When Orange is the New Black first came out in 2013, the story centered mainly on Piper Chapman, a privileged white woman who has to serve out a short sentence years after committing a drug crime. Over the course of the series, the show’s focus has shifted from a darkly comedic look at Piper’s experiences behind bars to a more comprehensive exploration of the many problems surrounding crime and punishment in the US.

In some ways, shifting the emotional center of the series from Piper’s subjective experience of prison to that of many inmates in Litchfield was a radical move. It allowed viewers to empathize with a wide range of characters, to question their own stereotypes, and to see how racism, sexism, homophobia and stigmas surrounding mental health shape everything from initial sentencing to whether or not prisoners are ever eventually released. And yet, in the process of illustrating this corruption, the show also received criticism for the way it presented violence against prisoners, especially inmates of color.

The newly released sixth season, which focuses on a smaller number of Litchfield inmates who are moved to maximum security, may take place in a more restrictive facility, but this season is quieter and less violent, a subtler reflection on a prison system where institutional heads are more interested in preserving the status quo than ensuring justice, and where prisoners often don’t get an equal shot at rehabilitation. In one storyline, we see Tiffany grapple with continuing a relationship with the guard who raped her, a man who is clearly capable of love, but who also has obvious problems with rage. In another, we see how Caputo tries to make amends for the way he handled the riot in the previous season by speaking out on Taystee’s behalf. Throughout the season, we see characters like Piper and Gloria take steps forward, and we also see characters like Daya take unfortunate steps backwards.

One of the central arguments of the show is that prison shouldn’t just be a holding pen for “bad people”, but a place where individuals have the opportunity to grow and change. In season six, many characters are trying to heal and reform, but the ones who do aren’t necessarily rewarded for it. Meanwhile, many of the inmates who manage to get an earlier release date have done nothing in particular to deserve it, and a number of the worst kinds of guards are never held accountable for their cruelty. It’s no better the higher up you go: many of the people in charge are so blindly out of touch with what is actually happening in their prisons that they start to see inmates as numbers, rather than people. Others just don’t care what happens to the women under their care, as long as they can make a profit.

In many ways, season six argues that moral good isn’t just about not causing harm, but about actually repairing the parts of the world that have already been broken. In one of the most revealing scenes, CO Blake tries to comfort Maria, who is considering abandoning the Christian prayer group she has started to attend since someone tried to drown her in a toilet, by telling her the story of how he once tried to save a bird after he had injured it.

“Saved its life?” Maria replies. “But you’re the reason that it almost died in the first place.”

“But that’s the point,” Blake says. “When I was hurting it, I was a piece of shit, but when I was healing it, I wasn’t.”

The new season’s biggest strength comes from not only wrestling with whether or not good and evil are innate, but from its careful consideration about how a system where punishments are doled out seemingly randomly, and where goodness often goes unrewarded, can possibly offer inmates an actual fighting chance to grow and change. Throughout the series, we’ve seen kind and moral characters like Poussey destroyed by the brutal racism of the prison industrial complex, and have also seen how morally bankrupt correctional officers continue to get away with shocking levels of abuse. In this way, the prison system itself continues to act as the “big bad” of the series, a villain who is seemingly impossible for anyone to actually overcome.

Adrienne C Moore, Taylor Schilling, Selenis Leyva and Natasha Lyonne in Orange is the New Black. Photograph: Cara Howe / Netflix

One of the most effective ways that this season highlights the destructiveness of this system is through the fact that we actually don’t know what has become of certain longstanding characters, like Boo and Yoga Jones. In their place, we meet a bunch of new characters at the Max, each with their own unique backstory and experience. While I understand how shifting our focus away from certain beloved characters helps illustrate the ways that the prison system sees inmates as disposable and interchangeable, I also found myself somewhat resistant to these newer character arcs. Instead, the most consistently exciting and important narrative arc of season six is the increasingly direct juxtaposition of Piper and Taystee, two characters from very different upbringings whose experience of prison has been completely different based on the assumptions that people make about them.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Piper’s desire to leave a final lasting mark on the prison system by helping start a kickball team. It’s the perfect summation of the kind of person she is: not bad, exactly, but unwilling to actually use her privilege to accomplish much. She is a foil for Taystee, the kind of person who is willing to sacrifice anything in the name of loyalty and justice for her friend. In one telling scene, we see Piper look out on a field of her fellow inmates playing a game of kickball in the sun. She’s proud because she thinks forming this team is enough to say she’s sorry for the harm she has caused over the course of the last several seasons. But, really, she’s still the same Piper who first came to prison, a person obsessed with making herself the center of a far more complicated story.