Kermode & Mayo’s Take - ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK’S “Taystee”: Adoption, Child States and Attachment Theory – SHRINK THE BOX

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Ben and Nemone discuss Tasha Jefferson, aka Taystee, from Orange is the New Black. We get fascinating insights into child states and how difficult they are to escape; attachment theory and why prison can be a better alternative to living in the outside world. Expect to laugh and cry while reliving one of the early bingeable series on Netflix. And if you’re interested in looking further into issues of adoption and racism, check out our episode on The Queen’s Gambit, from Season 1.    We want to hear about any theories we might have missed, what you’ve thought of the show so far and your character suggestions. Please drop the team an email (which may be part of the show): [e-mail]    NEXT CLIENTS ON THE COUCH. Find out how to view here   Polly, Peaky Blinders (seasons 1&2)  Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins, The Wire (Season 1)  Moira Rose, Schitt's Creek (Season 1)  Raymond Holt, Brooklyn 99 (selected episodes)   Jackson Lamb, Slow Horses (Season 1)  Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City (selected episodes)    CREDITS  We used clips from Season 1 of Orange is the New Black. It’s available to watch on Netflix.  Starring:  Taylor Schilling as Piper Chapman  Laura Prepon as Alex Vause,   Michael Harney as Sam Healy  Michelle Hurst as Miss Claudette Pelage  Kate Mulgrew as Galina "Red" Reznikov  Jason Biggs as Larry Bloom  Uzo Aduba as Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren  Danielle Brooks as Tasha "Taystee" Jefferson  Natasha Lyonne as Nicky Nichols  Taryn Manning as Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett  Selenis Leyva as Gloria Mendoza  Adrienne C. Moore as Cynthia "Black Cindy" Hayes  Dascha Polanco as Dayanara "Daya" Diaz  Created by:  Jenji Kohan  Directed by:  Michael Trim  Andrew McCarthy  Uta Briesewitz  Jodie Foster  Matthew Penn  Produced by:  Jenji Kohan  Sara Hess  Tara Herrmann  Lisa Vinnecour  Neri Kyle Tannenbaum  Mark A. Burley    We would love to hear your theories: [e-mail]    A Sony Music Entertainment production.  Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts.  To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail].  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi there, Simon and Mark here from The Take. Today Ben and Nimona putting Tasty from Orange is the New Black on the couch. She spends most of her life in and out of the penal system, has a sharp sense of humor and is quick to feel things deeply. Sounds incredibly complicated. Hope you enjoy the show. And please do send us your thoughts on the show and suggestions for characters for Ben and Nimone to cover. To shrink the box at SonyMusic.com. Good redder colors, darlin'. They're not flavors. Well, it's tasty. I like me some tasty. Especially on days like now. People only want the babies.

Of course they want the babies. Babies are cute. I'm cute. No, you're big. And, uh, your hair's ratsy, and you're too eager and too dark. Now your mouth is blue. But I suppose it tastes like red. You nasty. I just call him like I see him, darling.

["The Moment of Silence"] Ben Bailey Smith here. And I am The Moment of Silence. And I am the moment axis. And you've just arrived at the only place that mixes a punchy cocktail of TV and psychology like an insightful Negroni. Ne-money. Don't start. How are you?

Oh, we did a whole episode for that. Yeah. Don't call me ne-money. No, absolutely. Good. All good. Yeah, ready to get stuck into Orange is the New Black. Oh man. Okay, so enlighten us. What was happening in that clip? Oh, it's heartbreaking to kind of hear the beginnings of Tasha's story. So we see how

Tasha later played by Danielle Brooks got her nickname of Tasty aged 11 when she first meets drug dealer Vy who we hear there played by Lorraine Toussaint. Tragically, really, Vy has spotted somebody intelligent, but who's disenfranchised, vulnerable, and who she senses she can manipulate. And Tasha is, or Tasty as she's known, is one of the multitude of inmates, colourful characters in Lichfield Prison, which we're sort of introduced to via the protagonist, Piper. I think, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I thought it was an interesting choice to bring us into it

via Piper's story, white middle upper class character. I think it was very, they kind of knew what they were doing there. They just thought this is an easy way into something that there's gonna be some difficult stories to tell. But I think it's testament to how great the show is that they don't really need her to be the protagonist for much longer, even though she is sort of the main person, I suppose. Like there's so many good characters. We were really debating who to actually put under the spotlight, weren't we?

