Piper!

Hey guys! I decided to write more about Orange is the New Black. I really want to talk about the individual characters. This blog I’ve chosen Piper. I know I talked about her a lot in the first blog but it was mostly about her and Alex together. But I find Piper by herself very interesting.

The first time I watched the show I couldn’t stand Piper the first 3.5ish seasons. At first they make you feel like Alex was the monster but as you see more of their history it becomes clear that while Alex made her mistakes, Piper was the one who was terrible and that kind of continues after she’s in prison.

But I realized some things about Piper the second time I watched the show through. First off, Piper was raised in a very dysfunctional home by very dysfunctional parents. She actually sees her father cheating on her mother and she tells her and her mom takes it out on her. But her mom stays. There is a message sent to Piper from very early on that the image everyone else sees is more important that what is actually going on behind closed doors. She was told she was to be “the good blonde woman” and marry a man and have kids and have that picture perfect family. I think as a result of that we see that Piper is a people pleaser and a perfectionist from a very young age. I believe Alex was the first person who just let Piper do what Piper wanted to do and be whoever she wanted to be. She loved Piper as she was, so Piper didn’t need to be anything but herself.Although they did terrible things, she gave Piper the space to just have fun and not care about anything and Piper thrived. She thrived with Alex and having fun. She was happy even though there were things going on she wasn’t comfortable with it. I think that scared the hell out of her.

The other thing I realized was Piper was really lost and she was terrified to give herself the space to find out who she was. Her parents clearly don’t want her to be with a woman. I think after she left Alex, she decided she could push herself back in that box and be that “good blonde woman” and marry a man and have some kids and she would find somewhere in there to be happy. But the interesting thing to me is there is a flashback from right before she found out she was going to prison(and also right before her and Larry got engaged) where she’s drunk and she goes into the bathroom and calls Alex and leaves her a message where she says in part something a long the lines of “You know things are bad when you are calling your ex girlfriend from the bathroom!” and she also tells Alex she misses her and she can’t get her out of her head. So even before she goes to prison she was struggling on the inside. She wasn’t happy with the life she was building and that beautiful outward appearance was just that, an outward appearance. Eventually that facade was going to crack even if she never went to prison and never saw Alex again because it wasn’t her. I’ve heard Taylor Schilling say multiple times that Piper just tries on different things, she doesn’t really change. I think that’s very accurate. I think it’s easier for her to move on to a different facade than to really take the time to get to know herself. I started to say at the beginning of this part, she doesn’t know who she is. But I think the reality is Piper knows exactly who Piper is, she’s just terrified of the real Piper. She’s terrified of disappointing the people she loves. So she tries to force herself into all of these different boxes even though none of them fit and they always end up with her not happy.

Along the way though you start to see these blips of the real Piper and of her seeing and accepting those parts of her. It’s slow going, especially early on but if you watch close enough you can see it. I think the first one is a conversation she has with Alex(I’ll post a youtube link to the scene) but basically Larry wrote an article about her being in prison and the stuff she did. Apparently he talked about the life she had with Alex like it was just about having some fun and adventure and not something Piper really enjoyed and embraced. She says to Alex something along the lines of “That stuff we did, it wasn’t just an adventure or a phase. It was my life!” and in that moment it felt like the first time she acknowledge that, that life was part of who she was/is but also I think whether she was ready to admit it or not, it’s when she completely realized that things weren’t going to work out with Larry because he didn’t know her or understand her and he never would.

She starts to really fall for Alex again and then Larry does this radio show and reveals that he knows about her and Alex. So she calls him and they fight and he tells her Alex was in fact, the person who gave them her name. She panics, she acts like she panics about the fact that Alex lied about giving them her name but I feel like she more panics at the fact that she is truly and completely in love with Alex. They talk and things seem and good and they talk about the future and she really panics then. She can’t leave prison with a woman, so she decides she has to get Larry back and they decide to go ahead and get married. But then Larry has a visit with Alex and he goes in there thinking he’s going to get his bluff in on her. He expected to find some psycho stalker or something and what he actually found was a gorgeous woman who he can’t get his bluff in on but worse yet he finds she’s actually very in love Piper and knows her very well and what she tells him makes him realize that Piper’s in love with her too and that Piper had sought Alex out, not the other way around. So he breaks up with her and he says “You shouldn’t marry someone out of fear” and I think it’s perfect. He wanted to marry her right then because he was afraid of losing her to Alex and she was going to marry him because she was afraid of being anybody but the perfect housewife with a husband.

