view. They’ve cast themselves as the aggrieved party suffering from Piper’s transgressions, they’ve appropriated her story (just like Larry will, without hesitation, appropriate everyone else’s story to further his career), and made it all about themselves.
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