‘Orange Is the New Black’ Renewed for Third Season
Season 2 of Orange Is the New Black is still one month away from its June 6th premiere, but on Monday, ‘OITNB’ star Laura Prepon revealed that Netflix has already renewed the show for a third season.
How ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Became Netflix’s Best Series
Prepon took to Instagram to announce the news, posting a white board’s worth of presumably apocryphal titles including “The Great Hate Fuck,” “The Rapiest Pap Smear” and “Use Your Tears as Lube” with the message, “It’s official!! Season 3!! #oitnb #alexvause #backtothebighouse.” Netflix appeared to confirm the news, retweeting the same picture of the white board posted by the show’s writers. As Mashable notes, the show ended 2013 as Netflix’s most-watched original series ever, beating out House of Cards.
Earlier this year, series creator Jenji Kohan said that Season 2 would focus less on protagonist Piper Chapman and more on the cast as a whole. “It’s becoming much more of an ensemble,” Kohan said. “As much as I love Piper and [actress] Taylor [Schilling] and her journey, I think people are interested in everybody’s journey.”
In March, Kohan discussed the organic way in which the story lines weave issues of sexual identity and transgenderism into the general plot of an upper middle-class woman’s time in a minimum security federal prison. “It’s not confronted; that’s the whole point,” Kohan said at PaleyFest. “It’s not ‘The Very Special Episode about the trans character.’ It’s normalized in this conversation.”
“For the trans community, a lot of people are having conversations that they weren’t having before,” added transgender actress Laverne Cox, who plays Sophia Burset on the show.
Netflix recently released the first trailer for Season 2, which features Schilling saying both, “I am prepared to behave like a model inmate and I feel I no longer pose a threat” and “I am a lone wolf and a vicious one. Don’t make me rip your throat out.” As with the first season, all 13 episodes will be available on the streaming service at once.