In Season 2, Alex and Piper end up in Chicago for Alex’s ex boss’s trial and they make up. Alex tells her to lie about knowing him and on the stand after being asked about her relationship with Alex, she gives this beautiful speech about Alex being the love of her life and how nothing else mattered but her and everything else was just background. It’s a great scene where she finally admits to how much Alex meant to her and still means to her. It wasn’t just fling or a fun few months, she loved her very much.

Unfortunately Alex is offered a deal at the last minute where if she testified against her old boss, she would be given early release and she takes it. So that leads to drama and there is several episodes where we don’t see Alex.

But another big episode in my opinion for Piper, is she’s given a 48 hour furlough so she can attend her grandma’s funeral. So this is the first time you see Piper trying to fit back into her old world and you see how different she is even in that short amount of time. She and Larry start to have sex but he admits he had sex with someone else and it’s someone she knows and I think it’s a moment of realization for both of them that their relationship is truly and completely over and I think the thing that shocked me was how okay Piper was with it. It’s a hard trip home for Piper as she realizes how much she’s already changed in such a short amount of time. In Episode 10 of season 2, you see flashbacks of Piper and Alex’s past and you find out about how they started while also finding out that the person Larry had sex with was Piper’s best friend Polly. I think the interesting thing about it to me is I feel like her thinking of those memories makes her realize that Alex loved her more than Larry or Polly ever did. It feels to me to not just be about her feelings about Larry and Polly but also her sadness about not having Alex and feeling alone knowing that Larry and Polly are together. Unfortunately later on after talking to Alex and finding out that her big boss got off and Alex is afraid for her life and planning to leave and not come back, she has Polly call Alex’s probation officer and tell him she’s about to run and he shows up at her apartment and she has a gun. As crappy as it is, it’s one of the first times you see her show how much she needs Alex and also in a weird way how much she cares about her.

Season 3, sees Alex back in prison and Piper tries to hide that she’s why but eventually she can’t take seeing Alex blame herself and she comes clean and of course Alex is really upset. But it doesn’t take long for them to make up. In episode 4 of Season 3, it’s her birthday and her family comes and it’s a terrible visit. But Piper finally lays out some truth for them that they needed to hear even though they didn’t want to. She tells them she’s learning stuff and growing in prison and that she has a community and a girlfriend that she love and that maybe she’s exactly where she needs to be. It was very nice to see Piper not put up that old mask with her family and acknowledge her truth. But it’s a sad scene for me as well. You see how much Piper’s dad’s inability to just love her really hurts Piper and you see how badly she just wants him to accept her and love her and be there for her and he just isn’t(and I think that feeling of him never truly accepting her fuels a lot of the bad decisions she makes). Later on she goes to see Alex and brings up that she called her, her girlfriend and she asks her to be her girlfriend and it’s very beautiful. Unfortunately the rest of season 3, Piper is pretty terrible and they end up breaking up and terrible Piper keeps hanging around until mid season 4.

Season 4 is a huge a season for Piper. She doesn’t have Alex. The business she started is falling apart. She just keeps screwing up and that ends with some girls beating her up and branding her. But that finally wakes her up and she just gets better and better after that. There is a scene where Red is fixing Pipers branding(they gave her a swastika and Red made it into a window) and of course she’s really upset and in a lot of pain and frankly quite traumatized but she looks up at Alex and says she’s sorry and between that and Alex’s face as they’re hurting her and Red’s face…. I cried through that scene the first time. But I think it’s the first time you see Piper acknowledge doing something wrong and causing Alex pain. It’s a hard and sad scene but it’s also very beautiful and the acting for all involved is just impeccable! But it all helps Piper realize she’s tried of trying on different facade’s and she just wants to be her and her and Alex get back together and they’re good.

