History Series / Orangeisthenewblack

* NotHelpingYourCase: Played with. After Poussey breaks up with Soso after the later's unfortunate racial steryotyping, Soso attempts to fix things via a ''Film/SayAnything'' SerenadeYourLover prison-style, holding a tiny radio over her head in the hall...playing {{Eminem}}.

* CliffHanger:
** [[spoiler:The third season ends with one. 10 minutes from the end of the last episode, Alex is trapped alone with man intending to kill her. How this ends is not revealed.]]
** [[spoiler: The fourth season also ends with one. In the final scene, Daya aims a gun at a prone CO with the entire prison surrounding her. How this ends is not revealed.]]
** [[spoiler: The fifth season ends with one as well. The inmates are being taken to another place, probably separated, and Red, Nicky, Piper, Alex, Frieda, Taystee, Black Cindy, Suzanne, Blanca and Gloria are being found by the SWAT team, who were ordered to do everything necessary to handle them.]]
** [[spoiler: the seventh season ends with Aleida trying to kill Daya. Karla breaks her ankle attempting to re-enter the United States and is left behind.]]

* YouHaveToHaveJews: In spite of there being no overtly Jewish characters in Litchfield for the first two seasons, the third season introduces a major plotline in which kosher meals become a hot commodity, and Cindy ultimately makes an honest conversion to Judaism. Oddly, in season 6, Nicky is suddenly revealed to be Jewish in her flashback episode and later presides over a wedding as a rabbi.

* ItsPronouncedTropay : Poussey. "Accent a droite, bitch!" And "What is Poh-pee?" "Popi."

* RealityEnsues:
** What often happens to inmates after they get released, like for example [[spoiler: Taystee]]. Even as a technically free woman, you're still an ex-con without any notable allies or education.
** The social injustices inherent in the prison system, and society generally, means that affluent white inmates will consistently receive better/fairer treatment than poorer inmates or those of other ethnicities.[[spoiler:In later seasons, Taystee is again one of many victims of this.]]
** 30 years may have passed since [[spoiler:you sold your psychotic, drug-dealing, murdering cellmate out to the authorities in exchange for a better life in prison.]] As Season 6 reveals, they may not have forgotten this, and will likely try to kill you as though it happened yesterday.

** The aftermath of Poussey's death show two sides of the controversy of Black Lives Matter as it shows on one hand the business execs who own the prison don't allow Caputo to call the police and leave the body there for hours all so they can come up with a good cover story to protect the prison's reputation. Basically the plot ends up showing how sometimes those highly publicized deaths of African-americans/black people were really accidents and how easy it is to paint everyone in a position of power as the villain and let your emotion get the best of you.

** Taystee asserts that when you're dead that's it and ghosts aren't real as Suzanne tries to call up Poussey's spirit in a séance.

** The utter disrespect of Poussey's body, being left on the ground for hours, contributes to the inmates's rage.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Piscatella shoving Red to the ground in front of the entire dining hall in [=4x12=] kicks off a standing protest that leads to Poussey's death, setting in motion the riot and influencing the entire rest of the series.

Debuting in 2013, the series ran for seven seasons, 13 episodes each, which ended in 2019.

** After Taystee is released, Poussey is shown hanging out with Cindy instead.]]

** Kukudio, who ends up in a relationship with Suzanne, is shown to be even more mentally unstable than Suzanne herself. Kukudio is NotGoodWithRejetion and gets into a fight with Suzanne over it when Humps goads them on. She then later forces Humps to have a stroke by blowing into his IV tube for his sadistic and homophobic actions, which leads to his incredibly painful and drawn out death.

** Suzanne gets intimate with one in a later season who is NotGoodWithRejection and engages Suzanne in a fight because of it and from a guard's manipulations. She also causes the guard (Humps) to have a stroke by blowing into his IV tube for his sadism towards them in the previous season and his homophobia towards them.

** Piper/Alex/McCollugh

** Polly. Sees a burning bag on her doorstep, and immediately knows what's in it. She puts it out with a fire extinguisher.

* FrameUp: After they accidentally shoot [[spoiler:Piscatella]], the CERT team makes it look as if he was really shot by the inmates. At first it doesn't implicate any single person, since multiple inmates' prints were on the gun, before [[spoiler:Taystree]] is implicated with false witness statements.

