There was humor, of course, and there were moments of joy and freedom, such as the transcendent lake scene at the end of Season 3. For seven seasons, Kohan has been preoccupied with stories about injustice, repression, tragedy, and exploitation. “I have a feeling it might creep in and there might be a delayed reaction or breakdown or whatever it is,” she said. During the final few days of shooting, when actors and crew members were crying and hugging and commemorating the last times they’d all be together or shoot in specific spaces, Kohan couldn’t conceive that they wouldn’t all be reuniting again in a few months to shoot another season. When we spoke, Kohan hadn’t quite wrapped her head around the fact that Orange was ending-that the show she’d created and reshaped and experimented with since before streaming television even existed was almost over. “‘And you’re a genius and I’m an idiot.’ I spend my days in prison! And there’s nothing good to steal from the set to put in my living room.” “I was joking with her like, ‘You’ve written yourself into Paris and I’ve written myself into prison,’” Kohan told me on the phone earlier this month. There was a moment during the seven years Jenji Kohan spent writing Orange Is the New Black when she spoke with a friend who was shooting a television series in Paris.
