Hello and welcome to the sixth recap of the second season of Orange is The New Black, a show about this girl Poussey we all have crushes on. Once again you might notice that I am not, in fact, your style icon Kate Severance, because she’s had to hang up her hat this season due to a brutal work schedule. We’ll have a variety of recappers filling in over the next few weeks, but this episode is mine all mine.
It’s Valentine’s Day Week! We open on the set of Jenny Schecter’s Senior Film Project, “What Is Love?”, starring The Girls of Litchfield, who are taking turns telling the camera what they think love is, unfortunately not to the tune of the ’90s classic “What Is Love?” by Haddaway.
First up is Aleida, who, by the way, looks obnoxiously hot in a grey t-shirt with her sleeves rolled up, and she says love is like a tight/floaty stomach sensation followed by painful smiling, which coincidentally is the same effect procured by the Proud Whopper.
Aleida: Also, fucking. Twenty-four seven, deep-dick, can’t-walk-right fucking.
Alrighty then.
Do I have spinach in my teeth?
Sister Ingalls says “love is light,” which is also how intergalactic space diva Haviland Stillwell signs her emails. Sophia says love is horrible pain “that you want again and again.” Morello has “so much to say about love.” Oh girl.
In the kitchen, the girls are discussing sunshine, flowers and love. Just kidding about the sunshine and flowers. Maritza says boys love Valentine’s Day and private jets, Aleida says Sophia Vergara’s tits are real, Flaca says her boyfriend can’t come visit ’cause it’s too cold to drive a Vespa to prison, Maria says her boyfriend stole her flowers from a funeral, Gloria says Valentine’s Day was invented to make single people feel like shit, and Blanca says each couple is perfect in its own way. There you have it.
In fact, some people find consensual knife play to be a very sensual experience
Daya wants Bennett to play the “pretend we’re a normal couple” game and talk about their imaginary plan for Valentine’s Day, which’s hard for Bennett because he’s a tool. They’ve barely gotten into discussing the slut-factor of her dress for their date to A Romantic Italian Restaurant when Aleida interrupts to give him a list of shit he needs to smuggle in for Daya.
I can’t believe this bitch wants me to fit an Hitachi Magic Wand in my prosthetic leg
In the bathrooms, the girls are lathering up for their 30-second showers and Vee is guilt-tripping Taystee into giving up her #1 Job in the Library with Poussey in favor of custodial by reminding her of when Vee saved Taystee from a shitty foster Dad by giving her a home and then getting her arrested. This is the case of a rock taking advantage of a hard place. Vee is a real winner, you guys.
C’mon, let’s play tigers! Show me your teeth! LET’S PLAY TIGERRRRSSSS
Jimmy shows up looking for Jack because he’s gonna bring her chocolates this year for Valentine’s Day. This woman, y’all.
The woman in the background has just been given very stern advice about not dropping the soap, is not fucking around
Poussey says love is just “chilling, you know? Kicking it with somebody, talking, making mad stupid jokes, and like, not even wanting to go to sleep, ’cause then you might be without ’em for a minute. And you don’t want that.”
Goddess Bless Intern Grace for making this for me
Cut to Flashbackland, Germany, at the army base where Poussey’s family is stationed and everybody is very Nordic and Poussey is winning the joint-rolling contest while wearing a denim vest and 3/4-sleeve baseball shirt. In other words, she is my queen.
Whoa bro where the hell did this tattoo come from
Also, she’s dating a lady who I decided to name Doris until I looked it up on imdb and learned that her name is not Doris or Tina Kennard but, rather, Franziska.
Poussey: I am untouchable.
Franziska: I think you are very touchable.
!!!!!!!!
This stupid white guy wants to watch them hook up and won’t speak German because he’s a stupid white guy. Poussey knows German because she’s planning on sticking around for a while — her Pops promised her this’ll be the last base they live on after a lifetime of base-hopping. This means something will obviously go terribly wrong.
Hey aren’t you @whododatlikedat? I LOVE your selfie game!
In the meantime, girls are kissing on the television and one of them is Poussey!
Back in Litchfield, Watson isn’t enjoying her first day of custodial and everybody has feelings about Valentine’s Day.
