Previously: Orange is the New Black: Season Two, Episode One
After the first episode’s Chicago trial bottle episode, “Looks Blue, Tastes Red” takes it back to Litchfield with a job fair-themed episode that nicely transitioned into finally giving us Taystee’s back story. We already saw a glimpse into her life beyond Litchfield during her brief stint in the outside world last season, however this episode delved more deeply into her tragic history. A bright, motivated kid with a natural inclination for science and math, in another life Taystee — a.k.a. Tasha — probably would have finished high school, gone to college, and gone on to have a successful career in the sciences. But as a child of the system with no family, no stable home life, no encouragement, guidance or resources — she eventually falls prey to “business woman” Vee Parker, (coolly played by Lorraine Toussaint) who filled the need for family and a sense of purpose.
In other goings-on, Pennsatucky is finally out of medical/solitary, and already being threatened by Warden Jerkbag since she knows that he knows what she knows about the night of the near-shiving, epic beatdown incident and his complete failure to do anything about it. Red is adjusting to life outside the kitchen both inside and outside of Litchfield, since that deal her family had with that food service company is now non-existent thanks to her exile. Oh, and although we had no Piper to kick around this episode, we did have plenty of Larry, who is still too dumb to take his father’s good advice to put his dick into other things that aren’t Piper (or pie).
Random thoughts:
- How perfect was the child actress who played Taystee as a kid? I’m sad that this is probably all we’ll see of her character. This kid like, Jane-from-Louie caliber nailed it.
- When flashback Taystee was singing Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” as the episode opened, did anyone else get temporarily confused because, didn’t that song just come out a few years ago? Oh, no: IT CAME OUT TWELVE YEARS AGO. Congratulations, you are old.
- Well, so long, Little Boo. You were a cute dog and nice to have around until they managed to write you out in the most horrifying way possible. Also I take back Big Boo’s #4 status in my Inmate Ranking because that is just sick and wrong and WRONG.
- Figueroa is still up to no good and I wanted to kick her in the crotch after she snapped at Taystee. It is going to be utterly spectacular when she finally receives her comeuppance.
- I don’t even know their names, but Ginger Methneck inmate’s confession about Pennsatucky to Haggard Methneck inmate is probably not going to go so well for her. Be interesting to see how that plays out.
- A big kudos to the OITNB makeup department for the amazing job they did making Pennsatucky having her face almost Red Viper’ed. The actress who plays Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) is actually really attractive in real life, but between this and her stint on Sons of Anarchy, boy if she doesn’t have the skank typecast nailed down.
- I mean really:
- LOL @ Larry’s dad taking him to a gay bath house because he had a Groupon.
- Is it me or are they laying the groundwork for Larry and Polly f*cking? Jesus Larry, your dad told you to go put your dick in something but NOT YOUR EX-FIANCE’S BEST FRIEND.
- Taystee’s surrogate mom Vee makes her Litchfield debut in the end. Whee! How is this going to throw a f*ckwrench into the prison dynamic? From just the little we’ve seen of Lorraine Toussaint’s character so far, I’m pretty excited.
She’s got a point.
I can’t even tell you how much Poussey is my favorite.
Oh and this, too.
Poor Red.
