"Remember that the most valuable antiques are dear old friends,” H. Jackson Brown once wrote.
And while I’m not one for the advice from self-help books at the best of times – they’re filed alongside homeopathy handbooks and religious texts on the ‘Bullshit’ shelf of the O’Regan library – that quaint idea seems even less applicable when you remember that Brown was never mates with Eamon Dunphy. Like most of the nation, the telly was firmly in sport mode for the past month, as all eyes fell on Euro 2016 (RTÉ). Watching the national broadcaster, on-pitch action can feel like a respite from the studio drama, where the three wise men of Irish football, together for the last time, run their mouths in an apparent attempt to put Aprés Match out of business by moving themselves beyond parody. Chippy frequently got, well, chippy, while John Giles seemed to eschew analysis of real worth, perhaps distracted by his – only partially successful – efforts to avoid calling Darragh Maloney “Bill”.
It was Eamon, though, that led the charge. Saying “baby” a lot and providing the most scorching of #hottakes, his general couldn’t-be-arsedness was probably best illustrated during the build-up to the England v Iceland game. Before Roy Hodgson’s men proved they’re taking the whole Brexit thing very seriously, Damien Duff knowledgeably spoke of the North Atlantic minnows; his temerity to undertake actual research was roundly laughed at, in the same way one might treat the school swot. Maybe when noted ignoramus Michael Gove said “People have had enough of experts,” it was to Dunphy, and not Leave voters, to whom he was referring.
On the rare fallow day, or when the borefest of Croatia v Portugal was simply too much too bear any longer, it was to other old friends we turned, as Orange Is The New Black (Netflix) returned. The inmates at Litchfield Penitentiary rather limped through their third season in this writer’s opinion, but Season Four is nothing short of a triumph. For one, the former half of ‘dramedy’ has been embraced in some style. Gone is the wacky business of selling panties – albeit dropped in a rather abrupt and arbitrary fashion – and in its place arrives a damning critique of the US prison system, a touching commentary on mental health, and a fully-fledged race war.
Flashbacks to characters’ lives on the outside are also largely absent, as the ifs and buts make way for the situation as it stands. Perhaps most tellingly, any remnants of wide-eyed, middle-class innocence on the part of the show’s focal character, Piper Chapman, have been well and truly eroded; instead, she’s the hard-nosed leader of a white power group. OK, so her rise to Head Nazi is entirely accidental, but nevertheless, abandoning the pretence of showing life on the inside through the lens of a misfit has allowed the show to go deeper into the core of the characters and the massive, real-world topics they represent.
Rarely could that have been more explicitly shown than in the tragic final chapters. When the immensely likeable Poussey Washington meets a grim end, her dying words of “I can’t breathe,” aren’t meant to merely recall the death of Eric Garner, but to stoke the same fires that drove tens of thousands onto the streets in protest. The gutless actions of both the prison authority, the ghastly MCC, and its warden Joe Caputo – the impressive Nick Sandow – aren’t simply plot devices, but an unapologetic swipe at the prevalent patterns within law enforcement in the States.
Orange is the New Black Season 4 is out now.