OITNB Season 2 Starts In June, Too

Has anyone definitively established a statute of limitations for spoilers on Netflix shows?

This is a very important and timely topic.  Thank you for bringing this to the public's attention, Jeremy.  

You're very welcome.  

So not long ago, there was a paradigm shift in the way scripted programs are watched.  This happened with the video company Netflix, and their ability to dump an entire season's worth of show on the unsuspecting (or very much suspecting) public all at once.  

Typically, TV shows are produced episodically and aired to the public one at a time, over the course of many weeks.  Then, there is usually a substantial gap in between seasons of a show, during which cast and crew take a break to give themselves awards, TV stations show a bunch of reruns and trash reality shows, and the viewing audience decides to go outside instead of watching TV.  After this break, a new season of the show starts up, and the process begins anew.  Well, with the advent of DVDs, entire seasons of shows can be copied onto discs and watched en masse, but not until after the entire season had been shown on TV first.  

Along comes Netflix, and before long they discovered that they didn't need to wait until the discs were produced.  They could produce their own shows and dump them out onto the internets in one shot.  This led to the concept of Binge-Watching, in which you sit down and watch an entire season of the new show in one sitting.  At this point, you have information pertaining to the plot and characters of a show before anyone who is watching the show at a more sane pace.  Technically, they're not spoilers, because everyone else has access to the show, too.  They just haven't gone all batty and watched the entire thing yet.  

So, the "official" rules for spoiler etiquette on movies are simple.  Once a film is released on DVD, all spoilers are fair game.  I can, in fact, tell you with impunity that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.  The rules for TV shows are a little more complicated:  Spoilers are no longer considered spoilers and can be openly discussed two weeks after a regular episode airs, two months after a season finale, and one year after a series finale.  So I can tell you that Rita is dead (Season 4 Finale), but nothing about Fiona Gallagher's trial (Last week's episode) or the fate of Walter White (Series Finale).  A little more to think about, but not so bad.

However, we now run into the issue of Binge-Watched Netflix shows.  Season 2 of House of Cards has been out for about 2 weeks.  So, can we discuss the first episode?  Anyone who has seen the first episode at this point is strongly cautioning me against that right now.  In a sense, every episode of the show is a season finale, since they're all at the same time.  But do I really need to wait 2 months before talking about ANYTHING that happens in Season 2?  Can I talk about Episode 1 next week? 

The bottom line is that rules for this sort of thing have not been firmly established.  There are no standing guidelines as to how long it is expected for people to take to watch the new season, and therefore, how long I have to hold off on talking about spoilers.  This is impacting me more than you might think.  I have a funny story to tell about a question I asked somebody about the new season (I hadn't seen any of it at the time), and that person's answer to me.  The problem is, this story is only funny (and able to be told) if you've already seen Season 2 since it deals with a pretty substantial spoiler.  As such...I can't even tell my story!  My only concern is...how long do I have to wait?