Season 5 is the riot after the death of Poussey. Piper and Alex are at odds a lot about how to handle it. Piper wants to be involve and Alex wants nothing to do with it. But they’re able to do it a new way and I think they find they can want different things and still love each other and be together. In some ways, I really wanted to see Piper just ignore it all and her and Alex have those 3 days to just be together(and Alex wants that too). It was the only chance they were going to have to be together like that for years(especially knowing they were going to Max in season 6 lol). But I also loved the part Piper played in the riot and that she supported Taystee as she fought for justice for Poussey. It showed a new side of Piper. I think it’s the first time we see some of the real Piper. She wants to help people and she wants to see people get the justice they deserve. She might get too caught up in things but it’s only because she feels so strongly about things. I already discussed her conversation with her mom about Alex and her proposing and how their relationship changed in Season 5 and how committed she was to Alex at that point and continues to be. So I won’t get into that lol.

In Season 6, there is a flip for Piper and for Alex and for them as a couple. I think because they are stable and they’ve been together for a good stretch, it opens up things so they can start thinking about the future. For Piper, it’s not just after she’s out of prison but what she’s going to leave behind. Which at first for me was like….huh? Why? But as the season went on I started to understand it. She’s seen the very worst of the system. She’s seen how it destroys lives. She’s seen how terrible and brutal it can be. But she’s also seen that there are things that make it better and bearable. I think she sees it as a terrible place but also a place where the found herself and she grew despite the heaps of shit around there. I think her goal was about finding something for the women that would come after her that could bring light and joy and happiness and the chance to learn and grow. She ends up deciding to try to get kick ball started, which again at first I was like….hmmm alrighty then. But after awhile I got it. It was something small but it allowed them to get outside. It allowed them to spend time with a group of women doing something fun and constructive. It gives them something else to think about besides all the other bullshit that comes with prison. But something even more beautiful happens as a result of the kickball game she get’s started. There is this rivalry between two of the jail blocks that is spurred on by sisters who killed their little sister and now hate each other. They come up with this plan to have a fight break out during this kickball game and they make the women who are part of their group think they’ll be there. But they don’t go. The real plan is have this fight break out and when they are getting people back in, they slip into another jail block group of people and kill another character. In the end, they can’t do that because their hate for each other is too much and they kill each other. Piper got out before the kickball game(so she didn’t even get a chance to enjoy the fruits of her labor) but Alex is out there and she’s supposed to fight for one side. But when the signal is given, the girls just decide to keep playing kickball and not fight. The most beautiful moment though is they show Alex standing there with tears in her eyes as she thinks about Piper who she’d just said goodbye too and you just feel her pride for what her wife had done. The look on her face makes me happy and breaks my heart. It’s such a bittersweet moment! I hope the next time she talked to Piper that she told her what happened because it was truly a special moment to see those women decide to just have some fun for once and not worry about fighting or drugs or trying to stay on someone’s good side or any of the other bull shit we’ve seen them deal with the whole season. They’re just having fun and I think it was a beautiful thing for Piper to leave behind her! Season 6 was my least favorite season but that last episode was chalked full of beautiful moments!

I think season 7 Piper is the most interesting and the best version you see the whole series and she became one my favorites right up there with Alex! As soon as she gets out, we see Piper being pulled in two different directions. On one side is the new Piper. The person she has found herself to truly be in prison. The Piper who is extremely committed to her wife and their future. She doesn’t know what that will look like but she knows for her to be happy and complete her future has to involve Alex. We see her multiple times defending Alex and their relationship and sticking to it. But the other side is everyone else including Alex are telling her she needs something else. She needs to date, she needs to have random sex to fill whatever void she had(which was actually the void of not connecting with her wife and there was nothing but connecting with her wife that would fill that…), she needs to make amends with people she doesn’t really care to make amends with(meaning Larry and Polly), she should find a job doing this or that, she should move on like prison never happened and Alex and her love for her doesn’t exist. The thing though is you see Piper consistently refusing to buy into most of it. She does try to the open relationship thing(which is a disaster surprise surprise lol). But ultimately, we see Piper more sure in what she knows is right for her than we’ve ever seen her. The only thing is I do wish is that Piper would’ve picked up on Alex’s insecurities. I think had she picked up on them, a simple “You are my wife and the love of my life and you are all I need and want and we’re going to get through this!” would’ve gone along way in avoiding the drama between them in that season but it is TV lol. When she finally pushes everyone else’s opinion away and does what she knows is the right thing to do, everything comes to together beautifully. She ends up in Ohio near Alex and she gets her own place and a job and she goes back to school and she and Alex look super happy!

