Orange is the New Black: Season 2

'This is, like, next level crazy,' says one of Litchfield's inmates a few episodes into the second season of Netflix's hugely popular prison drama. She speaks the truth. Orange is the New Black pushes the boundaries even further this time round. Whilst still outrageously funny and well-written, it is unafraid to bare its claws, probing deeper into prison's seedy power plays and the fractured instability of life behind bars. Season one's mysterious chicken has been replaced by an army of cockroaches.

And I mean that literally. One of the best things about this show is the weirdness of its comedy. The aforementioned insects make a great cameo in the opening episode, which takes the creative risk of almost completely isolating Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) from the rest of the cohort. After several weeks in solitary confinement  —  following a brutal altercation with Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning)  —  Piper finds herself transferred to Chicago to give evidence alongside her former girlfriend, Alex Vause (Laura Prepon). The tortuous dynamic between these two women made the first season crackle with chemistry and it remains a constant pressure point for Piper in the second, although Prepon's greatly reduced role renders Vause a notable absence at Litchfield. Not giving away any spoilers, the manner of her exit is characteristically Machiavellian.

The sidelining of the central relationship opens up the stage for the rest of the cast. This show is blessed with an extraordinary and diverse collection of characters, and creator Jenji Kohan uses each episode to paint an intimate single history. Brief, wonderfully drawn portraits emerge of drug trafficking, domestic violence, and childhood mental illness. Uzo Aduba is once again outstanding as 'Crazy Eyes,' and Yael Stone gives the performance of the season as Lorna Morello, whose heartbreaking backstory unravels our previous conceptions of her impossibly nasal, consummately cheerful character.

There are new faces too, crucially in the form of Vee (Lorraine Toussaint), who goes back a long way with both Red (Kate Mulgrew) and Taystee (Danielle Brooks). The vicious fight for social capital between Vee and Red sets the tone for this season, which entrenches the aggressive racial groupings and internal hierarchies that inevitably form in this kind of highly managed, claustrophobic space. Friendships and romances are put under considerable strain as tensions bleed between these unhappy quarters. Other narrative arcs include Daya's (Dascha Polanco) illicit affair with prison guard John Bennet (Matt McGorry), and Larry's (Jason Biggs) continual battle for self-preservation in the outside world.

I am possibly not alone in thinking that the sheer volume of characters makes this show, at times, frustrating to watch. Frequently, we spend an hour delving into a single inmate's psychology only to have her swiftly put at a distance for several episodes. Some characters are simply more interesting than others and I would have been happy to lose Cindy's backstory, or the absurdly irritating Soso, if Nicky (Natasha Lyonne) could have had more screen time. Her biting, incisive humour forms a particularly apt foil for Piper's self-deception.

The panoramic scope of this season is, then, both its greatest strength and its single weakness. Piper might not be the most popular character but I think she's a great anchor for the show's narrative, and Schilling's performance is never less than inspired. Her scenes with Alex, and one particular conversation with Larry and Polly, showcase her ability to move seamlessly between states of comic disbelief, blinkered narcissism, and genuine devastation. The final episodes seem to hint at a full-circle structure, with Prepon's return confirmed for Season three, and Piper's role in this arc has been gleefully established. Orange is the New Black remains utterly compelling, unsettlingly compulsive viewing, and the sheer depth of its fictional world ensures that every episode is rich in dramatic quality and, at times, tragic insight.

House of Cards: Seasons 1 and 2

I watched the first two episodes of House of Cards over a socially acceptable two nights. My general feeling was, 'meh.' Then, I watched a couple more and suddenly found myself totally, irreversibly gripped. It was disastrous. Within a week and a half I'd finished both seasons. This is a slow burner but as the levels of the drama deepen, you find yourself immersed in a high-stakes world of political infidelity, professional manipulation, and a marital complex akin to the Macbeths.

First, let's talk about politics. Kevin Spacey is Francis Underwood, the Chief Whip of the ruling Democrats and basically the go-to man in Congress. He is alternately magnificent, slimy, duplicitous and sympathetic. I hated him and yet I rooted for him. There is something magnetic and endlessly watchable about the way he toys with other people, ranging from the sharp young journalist Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) to the President of the United States. Over the two seasons, we watch him manoeuvre his way up the party ranks, involved in his most intimate confessions through a clever use of asides to the camera.

The plot lines are too numerous to cover: there is a suspicious campaign to elect former addict Peter Russo (Corey Stoll) to Governor of Pennsylvania; a mysterious cover up involving call-girl Rachel (Rachel Brosnahan); a veiled political relationship with oily businessman Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney). At the centre of all these strands sits Underwood, a fat spider, his eyes gleaming with ambition.

Next to him throughout is his wife Claire, icily rendered by an impenetrable Robin Wright. Their marriage is undoubtedly the show's (barely) beating heart. They are a cold, calculating pair, retreating at the end of each day to share a celebratory cigarette by the window as they tot up the body-count. Wright's performance is astonishing - it takes a vast range to create such an unreadable and yet fully-formed character, always retaining an edge of unpredictability. It is never quite clear whether she and Francis are each other's only allies, or, tantalisingly, their most formidable opponents.

Season 1 revolves around Underwood's schemes involving Russo and Zoe Barnes; by Season 2, with a rising death-toll, his sights are set much higher. The pace seems to quicken with every episode and the layers of plot and character become ever more engrossing. This is fantastic television. If you don't already have it, get Netflix!

