Orange is the New Black: Netflix release trailer for final season
Orange Is the New Black is based on Piper Kerman’s memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. The plot of the Netflix adaption centred around the story of Piper Chapman (played by Taylor Schilling), who ended up in prison for drug trafficking offences. In prison, she was reunited with her ex-girlfriend and former drug smuggler Alex Vause (Laura Prepon) and they soon rekindled their romance. Here’s a recap of what happened to Piper.
WARNING: This article contains spoilers about OITNB seasons 1-7
Little Boo and Big Boo seemed very close, but it still might have seemed strange that Little Boo was in the prison at all. However, Little Boo was given to Big Boo to help alleviate her anger management and anxiety struggles as a part of a therapy dog program that Litchfield offered. Orange Is the New Black was based on reality, and many real-world prisons across America have offered similar programs to this. Many times the inmates would even train the dogs to be professional service animals. It would be understandable that Litchfields minimum security prison where Big Boo lives would be a facility with a program like this due to the majority of inmates being incarcerated for nonviolent crimes. Big Boo was in Litchfield for crimes related to gambling and kept most bad behavior secret from the correctional officers, which would make her a great candidate for a service dog training program.
In Orange Is the New Black, one inmate of the Litchfield Correctional Institution, Big Boo, had a dog, which might have seemed strange for the prison setting. Throughout Orange Is The New Black seasons 1 and 2, Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) was accompanied by her dog, fittingly named Little Boo. Having a dog around was sure to make the inmates days seem a bit brighter in Litchfield, but a dog in a prison was an unusual sight for the inmates and audiences alike.
In Orange Is the New Black Big Boo had a dog with her for a long time, but why was Little Boo there? Had the dog committed some canine crimes?
While the bar was set by major deaths in Orange Is The New Black, Big Boo still presented a sizeable risk due to her quick temper, especially during earlier seasons of the show, which on occasion turned into violence. In Orange Is The New Black season 1 episode 4, “Imaginary Enemies,” it was even revealed that Big Boo once orchestrated an attack on her ex-girlfriend because she was about to be released from Litchfield. Someone willing to go to such great lengths simply over jealousy could benefit from intervention, and having Little Boo around was a part of that. When with Little Boo, Big Boo seemed happy and content to have a friend around to help her stay calm and collected.
Unfortunately, even though it seemed like Big Boo and Little Boo were the perfect match, as Big Boo said, “It got weird.” Big Boo ultimately parted ways with Little Boo in Orange Is The New Black season 2 after a regrettable incident involving peanut butter and some very unspeakable acts. The Orange Is The New Black ending gave Big Boo a good resolution, but it was without her service dog. After the sexual nature of the relationship between Big Boo and Little Boo was revealed, Big Boo was understandably no longer allowed to keep the animal.
“It’s a big ending. It was very weird filming the final scene,” Taylor Schilling, who portrays Piper Chapman, recently told Us Weekly about the series’ end. “I thought that I had kind of moved through it. It was no surprise. I knew the thing was ending. I knew the date I was wrapping for, like, six months, but it was a very moving thing, to be amongst these people that I’ve known for so long and to know it was the last time I’d be on that set. It almost makes me want to cry right now and it just happened!”
It’s never easy to say goodbye! Orange Is the New Black‘s seventh and final season debuted on Netflix Friday, July 26, and not only did fans have to say goodbye to the series but one main character didn’t make it.
She also added that she was feeling mixed emotions about the future. “There’s moments of ‘OK, now my career’s in the next step,’ and then there’s moments of like, ‘Oh, my God!’” Polanco said. “You know, having the security.”
Dascha Polanco, who plays Daya, also shed light on the series’ “bittersweet end,” noting that the final days of filming were extremely emotional. “Crying, laughing and just a moment of, like, self-realization that you realize time flies and we have to live more in the moment,” the actress, 36, told Us in June. “There was a lot of food. Eating away your feelings.”
That said, the Emmy nominee, 34, was ready for the show to wrap. “Seven years is a long time and it wasn’t an inconsequential seven years. It was a very formative seven years for my existence as a human,” she told Us. “So it was very poignant and it’s time. It feels like the right time for us to go off and tell other stories, but it had a lot of impact!”
