Spoiler Alert

Those friends you’ve been hanging out with on Netflix? We’ve got some bad news...

- Genevra Leek

My good friend died last night. Murdered. One minute I was there alongside her, taking part in a peaceful protest in the prison cafe, the next she was pinned under a guard’s knee and gasping her last breath. Me? I was blindsided. I didn’t see it coming and I was powerless to help. All I could do was look on and openly sob in quiet disbelief.

I’m perfectly aware I’m not an inmate of Litchfield Penitentiary. I’m also wise to the fact that Orange Is The New Black is a TV show, streamed into my lounge room (bedroom, hotel room, train carriage) courtesy of Netflix. Logically, I know my “friend” is a fictional character. But that hasn’t made losing her any less heart-wrenching. It didn’t help that her death coincided with the season end. Is there a chance she may not be dead? Much like the classic onset symptom of grief, I may be in denial.

“I wouldn’t even say that it’s like grief, it is grief,” says psychologist and relationship expert Melanie Schilling. “If you look at the stages of grief, you see some similarities in what happens when people are going through the end of a series that they’re very, very connected with, particularly those that have gone on for years... I have a friend who was so obsessed with Friends that he refused to watch the last episode, and he still hasn’t because that will mean it’s over.”