And, it’s finally back! So I don’t know how many of you out there spent Friday night binge-watching the entire new season of Orange is the New Black, but here’s how this is going to work. We’re going to be covering it one episode at a time, probably spaced out every couple of days. Myself, I’m not a fan of binge-watching, so I’ll be watching it as I recap — just so you know I have no prior knowledge of what happens next in the series as I go along other than minor spoilers picked up from the internet here and there.
I thought it was interesting that they’d start out the season with a Piper-centric bottle episode, but I’m assuming this is partly to get most of her storyline wrapped up so they can move their focus to some of the other inmates — which I’ve heard is the intention this season. Normally I would hold Piper episode in about as high regard as a Lisa-centric episode of The Simpsons, but they managed to pull it off thanks to both the unknown trepidation of Piper’s situation along with some colorful new characters.
As we begin, Piper is still in solitary from the epic beatdown she gave Pennsatucky at the end of last season. When some guards come to take her away, Piper demands to know where she’s being taken and squawks some stuff about rights, but the guards are like, LOL NOPE. Seriously though, did anyone else think it seemed more than a little f*cked that a prisoner can be transferred across state lines and by air travel without being informed of their rights even once? I’ve never been to prison so I wouldn’t know.
A game of planes, trains and automobiles then unfolds — or more accurately, prison bus and con air — with a glorious Vaseline-filled ear cameo by Lori Petty as an inmate named Lolly, who I didn’t realize until now has been sorely missing in my life. It’s only then, while talking to Lolly (and after finally getting the opportunity to relieve herself), that the potential implications of her actions finally weighs on Piper: Did she kill Pennsatucky? Is she really, truly, royally f*cked? Well, no and yes, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Kudos to Taylor Schilling who absolutely nails this scene with some of the finest ugly crying ever captured to celluloid.
When the plane lands, Piper finds herself in Chicago, of all places, at a coed detention center, still with no idea why she’s been brought there or how long she’ll be staying. When Piper arrives in her new cell she immediately f*cks up, in true Piper fashion, by squashing her new cellmates’ contraband-smuggling mule cockroach named Yoda. Also, Piper now has four cellmates, including the aforementioned cockroach smugglers and a creepy, face-licking lesbian astrologist. My first thought was, MY GOD, HOW WOULD YOU POOP?!?!?! But for at least one of them, not so much an issue.
All the while, throughout the episode, we keep getting flashbacks to Piper as a child that involve her inability to take risks or tell lies. THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT!
In a plot-thickening stroke of serendipity, Piper catches a glimpse of Alex in the rec yard, and is able to get a note to her thanks to the most hilarious panty-sniffing convict ever.
As it turns out, Piper wasted a perfectly good pair of four-day-old panties for nothing because she ends up finding Alex just like in a cell out in the wide open and finally, both Piper and us, the viewers, learn why she’s been transported to municipal lockup hell: For the trial of their former drug lord. Oh, and Pennsatucky is alive and mostly well and will live to crack-preach another day. But now we finally understand the point of all the heavy-handed flashbacks: Alex is like, “Piper, you have to lie on the stand to protect yourself!” and of course Piper is all, I KNOW BUT LYING IS WRONG. Cut to yet another flashback.
I don’t know why they would transport two witnesses in the same trial in the same vehicle to the courthouse together, but for some reason they do, which conveniently gives them extra time to corroborate their stories. Alex is still trying to get Piper to lie and Piper is still like, but what if maybe we just tell the truth? Oh, Piper. Somehow though, Alex gets through to her, and even though she swears that she’s going tell the truth, at the last minute she chokes, with a bit of a romantic display that in no way came back to bite her in the ass.
So what happened? Did Alex intentionally set her up to save her own ass? Was it revenge? Exactly just how badly is Piper f*cked right about now? Also, I guess this explains why Laura Prepon was originally only supposed to appear in the first episode of season two. I assume at this point she’ll only be appearing in a flashback capacity.
Piper’s got nobody. Not Alex. Not Larry. Not Larry’s lawyer dad who’s had enough of her sh*t. As excited as I am to see how they’ll get out of painting themselves into a corner with her character, I’m even more excited to check back in with the other inmates of Litchfield. One down, twelve to go!