You could do a podcast on Orange is the New Black and just do a different character each week. You could have had a series. Do you know what I mean? You could do a Shrink the Box on this. But we did go for Tasha Tasty Jefferson. It's sort of perfectly set up for Shrink the Box, isn't it? Orange is the New Black, because you've got these backstories of each inmate, how they

got there, and you're constantly wondering how did this person get there. How have they wound up in this particular situation? Yeah, what are the choices that were made or what were the choices that were taken away from them? The more backstories you see, the more victimisation of human beings you see. And discrimination and it's instant actually your love of the characters because they give us so much of their way of being in the prison life and then we see what happens to them outside. All right, so coming up, we are gonna be looking

at how growing up in a children's home can affect someone. Why would someone choose to return to prison? Shawshank style. Reminder, obviously, this is an adult show. Chat can be just as fruity. You know, we're gonna be talking about difficult topics. We'll be liberally revealing plot points. If you haven't watched, you might wanna.

But yeah, get your heavy duty regulation gear on. Get the orange board and suit on. Yeah, stock up with your favorite snacks from the commissary. Some cream of chicken or shrimp noodle. Noodle. Yeah. They haven't got that in. Oh yeah.

Can't have that. And settle in, cause you've got time. Welcome to Shrink the Box. ["Shrink the Box. All right, so it's a Shrink the Box recap moment. If you're ready, we'll keep it as brief as possible. So end of series one and the beginning of series two of Orange is the New Black, we see Tasha Tasty Jefferson's story coming to focus, right, as we learn more about

her backstory. So she spent her childhood in and out of foster homes, what they call group homes over there, and we learn from an early age this sort of malevolent presence, Vee, who's a local drug dealer. She saw Tasty when she was really young, really young, like six, seven years old, and groomed her from then. And Tasha resisted these charms at first and eventually started to enjoy her work with V, especially being, you know, this money-minded kind of maths whiz. She's really good at numbers, isn't she?

She's good with numbers. So she was wasted at whatever that burger place was. What does V call it? Burger-muck something or other. Yeah, that's it. Undetermined burger place. But Tasha does end up in prison, obviously, and by series two V pops up as well at Lichfield and tragically for Tasha who sees V as a sort of surrogate mother, she hasn't noticed her toxic manipulation outside or now on the inside.

It's a very complicated relationship. You see the nerves around us. Set the scene for this young lady who are we dealing with this week. So we've got an inmate at Litchfield prison put inside for heroin dealing which I'm not sure is made explicit at the beginning of series one we don't learn that until much later on. Mid-20s you reckon I think probably maybe early to mid-20s maybe. Single, as far as we know, was in foster care and sadly never adopted, so never had a permanent family. She was in those group homes until that didn't work any longer and she went heading to Philly. Did she have a romantic relationship with Poussey, one of the other inmates, or are

they just friends? I can't remember. In the period that we're covering, I think that's really inexplicit. I just don't know. So we're thinking she's straight? Again. Hard to say, isn't it? Yeah, really difficult.

Alright, so like first impressions, first things you notice? I think it would be unavoidable to notice how childlike she is and her way of being in the world is often littered with what we might describe as more childlike things like singing and being kind of loud and gregarious and extrovert. She's always dancing around. Yeah, she's always dancing. She's always looking for a bit of humour and a bit of rubber too. Absolutely. She's lightening the atmosphere with that. So I think her childlike nature

would be there in the therapy room for the off mixed with street smarts. That might be one of the first things you'd notice. So she's definitely intelligent. She's really switched on and she is keen to learn and kind of gather things from the environment. I think we'll come back to the childlike nature in detail later, but it is interwoven to everything she does. She obviously had to grow up quickly. As she said in series one, I think it's episode eight actually, she's approaching parole and then one of the older wiser inmates, who I loved as well, Claudette, comes in to big her up. I'm scared. Nothing out there gonna be scarier than this shit. Shit, I've been in institutions my whole life. I was awarded a state till I was 16, then Juvi. I got no skills.

Well, now you're just lying. You've worked in that law library for two years. You know more than my public defender. Yeah, but out there, you need real school for that stuff. No one's gonna take me serious. You're a smart girl. You like to play the clown. But you've got a lot to offer this world.

This is not a life, Tasty. Yo, listen to Voodoo Mambo, yo. There you have it, almost encapsulated, the entire series, all of them. This is not a life, which Claudette wisely says. I mean, it seems to me that Tasty hasn't received some of the basic care, which you might expect from a primary caregiver, Things like mirroring, so someone seeing you and responding, which should be those are the things that will happen very early on as a baby. Validation, your emotions are met, digested, not disallowed or disavowed. I mean getting her basic needs met and she's

had to take care of her own needs from a really early age If you're surrounded by loving secure base You kind of learn to make mistakes in the safety of a loving environment one that allows you to flourish and gives you boundaries to Work within and it doesn't strike me that Tasty's had an experience of that a long-term experience of that And yet you don't she doesn't strike you as like a lash out type of arms It's all this bottled up anger that like out, you know, in the street or in prison. She doesn't seem like that kind of person. But there's definitely a sadness that's locked up. You can tell, obviously, I'm sure we'll talk more about her going out, like being let out and then coming back.

