Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews… Orange is the New Black (S05E05) Sing It, White Effie Airdate: June 9, 2017 @oitnb Ratings: @netflix Score: 8.75

**********SPOILERS BELOW**********

OITNB has a habit of having white folks tell black folks’ stories… Normally you can kind of sense it right away, but after watching ‘Sing It, White Effie’ I had to look up the primary writer. I’ve talked about this a few times but never on this grand of a stage. I know that this has been addressed by many in previous years including Essence Magazine (which, yes I do read). It’s true that we as human beings, of blood and guts and organs and bones, are for the most part the exact same, sans a few genetic defects that only affect a certain race… And it’s true that some of us in different parts of the world have very different experiences due to environment. For instance, for over a decade in Miami, my only friends have been ones of color… Literally 98% Latin & Black… Despite how other parts of my family live, I live very differently. Growing up a 'sexually fluid’ ginger with a mother who was a very young teenager in high school gave me a vastly different experience than most. I’ve always celebrated my fucking weirdness. In high school I was literally a walking oxymoron, wearing 90 inch GAT pants I stole from the mall or borrowed from my friend, GlowGirl (yeah in the late 90s we all had Rave Names, didn’t you know?), paired with an oversized button up I found in my step-dads closet and a vest from Structure and Brooks Brothers eyeglasses that my Grandmother bought me on a visit… Not to mention spiked up Backstreet Boy haircut (that may or may not have been blue), tousled in the front, and fucking candy and jelly bracelets from the base of my thumbs up past my elbows. What the fuck, right? You’d think I’d look back and hate it, but all I see is a RAD fn’ Rave Star with 'anti-anti’ 90’s culture embodiment… Serving up Rave-Tastic Soccer Playing Prep Freak “on a Lemonade budget”…. Thank you, Shea Coulee!

Diversity has always been a part of my life in one way or another. I love to trade perspectives. I ask questions and offer up personal experiences instead of telling people their way of thinking is wrong, because I want people to understand me and I want to understand them. I truly believe that if we all at least tried to understand each other instead of this 'This opinion is right. This opinion is wrong,’ divisive mindset so many have seem to have adopted as of late the world would be a much better place. That being said, I just wrote a few articles on the 3rd Season of '60 Days In’ and stated there were certain topics I couldn’t completely speak on, even being a diverse ginger gringo faggot or whatever anyone wants to throw my way. On the internet today I was told I have a PHD in Cock Sucking (and other things that literally just look like letters on a page to me) and on the bus just last Monday, I let Snapchat take a quick, disappearing peak at a woman attacking my partner and I on the bus with an umbrella who called us 'stretched out asshole faggot cock sucking mother fuckers that will fry in hell’, I couldn’t make this shit up even if I tried. She had gotten a glimpse at my partner helping me on the bus because I have some issues moving around on Monday’s due to some disc issues in the upper parts of my back and went in for the kill when my partner asked if she could please turn the music down that she was blasting from her phone like she wasn’t aware that one can totally sonically invade someone’s space. None of these experiences give me the proper perspective needed to make a complete series featuring an episode that looks through the lens of a woman of color’s standpoint on Culture Appropriation on an all white 'DreamGirls’ production at the 'White School of Rich Bitch Privilege’.

Don’t get me wrong, this is probably the best take on racial issues I’ve ever seen on OITNB. I was moved, accomplished NYC playwright and television writer & editor Molly Smith Metzler, whose worked on two of my favorite Streaming Only series (OITNB & Hulu’s 'Casual’) is a raw talent that streaming networks would be lucky to have work on their exclusive series… But it all still felt like it was missing something. Some might tell you that the 'diversity’ plays itself out in front of the camera, but I assure you as a writer that it takes a village. When it comes to television particularly, everything is filtered through a lens after a lens after another lens…. As the showrunner draws out a storyboard with producers and then oversees the writing of a script which is handed to an editor and then off to a director which directs the actors who have their own interpretation of that character who are then filmed and framed by a cinematographer who hands over the multiple takes to an editor, who then slices and dices and puts together the final product that the network may possibly need to approve and by now I’m out of fucking breath. And I didn’t even mention the composers, casting directors, production designers, art directors, set decorators, costumes, makeup, the fn’ art department, sound department who collaborates with special effects people, not to be confused with the visual effects crew and the dozens and dozens of others who’s lens it funnels through to make a finished product. Did I make a point yet?

