criterionforum.org

I was sort of expecting Taryn Manning's character to die.

I'm using "disheartening" to refer to the supporting characters' disappointments (e.g. Miss Claudette's failed appeal and subsequent assault on the guard), not my reaction to the show itself. But the shocker came from Piper's transformatoin in that final episode. She had maintained a certain air of being above her fellow inmates, perhaps b/c she's the only obviously haute-bourgeois inmate, and this is readily apparent when she attempts to go along with Pennsatucky's baptism. Offended, however, by the cleanliness of the baptismal "pool," she gives a spiel that reveals again her feeling of moral and intellectual superiority and then walks away as if proving her point is the end of it, not realizing just how deeply she's insulted Pennsatucky and how dangerous the latter can be. After she's cornered in the shower, Piper thinks she's constitutionally incapable of handling this threat, but boy is she ever wrong! But of course, her mauling of Pennsatucky shatters the illusion that she's somehow better than all the other inmates. She's got a(nother) lengthy spell in SHU, to say nothing of added time that ought to bring the duration of her sentence more in line with her fellow inmates'.