The final season of a beloved streaming comedy with a massive cast has arrived. You know what that means! It’s time to sit back, relax, enjoy our last few hours with these beloved characters… and gasp in horror at the devastating human wreckage wrought by our country’s prison industrial complex.

Orange Is the New Black has always done the “dark” portion of its “dark comedy” labelling proud. Even with a cast of colourful characters, their vibrant relationships with one another, and the triumphs they sometimes enjoy, Orange Is The New Black has depicted the brutal realities of imprisonment for seven years now. Every season has been accompanied by despair. That despair, however, has never felt more acute than it does in season seven, the show’s final go-around.

Much of that despair all comes down to time. Incarceration is called “doing time” for a reason. Being sent to jail isn’t so much about isolating the human body and brain from other human bodies and brains, it’s about the taking away of one’s time. The usual Regina Spektor theme song says as much every year with “you’ve got timeeeeeee.” It’s just never felt more apt as it does in season seven.

As revealed by the trailer, season seven opens with Piper out of prison and adjusting to her new civilian life. She reveals early on that she spent 18 months in the big house. And that just sounds… impossible. The show has run for seven years but it feels like 20. It’s produced close to 100 hours of content but they feel like 100,000.