Rumors fly among the inmates about a new, higher-paying job assignment, especially when they have to take a test for it.
"Fake It Till You Fake It Some More" is a more scattered episode of Orange Is the New Black than usual. It focuses on the small daily changes and challenges that are effecting the various inmates. That's largely been the narrative of the season. It's establishing the micro details in order to bring in MCC as a way to upheave the macro community. The inmates do form friendships within the prison walls. But that's just a way to deal with this harsh environment. It's fun a lot of the time. But it's also devastating to see the daily reminders of the lives these characters have on the outside. Or conversely, how the lives of the people running MCC are largely absent from the day-to-day grind of Litchfield. It's an interesting character setup for the season that has slowly been getting integrated.The episode's main story revolves around an allusive and mysterious new job that MCC has set up at the facility. The show produces a lot of great guesses as to what it actually entails. Sure, it's a stretch to imagine that the inmates will be handling biological weapons. But that's completely in tone with the outlandish mind of Cindy. It's more realistic and depressing if the job is just picking up trash in the local community. And yet, all the speculation builds up excitement and interest amongst the prison population. The job was never going to be as good as all the teases are. In fact, it's not. It's simply a sewing room to make women's undergarments.
The reveal of what the actual job is works well in the context of the episode because it is being told through the perspective of Marisol "Flaca" Gonzales. Her flashbacks don't offer up any deeper emotional depths to the character. The way that she is in prison is basically the same as when she was on the outside. But the sequences do show that Flaca has always been more ambitious and wanted to be more than what her reality always was. That resulted in her selling fake drugs to her various high school classmates. She fully believes into the principle that if you tell someone that it's drug, then they'll believe you. She learned that from her mother who was using the family living room to create her own versions of high-end garments. And yet, that principle goes tragically for her because her "drugs" land in the hands of a depressed student who uses his high to jump off the school's roof and basically kill himself in the process. She gets punished for it despite the drugs not being real. So apparently, she didn't think the plan through as well as she thought she did.
Flaca has always wanted to feel like she is better than the people around her. And yet, she's not. She's in prison just like everyone else because she got caught doing something incredibly stupid and is now paying the price. She believes that she lands the new work assignment because her vast intellect was able to shine through despite her test anxiety and shakes. In all actuality, the test was just some random personality test that MCC company man Danny Pearson pulled off the internet to give a sense of self-worth to the inmates and to keep the environment running efficiently. They just pulled names out of a bucket randomly. There was no expert deliberation on whose skills would be best suited for this job. The inmates aren't aware of that though. Flaca sees getting in as a thing of power that she can use to boast to the rest of the Latinas that she is, in fact, better than them. It's a devastating moment when Maritza, Flaca's best friend, is seen in the background being hurt by her friend's words but not having the time to have a reaction. It grows even more heartbreaking for Flaca when she learns that the job is the exact thing that her mother was doing in her living room all those years ago. In the moment, she realizes that she's not actually better at all.
The test for the new job position creates interesting dynamics for the community of Litchfield. And yet, it's not something that the show can satisfyingly build an entire plot around. It's completely optional which means several of the ladies are not connected to the story at all. That means they are given their own separate moments to help move the larger story forward. That leads to scenes like Daya meeting with Pornstashe's mother, Poussey trying to protect her honey in the library, Soso seeking out the silent council of Norma, Red seducing Healy to get her old job in the kitchen back, Piper taunting Alex for being overly paranoid, etc. All of those scenes are terrific. But they also contribute to the scattered feeling of the episode because they aren't all building up to something meaningful.
And yet, all of the various stories do center around the same conceit that this prison system is based almost entirely on lies. A potential Red-Healy romance was teased strongly in the previous episode. Here it goes even further with Red seeking advice from Piper on how to soften her look. But it's all so that Red can get even closer to Healy so that he can pull some strings and get her back to her old job. That will probably happen now that Flaca is moving to the sewing room. But Healy had nothing to do with that. He ultimately just feels betrayed because Red is just so easily manipulating his emotions. That's what the ecosystem of Litchfield does. People lie and are deceitful to each other. Sometimes that's played for comedy - like Piper teasing Alex that she is actually the one their former drug kingpin friend sent to kill her - while other times it feels like misplaced betrayal - like Taystee lying to Poussey about her stealing the honey just to give her something to do during the day. There's darkness all around these inmates' lives. So it seems potentially dangerous for the folks at MCC to so casually be treating them like some grand social experiment. They have a system of operations that has been proven to work in the past. They believe they can come into Litchfield and implement their ideas with no tension - even though they undercut Caputo's authority and cut the regular guards' hours. They create chaos for a little while in the speculation on the new job only for it to ultimately fill the demand of a real world commodity. The season as a whole is slowly building up the pressure on this intense environment. Seeing how the system cracks as it worsens will make for compelling television. And yet, it does feel slow getting to that part.
Some more thoughts:
- "Fake It Till You Fake It Some More" was written by Tara Herrmann and directed by Nicole Holofcener.
- So apparently, Healy went to Woodstock and didn't even know it was Woodstock. That's just funny - as was Yoga Jones' entire reaction to the Red-Healy flirtation.
- This sudden dark turn for Soso has been fantastic. It's really given much more weight to her as a character. Plus, she may have given Norma her new way to capitalize on the inmates' various internal and spiritual problems by just always giving them that firm stare and forcing them to talk about their actual feelings out loud.
- I'm really enjoying the new friendship between Taystee and Suzanne. Taystee started the season not wanting to be Suzanne's keeper. And yet, that friendship has now been eased into to the point that Taystee can actually comfort Suzanne over her not getting the new job and have it come from a place of genuine love.
- Is Alex being too paranoid or not paranoid enough? No matter which way that story goes, I don't especially care. However, Piper making fun of Alex's paranoia is the funniest she has ever been on the show.
- Delia recognizes that Daya is in a deep depression the moment she meets her in the visitation room. Daya is ready to just hand the baby over after Cesar says he can't take of it and that Bennett isn't coming back. It's a different turn for the character. But one that should take her to more interesting places as she gets closer to her due date.
- O'Neill has never been the brightest character amongst the guards but his relationship with Bell has always shown the humanity of those characters. But it's so uplifting that his little speech about needing to take the longer way to work because he likes the way the houses look on that street was so fantastic. It's going to be really hard to see those characters only half the time after those cuts.
- Poussey to Taystee: "It's always 5 o'clock in prison."
As noted in previous reviews from this series, every episodic review was written without having seen any succeeding episodes. Similarly, it would be much appreciated if in the comments section, the conversation would only revolve around the show up to this point in its run.