But fitting in is an issue for her, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think she's always really wanted to fit in and she's always wanted to be part of a forever family. When you hear her talk about it, again, heartbreaking that she's held this ideal up of belonging, which is why we then see her feel so comfortable in that system because it's familiar, it's something she knows,

and it is where she belongs at the moment. I think There's potential for a lot of work I think with a character like Tasty around discrimination and racism, what's been internalised about racism. She had a big confrontation, I think it's with Piper at one point who's kind of talking about being picked on within Litchfield and she's the character we mentioned earlier, the sort of main, one of the main protagonists, white middle class. Tasty makes the point that actually outside, that is Tasty's experience all the time outside of prison. You know, people picking on her, people discriminating against her, people looking at her thinking

she should be locked up forever. You don't sense that she's, you know, discriminatory or I don't know, prejudice against other racial groups in the prism, but she very naturally settles in with a sort of core group of black girls. That's their little crew, there's like four or five of them. Black Cindy and Poussey. Yeah, and Poussey and Crazy Eyes, Susanna actually. Crazy Eyes sort of jumps between groups. Crazy Eyes is a whole episode. Another whole episode. But Prejudice is a really interesting idea around Litchfield Prison and how it's set

up because I think, as you say, again, the racism isn't necessarily explicit or the judgment and the segregation, but actually that is what we see. I mean, it's important, I think, for that to be explicit at some point. If you're working with a client with racial difference and for the client to feel that they can bring that as well, and they might not be able to for all kinds of reasons. Wait, would that be a recommendation? Like if one of the central issues that I was having in my own personal life or professional life was directly linked to race or my vision of racial discrimination, my feeling of

being discriminated against. Would you recommend I get a black therapist? There should be the space to work with that regardless of the therapist you have and it might be that you can work equally well with a therapist of a different race as long as that is welcome in that therapy room and of course everybody has their own inherent racism and privilege and experience. But no, there's absolutely no recommendation among that. But the idea of talking about race, eventually it would be ideal for that to be explicit because it's in the room anyway. Yeah. Whether we talk about it or not.

So she's obviously she's got that there's nothing she can do about her skin colour. But also you mentioned that she was very childlike. And prison can be like, it can be an infantilising place, right? Well, there's something about that whole system, and quite often systems like that, so hospital would be another place that is infantilising, and actually can end up hindering people who've come out of prison and their survival on the outside. There's power imbalances. We see Mr Healy, one of the wardens. And they sort of treat him like some kind of teacher father in some ways.

It's really infantilizing and Tasty becoming... Good casting, sorry, Sam Healy, because he looks exactly like... If you haven't seen the show, imagine any version of Uncle Ben from Spider-Man. Any incarnation of Spider-Man. He is like the classic Uncle Ben. I know. Do you know what I mean? And what's slightly unnerving is you can see the girls kind of lured into being, or the inmates kind of lured into being in his presence and he's got all kinds of issues going on.

But he looks like a middle-aged Care Bear or Puppet Smith. Do you know what I mean? But we're the judging a book by its cover. Absolutely. Well, Tasty becomes president of the TV. I mean, they're fighting over what to watch on TV, and Tasty kind of goes to Mr. Healy. He's at the end of his tether, so he just goes, well, you have it,

and you decide what everybody watches. But you can see Tasty loving the power over the other inmates in quite a sort of playground, in a kind of, hee hee, I won. We're going to watch Planet Earth all the time. Series two, as you mentioned earlier, episode two is dedicated to the whole of Tasha, Tasty Jefferson's backstory. And flashback, we see the young Tasty at this kind of adoptee fair, and we see how possessive she gets over other children trying to move in. She's obviously identified this couple that she'd like to go home and make a forever family with and she's telling them how intelligent she is and how good at maths she is and being quite

gregarious and then this other child comes along and somebody from the children's home kind of moves tasty on and that's the point in which V gets involved. I mean having lived in a home chances are she was never given enough attention and she never felt special, which is how lots of parents make their children feel. And that's important developmentally to feel that you matter. There is a lovely book actually, which I've had on my shelf for a while, but it feels pertinent here, Why Love Matters, written by Sue Gerdhardt. And the longer title is How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain. So it demonstrates how important

those loving relationships are to brain development in the early years, not only to emotional development, but literally to those neural pathways being formed and how when things go wrong with relationships in early life, the adaptation in the child means that the brain adapts as well.