* NotSoDifferent:
** The flashbacks often reveal parallels between the experiences of inmates who probably assume that they have little or nothing in common.
** In a specific variant, it is shown that Bayley [[spoiler:the (white, male) CO who kills Poussey in season 4]] has been held, but released, for trespassing and possessing small amounts of weed. These are the exact same crimes as Poussey. He is a prison officer and she is an inmate. In fact, he becomes involved in [[spoiler:smuggling illegal items out of prison]] and Poussey claims that for some of her charges she "wasn't even there", so Bayley could be considered more criminal.
** Particularly strongly contrasted with the Muslim and "white nationalist" characters in Season Five.
** The Latina deliquents and the neo-nazis in Season 5. Under certain circumstances they get along swimmingly.
** Season 5 delivers it to a great scale with the inmates and the guards. [[spoiler:When the guards are taken hostages, some of the inmates resort to torture, rape, molestation, beating or even murder.]]

** Season 6 has the long-haired, conventionally feminine Daya romantically involved with the short-haired pimp/drug dealer Daddy who is clearly a ButchLesbian (although for Daya it's SitchSexuality, and Daddy may be {{transgender}}).

* {{Transgender}}: Sophia is considered by many to be a groundbreaking example, both for being a sympathetic portrayal of a trans woman, as well as being a rare example of a trans woman played ''by'' a trans woman.

* ArtisticLicenseMusic: It is illegal to stage an all-white production of ''{{Theatre/Dreamgirls}}'', the rights holders who license the show forbid it. In reality, the prep school Janae tours while in middle school would not have been allowed to perform the show with white students in the lead roles.

Starting as a 30-something yuppie, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) has it all: a degree from a prestigious college, a cushy job making artisanal soaps, and a faithful fiancé in Larry Bloom (Jason Biggs). But it all collapses when Alex Vause (Creator/LauraPrepon), a member of an international drug ring, is brought to trial. Alex was Piper's college girlfriend, and Piper became an accomplice when she carried a suitcase full of money, once. Sentenced to 15 months for her crimes, Chapman must trade her life in New York City for a stay in Litchfield Federal Correctional Institution with a motley crew of inmates, each with her own story--a Russian mobster (Creator/KateMulgrew), a Hispanic woman (Dascha Polanco) whose first act is to get slapped by her angry mother, a trans woman who committed credit card fraud to finance her operations (Creator/LaverneCox), and more--not to mention her own personal nemesis, Alex.

** CO Dixon [[spoiler: is shown to be severely traumatized by being publicly raped by Maria during the riot; when she finally apologizes in Season 7, he shrugs it off saying that we all make mistakes.]] This happens in the same episode in which [[spoiler: Caputo tries in good faith to apologize to CO Fischer, who recently destroyed his life in the MeToo movement in reference to events that the viewer witnessed not to reasonably have the connotations she perceived; his mild flirtation is treated as unforgivable.]]

** Trica is honored with a wake in the white dorm, and the other dorms provide food. Gloria and the Hispanics drop by microwave nachos, Poussey contributes her hooch on behalf of the Blacks, and Chang drops by with contraband oranges, Boo [[LibationForTheDead pouring one out for her]].

** Judy King [[spoiler: blackmails Luschek into sex after doing him a favor, then later gets him high on molly and has sex with him. Both times he is clearly uncomfortable with the encounter afterward, and is also clearly uncomfortable being around her in between both incidents, particularly registering panic upon learning that he will be required to be isolated with her.]]

** In season 5, Angie and Leanne [[spoiler: force Stratman to finger Leanne, which is PlayedForLaughs. Later Angie casually mentions that she has raped men before, but Stratman seemed into it.]]

** Boo [[spoiler: gives Coates a massive TheReasonYouSuckSpeech during which she extensively harps on the fact that he has committed rape and repeatedly threatens to murder him for it ... and does not seem to realize the irony of her high horse when she goes on to gloat during that very same conversation about the fact that she recently anally raped him herself.]]

** [[spoiler: Judy King blackmails Luschek into sex after doing him a favor, then later gets him high on molly and has sex with him. Both times he is clearly uncomfortable with the encounter afterward, and is also clearly uncomfortable being around her in between both incidents, much like a rape victim.]]

* RememberTheNewGuy: Apparently there's been a tatted-up Australian model who walks around naked in the bathroom all this time and no one noticed until episode six of Season 3. Invoked and lampshaded in season 5 with Nicky's one-episode hookup.

** Big Boo refers to herself as a "diesel dyke" and has "Butch" helpfully tattooed on her arm. She seems to be in high demand given her many conquests throughout the show.