Ugh why I am always the one who has to empty out the melted ice in the beer cooler after we go to the beach
Suzanne is speaking to a mop in the British accent and announces that this year she’s “loving someone who deserves me. Me.”
Haven’t you ever seen Fantasia, mops love to talk!
Then Black Cindy and Big Boo show up! Big Boo tells Watson she’s gonna put the “V” in her Valentine, because Big Boo is gross and needs to learn how to admire Watson from afar, like I do.
You know I read on the internet that if you stick your fingers into your nostrils far enough, they come right out of your eyeballs!
Let’s keep it simple: my fingers, your eyeballs, immediate death, right now.
Meanwhile in the Visitor’s Lounge of Love and Lays, a giant can of pork & beans has arrived to have a conversation with Piper Chapman.
She wants to talk about doing a strip-tease to The Brady Bunch’s “rousing rendition” of “Sunshine Day” as they apparently have done on prior Valentine’s Days, but Larry isn’t having it. Nor is he interested in hearing about how she wants to “go home” when she’s free. Instead, he wants to talk about how all her shit is at his apartment.
Wait you found my autographed copy of “Lesbian Forest Voyeurs” where?
In fact, Larry’s also on a journalistic mission — now that a reporter from The Post has contacted him to see if he can secure the inside scoop on the sketchy financial dealings of Litchfield, he’s decided to steal the pitch for himself and wants Piper’s help. Piper’s not into it and thinks Larry should maybe stop being the moon and instead be his very own shining star.
Welp, I always did like my potato salad with a little extra mayo, so I’ll consider the comparison a compliment
Larry thinks Piper is like the sun who burns everybody up. I want Larry to be like Pluto and become the farthest character away from the rest of the galaxy.
Meanwhile in the Greenhouse, Red’s recruited her son Vasiliy to build an underground tunnel while she yells at him about how to treat a lady.
GROW, MARIJUANA PLANT, GROW!!!!
Over in electrical, Piper’s exerting her rage on a fuse box and Nicky is serving her duty as comic relief.
Piper: When you get out of here, what do you imagine yourself going home to?
Nicky: Fiona Apple in the Criminal video.
This is how lesbians have sex
Piper’s thinking she might wanna re-evaluate her prior plan for home, seeing as there’s not much to come home to anymore.
Piper: I lost my manipulative, gorgeous, psychopath ex and my sweet, kind, unfocused fiancé. I don’t have a home anymore.
Nicky: Yeah Chapman, you do. This shit pile. Home sweet home.
OH MY SWEET JESUS IT’S A DIORAMA OF GEORGE WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE
The wires explode and Nicky says Larry’s on the right track with this story — nobody’s spending money in these parts, and there may not be a lot of money, but I mean, there has to be SOME money, somewhere, for something. Right? The hamster wheel in Piper’s brain starts turning…
We then traverse to another room in this fine institution, where Fischer has summoned Caputo to tell him that she’s been on the wire listening to the inmate’s phone conversations and that this shit is “amazing” and “like reading Dickens.”
I mean did you know that there’s PORN all over the internet? Like with NAKED PEOPLE DOING SEX! On THE INTERNET!
Fischer gives Caputo props for standing up to Fig’s demand for a Shot Quota. Caputo asks how her boyfriend is and she says they broke up ’cause he wore a lot of vests. I think we’re all familiar with where this story is headed.
Caputo invites her to the next Side Boob gig. “I love music!” she says. It would’ve been so much cooler if she’d said “I love sideboob!”
Back to Love, Lies and Videotape — Leanne had a thing with her boss at Long John Silver’s and then she found out that his wife was wicked hot, “so that was nice.” So basically love is a bunch of lesbian hushpuppies, according to Leanne.
But as side dishes go, you could do a whole lot worse than the creamy cole slaw
In Tastyee Poussey’s Library of Love, Poussey and Taystee’s jovial reading of Alice in Wonderland is interrupted by Maxwell telling Taystee it’s time to leave the library for her new job in custodial.
“I felt as if my admiration for Kitty Butler had lit a beacon inside me, and opening my unguarded mouth had sent a shaft of light into the darkened room, illuminating all. I had said too much – but it was that, or say nothing.”