Orange is the New Black: Season 1

The joy and drawback of Netflix is that it lets you watch entire seasons in one sitting. This means that people across the world are losing whole days to shows like this. Orange is the New Black must have looked like a gamble on paper. It has a predominantly female cast and is set almost entirely inside a women's prison. Unlike House of Cards, this cast is composed of largely unfamiliar faces, and the characters they play are far from conventional. But the results are explosive, heart-rending and, frequently, hilarious.

Our unfortunate convict is Piper Chapman, played to perfection by Taylor Schilling. Chapman is based on the real-life former inmate Piper Kerman, whose memoir inspired and shaped the script. In her early twenties, she had an intensely complex relationship with a drug-dealer and on one occasion, acted as her mule to carry narcotics across international borders. Having totally redefined herself over the following decade - read, become engaged to sweetly dull Larry (Jason Biggs) and started a soap business - she is called to account by the law and forced to serve a late prison sentence.

Piper's first few days inside are comic gold. One of the strongest aspects of this show is its wonderful ensemble cast and as the diverse lineup of characters is introduced, the whole atmosphere behind to hiss with pent-up rage, suspicion and passion. Kate Mulgrew is unstoppable as Red, the Russian cook who rules her kitchen with an iron-fist, tempered with surprising shows of compassion, and Taryn Manning's violently Evangelical 'Pennsatucky' provides a searing point of conflict within the rest of the cohort. Creator Jenji Kohan gives ample time to all of their backstories, allowing a rich and fully realised portrait of prison life to emerge.

Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse for Piper when she is reunited inside with her former lover Alex Vause, played with indecent smoulder by Laura Prepon. A fun drinking game might be to do a shot whenever Vause suggestively removes her glasses. Their relationship forms the core of the first season and it is through this reconnection that Piper's mask of suburban contentment begins to crumble. Her slow transformation is great to watch: often very funny but, at times, vaguely terrifying. The final episode, rather than restoring equilibrium, radically upsets the balance of things within the walls of Litchfield. Season 2 starts on 6th June. I better stock up on snacks.

If there were laws against eyebrows...

The Double (2014)

In this loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel of the same name, young British director Richard Ayoade has certainly made his intentions clear. The Double is a highly ambitious project, created by someone determined to test the conventions of cinematic realism. Glum, violent, and played out on a knife edge, this film is bound to split viewers as it does its central character.

Ayoade has undoubtedly lined up an impressive cast: Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska are brilliant actors, and they are both able to convey a captivating sense of unease in their own skin. There is an attractive yet unsettling quality to Eisenberg's fidgety, snarky demeanour, and Wasikowska's innocence inflamed by a sharp perceptiveness. Their characters are well realised versions of Kafkaesque proletarian anonymity. As workers in a nightmarish factory, designed as a tunnel-like structure depressingly similar to the subway of their commute, Simon James (Eisenberg) and Hannah (Wasikowska) are cogs in a grinding industrial machine.

Routine is tensely disrupted by the arrival of James Simon, Eisenberg's doppelgänger, who is both his mirror image and his inversion. Where Simon is shy and reticent, James is confident and sexually appealing, accounting for all of his double's deficits and attracting Hannah, the object of both their affections. Recognising the self as 'other' is a familiar enough trope, and it is essential that the similarities between the two men are unseen by everyone else. Simon is a character on the fringes of visibility, constantly defined in terms of his own lack, whereas James is the apple of everyone's eye.

There is something bitter and unfeeling pervading the atmosphere, with shots starkly rendered in poorly lit interiors and bleak, industrial aesthetics. David Lynch's name has cropped up in several reviews, with Eraserhead in particular cited as an influence. I was put more in mind of Lynch's Factory photographs, recently exhibited at The Photographer's Gallery in London, which display the same kind of looming urban limits: infrastructure that is both imposing and claustrophobic. But I am far from convinced that Ayoade is 'the new Lynch.' The Double has none of the kaleidoscopic contortions in space and time that give a vital, strange energy to Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. For all its nodding to surrealist modes, it feels unsure of its own generic placement.

This creates a problem with pacing and it is one from which this film does not recover. There is a general sense of lurking, self-directed violence but there is little by way of tonal variation. Eisenberg's character(s) suffer from the paradox of the mirror image that attempts to reclaim the original. Both Simon and James seem to be surface projections; two sides of a hollow coin. Ayoade shows us anger and resentment, but without passion and warmth, these displays are shadow-play.

The undercurrents of art house experimentation fail to inject The Double with some much-needed spark. It is a resolutely dark piece, set entirely inside or at night, and ultimately becomes mired in its own mirror logic. Simon and Hannah's romantic narrative is quickly overshadowed by the torment inflicted on Eisenberg by his self-image, the nexus of this dystopian vision's irresolvable crisis of identity. The Double is well-acted and underpinned by intriguing ideas, but I found it a strangely slow and discomforting watch, hampered perhaps by the image of the better film it might have been.

Under the Skin (2014)

That mirror could do with a clean...

Jonathan Glazer's latest film is a deliciously creepy, almost comically absurd foray into horror. It's kind of both brilliantly clever and unbelievably silly.

Her (2014)

In spite of its futuristic feel, the scary thing about Her is that it's not that hard to believe.

August: Osage County (2014)

Adapting a stage play for the screen is a tricky business.