Orange Is the New Black is an American comedy-drama series created by Jenji Kohan that airs on Netflix. It is based on Piper Kerman's memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, which chronicles her experiences in a women's prison. The series' protagonist is Piper Chapman, a woman sentenced to 15 months in a women's federal prison for her part in a drug smuggling operation. She was led into this situation by her ex-girlfriend Alex Vause who is first seen in one of the opening scenes, which takes place ten years before the start of the first season. The series follows Piper's experiences in and out of prison along with the experiences of a diverse ensemble.
Overview
Main characters
Piper Chapman
Piper Chapman (played by Taylor Schilling) is a woman who was sentenced to 15 months in Litchfield Penitentiary, a fictitious prison in Litchfield, New York, for helping her former girlfriend, Alex Vause, smuggle drug money in Europe several years before the first episode.
Season One
The first season shows Piper's journey through the prison system, beginning with her first week, during which she accidentally makes several enemies and struggles to adapt to life on the inside, as well as reuniting with Alex. In prison, she acquires several nicknames throughout the series. A fellow inmate, "Crazy Eyes", calls her "Dandelion" because she is tall and blonde, "Pennsatucky" refers to her as "College", and Tricia refers to her as "Brain", because she is more educated than most of the inmates. Piper is assigned a bunk with Claudette, who treats her rudely at first, but eventually warms up to her. Piper is also assigned to the Women's Advisory Council (WAC), despite not running and asking Healy not to place her on the council. She works in the electrical shop at the prison and inadvertently takes a screwdriver from the tool crib and loses it. Her ambiguous sexuality is a source of amusement to her best friend Polly and of frustration to her fiancé Larry. She is initially considered non-threatening by most of the other inmates. She is often accused of being profoundly self-obsessed. She becomes enemies with Tiffany after she ridiculed her religious beliefs, and ended up beating her severely after a failed attempt on her life at the end of the first season, knocking out all of her teeth.
Season Two
In the second season, she is flown to Chicago, Illinois to testify at the trial of Alex's former boss, Kubra Balik. After perjuring herself at the recommendation of Alex, Piper is returned to Litchfield to serve the remainder of her sentence while Alex is released on early parole for her testimony. After learning her grandmother is dying, Healy assists her in getting furlough to visit her, and then to attend the funeral, which aggravates some of the other inmates. She is also commissioned by a journalist and friend of Larry's to secretly investigate the prison's books and later collaborates with a guard, Joe Caputo, to expose Figueroa's corruption, preventing Piper from being transferred to a prison in Virginia. She ends up breaking up with Larry, and after discovering that he and her friend Polly are having an affair, she asks them to report Alex to her probation officer.