Orange Is The New Black - Season Two

Show runner Jenji Kohan's thirteen episodes of "Orange is the New Black Season 2" retain the incisive black comedy and rapid-fire, no-holds-barred dialog of the first outing, where WASPy "Lindsay Lohan" inmate, former drug mule Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), "moves beyond stress to something more deeply disturbing... to that dark place that let her keep hitting Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning)" in upstate New York's Litchfield prison.

The present day behind bars struggles continue to be spliced with each woman's backstory, of being "led astray by a powerful force" or simply "straightforward manic rage stuff" in the middle of figurative and literal storms, where it gets "all Serbo-Croatia up in here."

Jodie Foster directs the first episode, "Thirsty Bird," where a guard explains that women should be called "poochies" now because "bitches" is now considered degrading.

Episode two, "Looks Blue, Tastes Red" introduces returning felon drug dealer Vee, "like a pedophile without the sex" (Lorraine Toussaint, probably the finest actor working today), who dominates the cell block and the season with a fascinating blend of sociopathic mothering, originally on the outside for Taystee (Danielle Brooks) and now on the inside for Crazy Eyes (Uzo Aduba).

Frank and hilarious episode four "A Whole Other Hole" has transgendered Sophia (Laverne Cox) teaching the women about their various orifices, discussing pee holes, "vajayjays," "chachas," and "clitereferences" after Nicky (Natasha Lyonne), whose "depth has no depth," and Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) compete to be the "bean-flicking Mother Teresa; the sexual Steve Jobs."

The warden and correctional officers also mesh within the dramedy, increasing "shots" (disciplinary reports), trying to implement "safe place" meetings, unsuccessfully controlling overflowing feces in the bathrooms, and covering up affairs and embezzlement. For a brief time they allow Piper to publish a prison newsletter that reports on a lackluster hunger strike.

Red (Kate Mulgrew) has difficulty reassembling her chutzpah and a reliable crew after losing her kitchen position, but finds solace (and much more) by claiming the abandoned greenhouse as her new turf. And her hair still looks like that of the Christmas cartoon character Heat Miser.

Bonus Blu-ray featurettes include cast audio commentaries, "A Walk Around the Block," "Back Before the Potato Sack," "The Vee.I.P. Treatment," and "Orange Peeled," which talks about the mostly female staff who write the scripts in LA, although the show is shot in New York. Among their many missions is to make sure all their depictions of sex are healthy.

"Orange is the New Black Season 2"
Blu-ray
$27.92
http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70242311