So that then can cause problems later on and brain's emotions and immune systems particularly affected by those early stressors. And the likes of which Tasty might have experienced in those group homes. And therefore, things like immune systems can be less effective. It can make children more vulnerable

to a range of difficulties later on, like depression, antisocial behavior, addictions, anorexia, as well as more physical illnesses. There's a brilliant forward in the book actually, our problems with kids' lives, with our own lives have arisen because we've completely missed the importance of affection. We thought it was just something nice that parents did, but in fact it's the key to all mental health, intelligence, and functioning as a human being. If someone is a great human being, it can mean only one thing, they were loved. Wow. Wow. It's great. That's Stephen Biddulph who writes at the beginning of this book. I mean, obviously,

it's not the only thing you need, but it is a great building. No, but it's a fundamental. And you know, Tasty, we don't know when she might have been put into care exactly. Well, you think exactly that possibly some of the skin on skin care that some parents bring from a really early age of a young baby and then mirroring an affection that's shown. Yeah, she may not have had that ever. And we see the effects of Tasty being raised in a care system constantly. The need to win, the need for praise, you know, the asking for it. It feels like she's

asking to be seen and acknowledged lots of the time. And these are basic things that she may have missed out on. She's always this buoyant character even when you see her getting released, right? And she's walking sort of... She's not really betraying her emotion. She just she looks kind of plaintive. She doesn't look happy. She doesn't look sad She's just sort of like I guess I have to do this now as she's walking away and Poussey hasn't been able to say goodbye And she's banging on the window. They're like Poussey, she can't hear you. I know. But somehow Poussey bangs loud enough to make Tasty look up and when she looks up, bang, you know when you see a person like do a selfie of themselves with their lunch and they're

on their own and they do this big smile and then they turn the phone off and they just look like the rest of us, like normal, just like, yeah. Not smiling. I'm just another human. Yeah. It's like that the other way around. She suddenly does a dance. The light switches on.

Yeah, she does the tasty thing and everyone's laughing and cheering that, oh, that's tasty. Is it all just an act to make her feel safe or, I don't know, to not face some of the darker truths that she harbours? When we see her very confident inside Lichfield and certainly less so as she goes towards leaving and finally being on parole, I feel like she can be quite naive sometimes. I mean, like you made mention of, she's hanging on to the idea that if she's good enough to win the interview process and gain the job, she'll have prospects on the outside. And she really believes that that's a possibility for her.

But I feel she's also scared by life because it hasn't been decoded for her by again by primary carers who were focused completely on her and her development. That feels like she's got certain cues that are missing that you might have if you were within a family unit. And I'm sure there are homes and experiences where that is equally given, but it doesn't feel like Tasty's had that. And she's given that chance to leave jail and you sense she got sent back on purpose, saying it was just too hard to live on the outside. I mean, we later learned that V wasn't really there for her. So you sense that she went looking for what she considers to be her secure base and we'll come onto attachment styles styles later and that she feels she's got with V which I don't feel she has.

Also her first stop was a trap house, you know, and it's just horrific in there. There's people smoking crack, the woman that's running the place has offered her one night and she can sleep on the floor. Tasty says like a dog, she says to her friends. But she's essentially been institutionalized her whole life, as she's, as she makes reference to, and she doesn't necessarily know how to function in everyday society, nor is she being given the chances that might allow her to have a chance on the outside. And we could also view prison as a boundary that makes her feel safe. And when she hasn't got that, you know, you get to meet, meals. Yeah, you get food. And she's got a bed, she's got friends. And she's not had many boundaries

throughout her life and they're all so essential for our development. So the outside world probably seems boundary less and therefore more scary. I think we can see that in Orange is the New Black, if you treat people like children or animals, as you say, there is kind of an inevitability about how people end up behaving. I'm fascinating to think of a literal boundary being comforting. Like, well, you know, there's only so much I can do in these four walls, so I don't have to take that much responsibility. There's a sense of safety in that. Yeah. Well, listen, after the break, we're going to look at toxic mother figures and

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Benefits vary by card, terms apply. Xtree, Xtree, your favorite anime is getting a new season. Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. And I'm Lee-Alec Murray. And I'm Leah Prescott. Every week you can listen in while we break down the latest pop culture news and dish on what new releases we can't get enough of.

We're covering the latest in film, video games, music, manga, and obviously, anime. Get the latest on the Anime Effect. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. All right, we're back. We're back. Um, Nimone, let's talk about a certain Yvonne Parker, also known as V. Yes. How toxic are we talking here? Are we talking like toxic waste?

