Whether the upcoming third season of Netflix’s hit prison dramedy Orange is the New Black will be the show’s biggest to date has yet to be seen, but we already know that it won’t be the Biggs-iest (sorry). It has been confirmed that Jason Biggs’ character Larry Bloom, once a major part of protagonist Piper Chapman’s (Taylor Schilling) life before prison, will not be appearing in the next season of the series.
Most fans probably already suspected Biggs’ exit was coming. At the end of season 2, Piper’s ex-fiancee found new love with Piper’s friend Polly (Maria Dizzia) and went off to live a life apart from his incarcerated former flame, moving both of them even further away from Litchfield and the main narrative. Unfortunately, news that Biggs is out of the picture means that Dizzia likely is too, though neither character was ever really essential to the tone of OITNB.
According to Biggs, the show is not focusing on Larry “at the moment,” though the door has been left open and it’s “always a possibility that he can come back” somewhere down the line. Considering that showrunner Jenji Kohan has affirmed her commitment to making the series less about Piper and more about a wide array of characters in the prison, though, something tells me that a return for Larry is highly unlikely.
In other Orange is the New Black news, immediately problematic changes to Emmy policy state that a comedy must run 30 minutes or less to be eligible in that category, so the series will be forced to contend for Best Drama alongside more serious shows like Mad Men and House of Cards. Somewhere, you can hear the faint sounds of Jane the Virgin fans weeping.