Marcel Winatschek

The Same Mistakes

I keep watching Orange is the New Black even though it’s not perfect—no show is. Something about these women in prison, the laughter and cruelty and weight of it, keeps pulling me back season after season. I need to know what happens.

Flaca is one of those characters that stays with you. Jackie Cruz plays her, and there’s something cool about it that feels real—smart and beautiful and making the mistakes young women make when they think the future is something that happens to other people. When only now matters.

I found Jackie’s story through a VICE documentary called Autobiographies, where she talks about how she got into acting, what she wanted, and what she survived. Because she nearly died. She lived through the same kind of reckless thinking her character does on screen—that belief that nothing can touch you. Almost cost her everything.

What sticks with me is the recognition. The actress who plays this reckless character actually lived through something that similar. That changes what you’re watching.