Are we talking just like a little sour? One of those really nasty sweets. Well, let's see, shall we? I think that relationship, as we've already said, is so complex. From the clip we heard at the top, we see V meeting a young Tasty. We see when she's 11, she gets her nickname Tasty Girl. So already there's a sense of control by V on one level because she's been given- Of course, yes, she gave her the name. Yeah. And it sticks and she uses it. I mean, it did come from something that Tasha said, but it definitely was appropriated by V and was sort of this older lady giving her this badge,

if you like. And she does take her off the streets eventually but abuses her power by making her and a host of other kids in care work for Vee's operation, which is drug dealing. And Tasha totally doesn't want to go with it at first. She's really dead against it despite actually seeming more on the outside. I mean, you mentioned the burger bar and she's sort of at the burger shop she's working in and the other kids are like, I want to do that. I want to go with V. But in the end she has to run away from either a home or a foster family. I think one of the group homes is too much and she goes to

V in a state, sees V's way of life dealing now as her only hope, I guess. And there's this sort of entwined relationship because you also see V look at her with affection and call her daughter at several times during... And she's always saying, you know, I always look after my babies, you know. Yeah. It's important that V's a woman, you know, like it's the Fagin role. Yeah. Picking up vulnerable kids. Disenfranchised. And manipulating them. It's important that these are women, you know, like it's the Fagin role. Yeah. Picking up vulnerable kids.

Disenfranchised. And manipulating them. It's a classic, but a Fagin can have that paternal authority, but there's nothing like the warmth of a mother, you know. The idea of nurturing. The idea of, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've got- Snuggling up to the mother's bosom and, you know, being baby.

Exactly, we're being back to that kind of archetypal mothering, which we said of course can be done by anyone, but what we're expecting is a mother figure in someone, for Tasty, in the shape of someone like V. I mean, we see her grief about RJ's death, so that kind of spills out in that second episode, series two, when we're seeing her backstory. And V talks about Tasty as a daughter there and never letting anything bad happen to her, which of course is what everybody wants their mom to say. It is that kind of magical thinking

that we've touched on before. They're both embroiled in it to keep them safe in a world which is anything but. Give us a little recap on magical thinking. I'm using it here to refer to that kind of young child's fantasies, but all of us have that child state within us, about how the world might work and how we might want it to work and best case scenario.

And that can stem from having no experience of something and making it up, therefore it's magical and building an ideal or escapism from a bad version of that and dreaming up the good one because you desperately want that to exist. We're sort of into splitting in the internal world there because there's good and bad also, but the magical bit is it comes from quite a young place. And if it's never fulfilled, you know, you go into adult life and it's still unfulfillable. Well, it can stay as a lovely, ideal possibility. Right. So you are always thinking, yeah, but you know, really, I can have it like that. And so there's quite a lot of work to be done around disappointment in the sense that it might not ever be like that. We're sort of into the world of existentialism

then aren't we? And that depressive position. I know you don't Ben, I know you're down for that. What does V want? She's been doing this for, there must be hundreds of kids she's manipulated and she can get more like she's that wily. What does she want from Tasha? She definitely sees the advantage of Tasty's maths skills in her organisation and Tasty's really clear when she feels like she needs to get V onside at the beginning, she's doing the maths kind of on the fly.

Oh when that drug dealer pops up. Yeah, exactly. And she just does the maths bang like that. And sort of starts to lure V in from the off. But V does play the lung game, you're right, offers to take her out to dinner, cooks her homemade meals. I mean in a way it's like a form of collecting these people to her organisation that she can use but I think they are fulfilling some idea of family for her as well.

Tasty gets lost in that moment, doesn't she? We see her by the cupboard, she's supposed to get bowls for the soup. And she's frozen in that sort of reverence. She's just looking at RJ and V and V's got the bread out of the oven, it smells great and she's just watching them. It's another one of those really painful moments. I mean, you've mentioned RJ in that scene, he's kind of in the kitchen as well and they are a family of three at that point. We do see R.J. die in episode two. He's one of the other teens taken in by V.

And here are V and Tasha about to attend his funeral and just how hard Tasha's finding that. We had plans to go to the Statue of Liberty together. We had plans to go to the Statue of Liberty together. Neither of us ever been. We had reservations to walk up into the head and everything. So stupid. I'll take you. I got you now, tasty girl. You can't promise that.

I protect my babies. This one got away. But I swear to you, I will die before I see that happen again. I will keep you safe. again. I will keep you safe. I'm a bit magical thinking by V really because she, as Tasty rightly points out, she can't promise that. And then we see V being reintroduced into prison in this episode as well and Tasha confronting her because she says, you're not even supposed to be in here. You know, how did you get caught kind of thing? You were too busy hiding. Yeah, exactly. And then she has a go at her because as I mentioned earlier, Tacey's obviously when she gets out on parole,

she goes looking for V who's magically disappeared. She's hiding and she says, ain't too risky when you're looking out for yourself where I come from, we call that chicken. You know, I'm feeling like I already gave you too much of my time and I don't need you especially in here. And actually at that point, she is right. She doesn't need her. I mean, later in that episode, we see her try to manipulate when she wins over Tasha and her friends with cake.

