That title goes to Piper Chapman. It is not often that the supposedly central character on a show can pull this off, but we have evidence now that such an accomplishment is possible. This is not just because Piper is guilty of being WASP’ily ‘precious’ or ‘special’ or ‘privileged’ in the way that her fellow inmates describe as her as being; neither is it because her on-screen persona can very often be teeth-grindingly irritating; and it certainly is not because she is capable of a great deal of pettiness and petulance. Quite simply, there just isn’t that much there. She doesn’t have great lines, and she has little substance to flesh out the front she puts on. Every appearance of her on screen is guaranteed to suck the life out of the episode; it is with relief that we welcome the show’s many other fascinating characters back on stage. (Taystee for instance.)
Piper’s background–shown in flashback, like that of many other characters on OITB–is not particularly intriguing: she ran drugs, was a small business owner in Brooklyn, once had a girlfriend, got engaged, and then got busted. (So unremarkable has this history been that I cannot even remember if we have been granted access via time travel to her childhood years, exposure to which in the case of the other characters has often been quite illuminating.) Her personal conflicts with her fiancée, Larry Bloom, are mildly diverting, but they do not make us empathize or sympathize; somehow, amazingly enough, we fail to feel the pain of a couple separated by imprisonment. (Indeed, her supporting crew on the ‘outside,’ including Larry and her brother, are far more interesting; the latter, especially, should have a spin-off show of his own.) Her relationship with her former partner in crime and girlfriend, Alex Vause, has its moments, but there again, it is sunk by a certain banality; would we care if they broke up or stayed together or punched each other out in the dining hall? Indeed, the injection of the used panty business and the new romantic interest, Stella Carlin the tattooed Australian felon, in the third season, seem like rather desperate attempts by the show’s writers to spice up not just Piper’s life in prison, but also our interest in her. It is just not clear why we should care about this woman with so many other interesting and intriguing women (and men) around. It’s OK to find a character hateful, or irritating, or offensive; it is fatal to find the character just plain boring.
It is not entirely clear to me how this state of affairs has come about. I have not read Piper Kerman‘s book so I do not know if such a banality is present in the original story that underwrites the show. Still, I can only hope–like some other fans of the show that I know–that when Piper’s sentence runs its term, she will be packed off to Brooklyn, and the show will continue without her.
Samir Chopra 