Orange Is the New Black: The Highest Stakes

In the pilot of Orange Is the New Black, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) is between two wrongs when she enters prison. It’s a premise pilot that shows her life before she reports to Litchfield Penitentiary. Piper never seriously considers running and leaving the country, having accepted that she broke the law and must take responsibility for her actions. That’s not the easy choice to make, because she has to go to jail, which is also unfair to her fiancé, Larry (Jason

Biggs), who she leaves alone. Plus, prison’s her worst nightmare.

However, legally and in terms of growing in maturity, Piper does feel she needs to own up to her past actions and do the “right thing.” She knowingly puts herself in danger, to be around some dangerous and unstable criminals, and there’s a good chance she’s going to lose her fiancé while she’s incarcerated.

She could be hurt or killed; although she’s not going to a maximum security prison, there will be innumerable threats against her.

!1 So, Piper’s caught between a rock and a hard place. Neither choice is appealing.

If she runs, she’s a fugitive and can never return to the US, but she and Larry could be together. If she reports to prison, she has to deal with personal safety and wellbeing problems on another level entirely. The writers established the highest possible stakes for Piper’s very first big decision on the show—life, freedom, fairness and death—and it made for great storytelling.

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