She's trying to build connections. And we see her do that with Suzanne actually, crazy eyes, by showing tenderness. Feels like she is rounding up a little band of people who can make her feel safe in there. Suzanne looks so confused when she's finally getting some attention. Well, I mean, it's super cool to manipulate someone like Suzanne who's just really there

needing exactly that. V's going to go in on that because she knows that's a weakness. I've been thinking about Tasty's obvious attachment to V. Could it verge on disorganized, which means it'll be difficult for her to attach, but also the sense of attaching when it might be damaging because it serves as a survival mechanism. So she's going to form an attachment with this clearly dangerous person because that's the best she's got. She's so desperate for a mother figure, so desperate for her forever home. V represents her best possible chance at it in the absence of any more secure option. She controls where where Tasty works, you know, she doesn't want her in the

kit in the library, she wants her in the kitchen because she can see her at all times, there's no hiding places. There's loads of examples of V taking away Tasty's agency. So like is this is this like coercive control? This is this dangerous stuff. It's definitely controlling. By episode seven, V has everyone wrapped around a finger. And we see this unfold painstakingly slowly, don't we? And in a way, in a very malevolent way, because she's not presenting it as I'm gonna be in charge,

but you bet she is by towards the end of series two. And she says to Tasty, you know, I got you covered. Trust me, you do not want a short V, she will go full Wolverine on your ass. I mean, that is typical, I suppose, of that kind of coercive control, which is it's threatening and it's nurturing. And for someone who is desperate for the nurturing, they may either learn or dissociate from the threat or not feel that anymore. They may have experienced it in the beginning and less so now. Iron fist in a velvet glove.

You got it. It's terrifying. And what's even more terrifying is the divide and conquer aspect that she has. She's such a smart sort of criminal, I suppose, that she knows that if you're gonna control someone completely you need to also remove any unity they have with people that are good that are gonna see through you or do you know what I mean? Who are calling you out. Yeah they'd be a threat. So like the way she turns Tasha against Poussey who as we were saying before like season one that friendship is just burgeoning like with every episode, every time you see

them together, that closeness. And they've got that lovely, the two characters they play, the kind of faux middle class white women that they, those voices that they put on. Oh yeah. There's this lovely language that they've got between each other where they've obviously, you know, it is sibling-y, but you're right, it would be interesting for us to delve into whether it becomes more than that. We've mentioned that kind of gang culture before in the sense of the power, and we haven't

done much on power in this particular episode, but that is one way to really gain power over somebody is to alienate them from others who might be. As Poussey is trying to point out, who is that woman? And Poussey doesn't take the cake kindly either. She's got her eyes wide open. V is, more and more we see her using her power over Tasty to start those little question marks about, is Poussey right? Should I be with Poussey? And she sees them spooning and Tasha says, I ain't gay, we're just friends. And V says about Poussey right? You know, should I be with Poussey? She sees them spooning and Tasha says, A, gay, we're just friends.

And V says about Poussey, she doesn't know you like I do. So again, she's trying to undermine Poussey. And Poussey clearly sees V's game and V has to warn her off. V. I know she thinks she owes you, but from what I heard, I'm just a bully who uses lost kids for her own shit and then dumps them soon as the heat comes down. You're a fucking vampire. Chastie will never love you. She will never love you.

Not the way you want. Man, she's like Ursula or something. Police day's got her down though hasn't she? She's totally... Oh no, she's got her absolutely down. The way she delivers that line V, she's like proper Disney villain. Horrible. So throughout all this horrible situation, what happens if a client's child state meets a therapist's adult state? Self-states can change all the time. Let's dig into that. Let's save it. It feels like a good cliffhanger and we'll look at it after this little break. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day. You might know me as the creator and host of the How to Fail podcast, but I want to tell you about a new podcast I've made. How to Write a Book is for anyone who wants to get their story out there. Fronted by a bestselling author, a

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by his favorite opening themes. There are certain songs that I'm like, whoa, the melodies in this are really amazing. No idea what bro's saying at all, but I'm jacking these melodies. And you know, I hear Megan the Stallion is also a big anime fan. So Megan, do you want to trade AOT hot takes?

We're here. Listen every Friday, wherever you get your podcast, and watch four episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Okay, we're back. I promised Child States. Not that I would be in one. Sometimes I am. What? I was going to say, what's your awareness of- I was going to come back in short trousers. Well, that's it. It's with you all the time, though. It's not something you lose, whether

you're wearing short trousers or not. With Tasty, it seems, and sort of everyday thing, why is it so regular for her? Well, I would be curious, actually, about my child's self-state might meet Tasty's in the therapy room and her childlike state. And we could delve into that because if you then meet a child's state as an adult, you're going to get a certain outcome. You see, it would be more parental, so that's going to be in the room. If I meet her child-likeness with a more adult way of being, her child, for her child, it might be like the relationship with the dealer, prison warden, other powerful figures. She might default to a more childlike way of being with a more powerful, I mean,

in this case, older white therapist could be compliant. There might be a rejection of that as I referenced earlier, our difference would need to be worked with explicitly. So what you need is an awareness of... Lots of you need is a coercive, controlling therapist. Not necessarily where you'd want to be. Well, I mean, Tasty displays constant mix of adult child and self-states can switch really quickly in our everyday interactions but certainly in the therapy room and it can be

imperceptible you can be adult to adult conversing and then you get a sense that something somebody younger or some younger part is present. Like when you go to your parents house? Oh I mean undoubtedly. Yeah exactly. No matter how old you are, when you walk in, you just like feel a bit weird. Like you're not like your normal cool self.

