'Orange' season 2: What's the verdict?

"Orange is the New Black" returns for season two on June 6 on Netflix. If you are new to the show, allow us to catch you up on who's who, including the main character, Piper Chapman (played by Taylor Schilling), an entrepreneur who lands in jail for drug offenses she committed years earlier.

Alex Vause (Laura Prepon) was Piper's former lover who causes her to go to jail because of Alex's involvement in drug smuggling when the two were a couple. The pair meet again in prison.

Sam Healy (Michael Harney) is a counselor and corrections officer at Litchfield Penitentiary in upstate New York. He has issues with lesbians and causes problems for Piper.

Miss Claudette Pelage (Michelle Hurst) is one of the oldest inmates at the prison. She ends up there after killing a client who abused an employee at her cleaning company. Other prisoners fear her.

Galina "Red" Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew) runs the prison kitchen and is a force to be reckoned with. Red, right, and Gloria Mendoza (Selenis Leyva), left, will probably butt heads in season two as Mendoza takes over Red's territory.

Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne), left, is a recovering drug addict and Lorna Morello (Yael Stone) a kitchen worker who, in season one, were friends with benefits.

Lorna, left, with Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren (Uzo Aduba), a disruptive inmate who takes a special liking to her "Dandelion," Chapman. Her more sensitive side is revealed later in season one.

Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox) is transgender and serves as the prison's hairdresser. Her sexual identity causes her to sometimes be bullied by some of the other inmates.

Prison guard John Bennett (Matt McGorry) and inmate Dayanara 'Daya' Diaz (Dascha Polanco) begin an illicit prison love affair that puts his job at risk.

Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett (Taryn Manning) is a meth-addicted, born-again Christian who is not above attacking fellow inmates, including Piper.

Aleida Diaz (Elizabeth Rodriguez) is Daya's mother. Doing time for drug charges, she appears to not love her daughter initially, but is later revealed to be protective of her.

Jason Biggs plays Larry Bloom, a journalist and Chapman's (formerly) doting fiancé. He stood by her in season one even when the more sordid details of her past were revealed, but becomes increasingly disenchanted and eventually exploits her prison sentence to bolster his career.

Pablo Schreiber plays corrupt prison guard George Mendez, better known as Pornstache (one guess why). He breaks all the rules, from smuggling drugs into the prison to having sex with inmates. In season one, he is suspended without pay for his actions.

Lorraine Toussaint joins the cast in season two as Yvonne "Vee" Parker, shown here with Gloria. Former drug runner Vee clashes with the other inmates, including Red.

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• Season 2 of "Orange Is the New Black" is available on Netflix


• The reviewer draws comparisons between the show and Charles Dickens


• The second season receives an "A" grade

(EW.com) -- Even though it's set in a prison that serves tampon sandwiches for lunch, "Orange Is the New Black" is a pretty highbrow show, whether it's quoting Shakespeare's Coriolanus, name-dropping Ulysses, or analyzing Robert Frost's ''The Road Not Taken'' in a way that will permanently alter how you interpret that poem.

Midway through the second season, Officer Fischer (Lauren Lapkus) makes a literary reference that's particularly spot-on. She's monitoring the inmates' telephone conversations when her eyes brighten. ''It's so interesting, all these lives,'' she says. ''It's like Dickens.''

She's right. "Orange Is the New Black" might be the closest thing we have to Charles Dickens right now: a sharp denunciation of an arcane system, driven by hardscrabble characters with whimsical names that define who they are and what they like.

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This season delves further into the complicated lives of Poussey (Samira Wiley), Crazy Eyes (Uzo Aduba), and Taystee (Danielle Brooks), making them even more sympathetic, especially when Taystee's old drug-dealer boss Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) shows up. (Minor spoilers ahead.)

And when Piper (Taylor Schilling) starts snooping into allegations of fraud at Litchfield, "OITNB" continues its savvy critique of officials who benefit from the oppression of the poor — what, exactly, is Fig (Alysia Reiner) doing with those prison funds? — and prisoners who manipulate the goodwill of officials. And there's no better satire of white privilege on television: When Larry (Jason Biggs) tells Piper that he just stood in line for hours to get a much-hyped ''bagnut'' — half bagel, half doughnut — she sighs, ''I forgot what it's like to have all that freedom to waste.''

Maybe that's the biggest difference from last season: Piper's not the Whole Foods-eating, Toms-shoes-buying idealist anymore, and it's gratifying to see her lose the wide-eyed blondie shtick. Early on, she must decide whether to tell the truth and testify against a drug lord, or lie and protect Alex (Laura Prepon), and her decision makes her want to declare herself ''a lone wolf, and a vicious one.''

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But these women are way too caught up in one another's lives for that, and watching how much they depend on each other in this matriarchal world can be quite moving, from Vee saving a piece of cake for the ever-excluded Crazy Eyes to Poussey helping Taystee tailor her skirt for Career Day. When Piper wonders whether anyone would care if she died, Nicky (Natasha Lyonne) is right there to reassure her. '

'You're one Cheerio in the bulk box of life,'' she says, ''but you f---in' tickle me, so I think it would matter.'' Okay, so that's not exactly the stuff of Dickens — but that doesn't mean it's not profound.

Grade: A

See the original story at EW.com.

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