When one of Orange Is The New Black’s main characters lay dying on the canteen floor of Litchfield Prison in the second to last episode of season four, it referenced America’s senseless police brutality against African Americans. Held down by a young, white and inexperienced prison guard (CO Baxley) – his knee pressed down on her back, his hand clamped around her neck – this black inmate suffocates to death. The scene draws real-life parallels to when Eric Garner – an African American – was pinned on the floor in a chokehold by a young, white and inexperienced police officer in 2014. He was held down for 19 seconds, and repeated “I can’t breathe” eleven times. Garner had been accused of trying to sell single cigarettes. The deceased inmate was imprisoned for the intention to sell less than an ounce of marijuana, and held down before her death for trying to help calm her friend. Neither Garner nor the inmate were armed.

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This death was the most upsetting, but arguably the most brilliantly executed scene of Orange Is The New Black (OITNB). Free from melodrama, clichés and heartless hype, her death was as sudden, mundane and real as Garner’s. Compared to other shows that rip plotlines from headlines (Law And Order: SVU, The Good Wife) OITNB proved itself a cut above. What’s more, its meticulously developed characters, endlessly inventive plot twists, intelligent dark humour and incidental asides made it one of the most engaging and watchable shows of the last few years.

Until this season, that is. For season five – out June 9 – these carefully worked threads have unraveled, and at the worst moment, too. As OITNB finally scoops up the hefty responsibility to address racism in America (and give lesbian sex jokes a well-earned rest) its script has slipped. Big time.

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In the first four episodes, for example, nothing happens. Sure, there are about 500 inmates running around in exhilarated panic, throwing things, terrorizing guards and yelling at each other, but nothing develops. At least nothing worth writing about. You don’t need to worry about plot spoilers here, because there is no plot. While this would be less problematic if the characters were interesting enough by themselves, for the first time in the show’s history, they’re not.

Because, instead of following the show’s usual trope of honing in on one character per episode and contextualizing their actions with a backstory served in comprehensive flashbacks, this season, it zooms out to span the whole cast as a group, most appearing at the same time. The effect is messy, vague, and impossibly dull. You can’t empathize with 50 completely different people at the same time, in the same place, continuously over six hours. Especially when they’re grown adults running around like children, throwing soup at each other and brandishing tiny wooden weapons looted from broken furniture.

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That’s another problem. The characters have become farcical. And what happens when farcical characters peddle a show’s messy plot championing a topic as critical as the Black Lives Matter movement? It looks silly, as does what it stands for. While the inmates affirm their riot as a heroic response to the unjust death, watching them enact a “séance” to talk their deceased friend’s spirit at the very spot she died – whilst also eating their dinner on it – only ridicules the tragedy. When inmates take celebrity chef Judy King hostage to punish her for her white woman prison privileges – a theme the show takes seriously – they make her walk with a large wooden cross on her back, and compare her to a crucified Jesus.

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The riot feels like a play-riot. Would two guards, locked in the kitchen by three inmates while the whole prison runs amok, really start playing “shag, marry, avoid” with three said inmates? Would an officer, while being publicly stripped in front of hundreds of angry female prisoners, really get a hard-on and then joke about it? And as if a very senior prison director would, not only dress up as an inmate to blend in (rather than using her mobile phone to send for help) but then actually enjoy engaging in a talent show devised by the inmates to humiliate the guards – which includes her own boyfriend.

When each episode is thus strung together by a steady stream of scenarios each less credible than the last, it’s no wonder that, come the fifth episode, when the deceased inmate’s close circle make an impassioned (and very good) speech to the press gathered outside the prison about prejudice and racism, it falls just a little flat. We’d forgotten that’s what this whole riot was about.

It’s a real shame, though, because Orange Is The New Black could have done it so well – and so much better than anyone else – had it really tried.

Watch Orange Is The New Black on Netflix from June 9 2017.