Well, you might revert to, and what's interesting is you could revert to any age within that. So you might be really, you know, kind of six and you know, just one that we looked after. You might be bolshy teenage, throwing stuff around and whatever. Disgruntling.

So those things happen imperceptibly equally in the therapy room and it might firstly be about remaining open enough without judgment about our own self-states and the client's positions and then gently bringing an awareness to these shifts later on in the work together. But that can be quite helpful. I know you said to get Annie stamped but the hobby shop is mad fun, yo. You ever been in there? Made me want to get all crafty, get some puffy paint or a rhinestone machine. They had a whole aisle of pipe cleaners. Pipe cleaners!

Man, in group home, all we got was broken crayons and dried up loosted. Green market sky bags that we decorate in your journal. This is one of my favourite moments in the entire second series. Pipe cleaners! Pipe cleaners! And there's such a childlike excitement when she's shopping for stationery. Effectively, she's shopping for stickers to put on the drug bags for V. It's not like she is buying stickers to decorate her journal. She's never been to a stationery shop. It is a really touching moment and you see both

elements there. She hasn't really had the chance for childhood has she? She had to adult really quickly and as such that part of her which is getting a chance to flourish now is very much belonging to that younger phase in her life. There's also a poignant moment in that episode where we witness Tasty enjoying finally getting to be part of the family. I think you mentioned it earlier. Arjo's buzzing around the kitchen. V's asking her to get the bowls and talking about making new bread for her with flaxseed in it. It's a proper kind of motherly moment. Here, taste this girl. Tell me if it needs some more salt. That is good. I know. What is that pumpkin? Butternut squash and ginger. I threw in some leeks just cause.

All right now, listen, grab some bowls please. Oh, this smells good. Get the placemats. I tried a new bread tonight, y'all. It's a whole grain flaxseed bread. Y'all need some more fiber in your diet. Grab a knife for this bread to taste. Bring the bowls, girl. Grab a knife for this bread too, Tace.

Bring the bowls, girl, what you waiting for? I felt it was like she'd dreamt of a moment like this, but never truly believed it could be a reality. And there it is unfolding before our very eyes. Yeah, it's like an episode of The Waltons. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah, I mean, V's offering us so much, but it's a price that she knows is high as well.

It's not, that's the rub. It's conditional, it's not unconditional. And Tace high as well. It's not that's the rub. It's, it's conditional. It's not unconditional. And Tacey doesn't want to think about that. No, I mean, she's definitely dissociating from the fact that yeah, like to keep this lovely family vibe going, basically, you've got to deal heroin and be really good at it. It's contingent your life and your freedom every single day contingent on her bringing home bacon, working for V. It's not unconditional love or an environment where she is nurtured to be herself and that's the only impetus. Which just sort of adds to the tragedy, right? Because with Tasty you're just constantly

thinking you could, with just a slight tweak, be brilliant. With like a bit more confidence, be able to let go of this thing of like, I need this thing that can't exist to complete me. If she was able to, you know, just get through that interview stage, get that job, get a little flat and be praised by her boss for doing amazing legal work, maybe that would be enough. Who knows? But see, it's all based on the external, isn't it? If I get this, if I have that, if I dress like this. And what's interesting is because, and this is what comes possibly from mirroring and validation, which are those early factors in a child's life, is that she can't see

what resides inside her already. She has those skills. And an entire audience see it, right, at that job fair. They can all see it. Black, white, Latino, they're all watching, they're all cheering on Tasty because she's clearly smashed it. The Latina girl's like stroking the interview's leg hoping that's gonna get her the job. Definitely taking a left turn and it's not working. But yeah, that's an incredible moment and it's this huge reminder as well of all of her untapped potential. It was lovely meeting both of you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Slovin. And may I say, what a privilege it would be to work for the Philip Morris Corporation, a company that has remained the largest cigarette manufacturer in the US since 1983, plus has increased its dividends 46 times in the last 44 years. You all tore this market up in the face of a world that was trying to tear you down. Now see, that's the company for me. Thank you, Miss Jefferson. Yeah, yes, let's hear a round of applause for her. Yeah, so it's like she's absolutely smashed it. and it reminds you, you know, she's smart,

she's got potential like I say, but she's also she's a survivor. The question I suppose is can she survive this situation because you know this dark cloud V is just hangs over her and then of course Lichfield as much as it's nice to watch Orange is the New Black, like oh it's so nice to call these lovely women together doing their... anything can go down at any time. It's a prison. And it's quite relentless in terms of... It's a big American prison. Yeah. It's not happy families.

