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What I'm going to miss the most about OITNB is that it has so many women on screen together talking about everything but almost never about men. On the other hand the few man on the show are there because they have something to do with women. Those women are not the part of the story they are the story! It was so refreshing to see and so eye opening too.

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Piper Chapman: A Character Development Analysis

Going off of Larry’s monologue in the finale, here is my take on Piper Chapman, and who she has evolved to be.

‘The Old Piper’

The old Piper was a young woman in her early 20s, who as Larry put it, looked out into her future and was bored with what she saw. She knew the life that had been planned out for her, she knew what was expected of her, and she wasn't thrilled with her options. When we meet the old Piper, she is applying for a job in a bar. At this point, Piper would have been a graduate with a degree. Realistically, she probably should have been searching for jobs that led to careers, not jobs being a waitress or a bartender. I think this represents Piper’s longing to prolong this exciting time in her life before the path that had been chosen for her by her upbringing finally took over.

When Alex enters Piper’s life for the first time, she offers Piper an alternate path. Larry explained this as Piper wanting to be special, but I think it was Piper looking for some sort of freedom. She’d been conditioned to become this one thing for so long, and seeing Alex and seeing what she could offer her, was like watching a new path suddenly appear before her. The scene where Alex asks Piper to come with her is important, as its the exact point where Piper takes the plunge and completely dives into Alex’s world, basically leaving everything and everyone she knows behind. At this point in her life, Alex represents adventure and excitement and basically the very life that any twenty something year old craves. Alex was the short cut to the life Piper wanted.

‘Post-Alex-Pre-Prison Piper’

This stage in Piper’s life is basically her trying her best to get back to that path she’d abandoned by taking off with Alex. I think that she could no longer see her future and it scared her, so she left Alex and tried to return to her regular life. What’s interesting in this part of Piper’s story is the striking difference between when she meets Larry for the first time, and when we see her living with him and doing juice cleanses later on.

When we see how Piper and Larry met, Piper is not ‘the nice blonde lady’. If anything, the Piper who we saw in that scene, is the closest to prison Piper that we ever see again. She’s cold and distant and doesn’t give a shit. She’s bleeding from a dog bite, because she scolded a homeless child about having a dog he couldn't provide for. Post-Alex piper was a tough bitch.

That scene is so interesting because you can see how Piper looks at Larry, and suddenly that uncertainty of what is the rest of my life going to look like, goes away, and she can see this bright and easy future with him. Choosing Larry was not spontaneous like choosing Alex. Larry is not an escape, he’s her way back into a world she’d lost connection to.

I don’t want to say that Piper’s relationship to Larry wasn’t real. I think it was. But, I also don't think that she was ever fully in it. Making soap and having kids and decorating the house could never have been enough for Piper. I truly believe that had Piper not gone to Prison, she still would have left Larry for Alex. The phone call she makes to Alex in the bathroom proved that to me. I believe they're soulmates, and I think no matter what, they would have found each other again.

‘The New Piper’

I’ll admit that up until this point, Larry’s analysis and mine pretty much line up. But this is where Larry truly doesn’t know Piper anymore. This is where their connection has split too much.

Larry thinks that the old Piper would stay and wait for Alex, while the New Piper would pack up and go with Zelda. But the truth is, choosing Zelda over Alex, would be Old Piper’s choice.

10 years prior, Piper chose Alex because of the life she offered. She chose her because she wanted this life of travel and adventure and risk. Alex was everything 20 year old Piper wished for. And now, saying almost the same lines, was Zelda. Offering 30 year old Piper a short cut to the ideal 30 something year old life. “I want you to come.” She had a cool job and a nice apartment and a real future. Choosing Zelda now would be the equivalent of choosing Alex then.

But staying put, and just waiting for Alex wasn't an option either.

Staying put and waiting, was what Larry was prepared to do for Piper. It’s what Larry’s version of Piper would have done. But that’s not who Piper is. She can't just stay still and wait for life to happen.

So new Piper chooses Alex. But this time, she chooses the struggle. She chooses the harder path. Piper chooses to move her life and start over and really work to keep this relationship. New Piper chooses a path she cannot see, with Alex lighting the way.

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