'Sing It, White Effie’ is by far the best of #OITNB5 but just like the tears that filled my eyes during the final moments when a young Janae has an epiphany when she realizes what her trip to a private school that has a trio of rich white girls playing the main characters of 'DreamGirls’ truly represents…. Just like Taystee’s beautiful, enthralling speech that I’m sure we all applauded and were worked up over emotionally… It just could have been better. No matter what you know, no matter what you’ve seen, no matter how intense your empathy radar is, no matter how many shoes you have traded with other people… We can write out someone else’s story, we can do our research, we can firmly believe the things we say, we can identify pieces of a puzzle of someone else’s story through idiosyncratic experiences, but we’ll never be able to put the entire puzzle together without the missing piece.

I don’t want it to seem like I’m complaining, I’m only imagining that a fantastic show could be even bolder, even more intense, even more 'on the nose’ with it’s ironic comedy style, that’s sometimes dark so that it fades into the drama with more ease. I love OITNB, I do. I would go as far as to say that this is the most bingeable show ever created. The hardest thing I’ve had to do in the past few months (thank god) is to decide to go to sleep instead of watching and writing about another episode of this very show. Slowly but surely, the inmates of Litchfield are shown to notice little things that are waking them to the impending consequences that are sure to devastate these women in a major way.

Right now it’s the little things, like Suzanne (Uzo Aduba), the usual most 'out of touch’ resident of Litchfield, observing the fact that she’s not being fed during regular hours. Gloria (Selenis Leyva) has come to a point where she is completely overwhelmed, she can’t carry on her normal duties anymore. Her genuine concern for Daya (Dascha Polanco) as well as her inner turmoil she’s experiencing for generally losing control paired with the backfiring of attempting to steal the gun from Daya to impede the takeover is a weight she can no longer carry. Her phone call to Diaz (Elizabeth Rodriguez) was another truly successful, relatable, and dramatic moment that puts the audience inside Litchfield for an oh-so important instant. I think we can all relate to a point in time where we are completely at a loss for what to do in a situation, maybe we want to ask for help, but we don’t know how, or even where to start, or even if we could be helped at all… So you just need a familiar voice on the other end of the line. The family dynamic is so strong with this one, and as a person who lives in a Latin Dominated city, there’s a certain way that pride is carried here that I see in these characters. These actresses are truly amazing to bring their distinct perspective into a script that is not their own, essentially that is what makes this show so special in these dramatic points of reference. It is bigger than the writers, who are great, but just not as diverse as we would like.

If it’s one thing that a talented white woman would write with a pristine birds eye view, it’s satire of a what it would be like to be a rich white woman turned into a slave by white supremacists… Oh yeah, and one white nationalist. Judy King (Blair Brown) looks completely insane with her messy hair, ketchup stained face, and belt leash around her neck. I literally can’t stop laughing as I write this. The image will be forever stored in the memory banks of my brain. Taystee is PISSED. The Helicopter Press snapping a photo of Judy King tied to a cross on top of a roof by skinheads wearing hijab’s has interfered with Taystee’s intentions, which means everyone’s intentions, but most importantly… Justice for Poussey. She means to buy Judy off of the skinheads and grab 'The PR Guy’ Josh (John Palladino) to issue a statement, but the skinheads make Taystee & Friends work for it, holding a ridiculous auction, which doesn’t really work… But for the sake of moving the core narrative onward in what is as close to real-time as possible, I suppose it’s fine…. I’m just not sure where everyone else came from considering in one scene they were alone and the next minute the area is full of potential bidders. Just goes to show you even some of the best shows are fat from perfect.

Pensatucky (Taryn Manning) has yet another memorable moment, again the drama is really what is setting this season ablaze. Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) catches Pensatucky & Coates (James McMenamin) making out. Of course, this not only enrages Boo for obvious reasons, but it also has her worried for Pensatucky’s safety. A lot of people seem incredibly uncomfortable with this subplot, but Manning delivers the true Pensatucky 'thought process’ in a 'methamphetamine metaphor’ that’s just divine. 'No matter how much I wanted different, I had to respect the chemicals… Because Lye doesn’t feel anything until it touches ephedrine’, Pensatucky means this… And even if you don’t understand the white trash chemistry behind the metaphor, she delivers it in the most earnest & steady manner. There’s a beauty to it. She continues… 'Have you ever wanted somebody that you shouldn’t?’ Boo doesn’t have it, 'Of course. It’s called masturbating. Now say goodbye and walk the fuck away, son.’ Pensatucky is a character that we’ve already explored so much throughout the past 4 ½ seasons, but there are so many notes to this character and to Manning’s delivery that they could literally go on forever. This is the very opposite of Piper (Taylor Schilling) who literally seems like a new person, someone completely alien to the Piper who kicked off the show in S1. Even her interactions with Alex (Laura Prepon) feel off key. Maybe prison is changing her? Or maybe they have no idea what to do with the character. They certainly know what they want to do with Alex, as she has started a bit of an 'outdoor prison’ revolution… Grass Roots, if you will!