Exactly. I mean it can be on the surface. Can she survive that? You know, how much confidence do you have that a person in that situation be able to walk out of your office and empower themselves and survive the threat? survive that, you know, how much confidence you have that a person in that situation be able to walk out of your office and empower themselves and survive the threat. What you can do in 50 minutes in a therapy room is provide some of, is the container for people to start processing, is provide some of those nurturing, unconditional moments. I mean, for me, it's about her finding and nurturing

unconditional relationships and growing trust within a loving and caring environment. Some of that for her is constituted by the other inmates. In fact, one friend that I was discussing this series with said that the arc of Tasty's character is that she finds her voice through secure attachment. She finds a more secure base. Some people don't have a hope of that, but all you can, I suppose, do in inverted commas is try and provide that for the time you're with someone, but you don't know what's going to happen. And quite often a lot of therapy happens outside the room because it's the processing of those moments that might eventually land. And that's why the process of therapy is repetitive and can happen over a long period of time.

Because you are laying down experiences that some people haven't ever had. I've asked people. It's quite hard to just like leave a therapy room and then just go, hey, right, I'm straight into work or go do the school runs like immediately. I know it's a luxury but useful isn't it? Definitely. I actively ask people to approach a session with

that in mind and to leave themselves time after and if you're working online with someone it might often be useful to go and walk outside your house, your room, wherever you're doing this before you come to the session and certainly go out and walk outside after just to allow some time for processing. But I do know there are clients that come straight off the back of a meeting. Of course that's real life. And for a lot of people, those 50 minutes will be the only time they allow themselves any kind of processing. And that space can be really scary. And that would be a thing, you know, certainly with Tasty as well, it might be initially that that space and that environment is so terrifying because she hasn't experienced it.

And a lot of people will reject that in the initial phase. It won't be, oh, this is what I've been looking for. This is like, what the hell is this? Why are you being like that with me? Because it's not something that they're familiar with at all. And you'd be working on that in therapy, some of those formative experiences, mirroring, validating, listening, being seen. I've had clients and you see them and you can see how big the experience of being seen is for them. Oh man that's huge because we spend so much time

worrying or freaking out or actually being ourselves up about what other people think about you or like what you're supposed to be doing with your life you know. Some of the most dangerous critical voices are inside your own house. Absolutely incredible series, incredible client I think, an incredible work as ever from you Nimony. I'll never do it again it was just because I said Negroni and it made me think. It's not the first time Ben it might surprise you. I've never called, I. It was just because I said Negroni and it made me think. It's not the first time, Ben. It might surprise you. I've never called, I never pronounced your name wrong. Just for the, for the fans out there. For the record. For the record, yeah. Never ever, ever, ever happened.

Alright, listen, let's get on to one of my favourite bits of every week. Who's coming next? Oh, it's a much loved and missed actor in one of her key roles. Let's have a listen. Look at the gun. Recognise it? Finn was playing with this this afternoon by the cut. It was loaded. It must have fell out of my pocket.

He said he found it on the sideboard of the betting shop with bullets in it. I must have been drunk. We'll keep this between ourselves if you swear not to leave guns lying around. Look, now having four kids without one is hard. It might be harder. Now come on, we're late. The stunning Helen McCrory there playing Aunt Polly in Peaky Blinders.

Yes. I mean, it's, there's so much to explore here. The role of women who were left during World War One, stepping up and then of course stepping back because she ran Peaky Blinders, the organization for the five years that the men were in the Great War. Matriarchal roles on crime families and for Polly, the pain of losing your children or having your children taken away from you. We would be thrilled if you could follow us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your pod to get new episodes.

And please share if you're enjoying our forays into the minds and machinations of some of your favorite TV characters. And of course, tell your mates. Do you want to be one of our esteemed shrinkers and get the Shrink the Box ad-free? Yes, how do I do that? Okay, subscribe to Extra Takes.

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assistant producer Scarlett O'Malley, studio engineer Gulliver Tickle and the mix engineer Josh Gibbs. Senior producer is Selena Ream and executive producer Simon Poole. Woo woo. I'm very, oh, I'm looking forward to Polly next week. We've covered the bad boy and patriarchal pivot of Peaky Blinders how's that it's time for the matriarchy to fight back so Peaky Blinders season one and two are your homework for poly okay get watching or re-watching if you want a refresher and to see what other shows we're covering actually do go to our show notes you can find them on this episode and get ahead

of your viewing all right that, that's that then. See you next week. For another dose of Nick Cave in the bad suits. Sticky blinders, can't get enough. Perfect, ta-da. Bye.