So when I went back and looked at Piper’s entire character arch, I realized part of the things I didn’t like about her at first are things I don’t like about myself. I see a lot of myself in Piper when I really sit down and think about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not nearly as selfish as she is or manipulative or self destructive. But Piper isn’t good with handling emotions. She grew up in a family where the relationships were all very superficial. You see that in flashbacks. You see that when she talks to her mom about Alex in season 5 and her mom tells her a story about her(meaning her mom) and her dad that you’d think if they had a normal relationship she would’ve heard about long ago. It’s very clear they don’t talk about anything and certainly not emotions. Even her relationship with Polly is very superficial. They shop together and talk about random crap together and make soap together but they don’t go deeper than skin deep ever. I think that’s why you see that Piper is not at all upset when their friendship falls apart. She was part of her life because she needed to be able to say she had friends but she wasn’t really connected to her. I think her relationship with Larry was largely the same. She’d never even told him she’d dated a woman, let alone that she’d been in love with her and traveled all over the world with her and certainly not that she’d committed crimes with her. I think something that becomes clear when she’s goes to prison is her and Larry don’t know each other at all. So when it comes right down to it, Piper does not know how to deal with emotions or hard stuff and she runs. I can relate to that. I do a little better than her but I’m a runner. I run from other people’s emotions and don’t know how to deal with them and I run from my own and don’t always know how to deal with them. I’ve really hurt people by doing that. I’ve destroyed relationships by doing that. I also relate to her fear of aceepting who she truly is. I feel like lately I’ve finally started to let that fear go and jump head first into getting to know and accepting myself. But it’s taken 33 long years to get there lol. Like her, the reality is I’ve known a lot of these things about myself, I just couldn’t accept them and they terrified me. They still terrify me. It’s scary when you know you are expected to be one thing and have one life but you know that’s not your truth. I think we see the big thing Piper is running from is her sexuality. I lost count how many times we heard her say “I’m not gay” through out the show lol. I don’t know if she’s actually gay or maybe bi but she’s not straight and I think you see her struggle with that for most of the show and you see why when you see how unsupportive her family is when she is dating Alex. I think the scary thing for her with Alex is their relationship is anything but superficial. Alex knows her and she knows Alex and I think that terrifies her. Alex was the first and only person in her life that she had a deep relationship with and it was fun and exciting but having someone who knows you so well, the good but worse yet the bad too, I think is intimidating and after a lifetime of superficial fluffy relationships, she doesn’t know how to handle a deep relationship like that and so she sabotages and runs. I feel like with Piper she doesn’t want Alex to see her flaws because she feels it will make her unlovable. I mean when her past was exposed and she had to deal with that, everyone else fell away from her. But what she doesn’t see is Alex has seen her flaws and she loves her anyway. We all have flaws. We all have things that we see as ugly and unlovable. We all make mistakes. We all run from hard things sometimes. But Piper taught me that doesn’t have to be a permanent thing. You can learn from those things and you can move forward with a better understanding of how to avoid them. We can all grow and change and find our own path and I think that’s one of the many gifts Piper brings to the show! She taught me that people that appear ugly(I’m talking personality here) at first glance are often far more complicated than that and some times they just need time to put the pieces together. Piper is a beautiful complicated character that I grew to completely love as I took this journey with her! Taylor Schilling is a phenomenal actor and she really did a magnificent job bringing this character to life! Here are a few of my favorite Piper moments!