It’s clear this is the first Poussey’s heard about this, and quickly her face falls like a little lesbian flower. Why would Taystee leave the enchanting forest of literature for the murky swamp of mopping? WHY GODDESS WHY?
But we haven’t even gotten to the part where Nan becomes a male prostitute!
Taystee explains that Vee’s got a little “something” in the works and that’s why she’s gotta switch to custodial. This is probably like at Socialist Jewish Youth Camp when all the cool kids picked custodial as their work assignment so they could smoke pot in the bathrooms and fuck around by the dumpsters. I picked painting, by the way. We made a mural. It was really pretty. Where was I? Oh yes, in this sad world where Taystee and Poussey won’t be knocking boots in the stacks anymore. Also, Taystee says she “owes” Vee and that Poussey wouldn’t understand what that’s like — basically, she’s drawing a line in the sand between what she perceives as Poussey’s privileged upbringing and her own, in which riskier choices had to be made and loyalty holds unusual power.
Just rip out all the pages with Nan/Diana sex scenes, hide them in your vagina, and we can read them together later tonight, okay?
“She could probably get you transferred I bet,” Taystee offers.
“Nah,” Poussey replies. “No. I know when I got it good.”
Flashbackland: Scissortown, FullBoobsville, Germany. We’ve got two naked ladies rubbing their vaginas against one another on a bed and one of them is Poussey, so basically this moment should bring you back to about three PM on June 6th when you had to change your underwear.
G-d bless actresses without nudity clauses
Poussey and Franziska are straining to make the legendary sex position work to no avail — a leg cramps, a thing feels good and then it doesn’t and then they laugh. “I told you scissoring wasn’t a thing,” Poussey resigns as they both grin, flopping into bed beside each other like two girls in love.
!!!!!!!!!!!
Poussey tells Franziska that she likes the saying, “Love is not about staring at each other, but staring off in the same direction.” But Franziska says she likes staring at Poussey too much to like that saying, a feeling to which all of us at home can relate.
And that’s where we’ll hang the mobile for Poussey Junior
Franziska is thirsty so Poussey produces a magical glass of water and tips it into her mouth, letting a lot drip onto Franziska’s body, providing a slippery trail Poussey traces with her mouth all the way down between Franziska’s thighs.
WELP
…BUT THEN WHO SHOULD WALK IN BUT…
Are you doing it on my new duvet cover?
Oh whoops sorry, wrong “parent walks in on their child they didn’t know was gay having sex with a lady” scene. HERE:
Hey sweetie just wanted to see if you wanted to go out for Yogurtland OH MY GOD
It’s Franziska’s father!
WHO LEAVES THEIR DOOR UNLOCKED WHEN THEIR FATHER LOOKS LIKE HE JUST WALKED OFF THE SET OF THE HITLER’S RAGE SCENE IN “DOWNFALL”
We return to Litchfield, where brave Bennett is nervously smuggling in Daya’s important pregnancy vitamins.
Mmm, yup, feels like you’re hiding a baby bunny in your lower back, we’re gonna have to check that out
In the kitchen, the girls prepare heart-shaped sugar cookies with frosting and Maritza’s are really truly awful. “You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Maria says, ’cause she tells it like it is. “You know that, right?”
Flaca you know we can’t get political when we decorate cookies! After Caputo trashed your Free Asana cookies last year do you really think Hillary 2016 is gonna go over well?
Bennet shows up with the goodies but Daya doesn’t wanna play the normal game anymore ’cause she’s depressed about how they’re never gonna be normal. Good observation.
Hey I worked my ass off to buy you that hairnet show me some respect!
Elsewhere in the Hallowed Halls of Litchfield, Healy overhears Soso telling a new inmate who’s been assigned Healy as her counselor that none of the girls really like him, so he might not be the best shoulder to cry on, but if she’s tough, she’ll be fine.
Just ate a bucket of creamy cole slaw
Healy feels sad.
Is trying to remember how many toaster strudels are left in the freezer
Piper’s snooping, yeah she’s snooping. She’s doin’ work — fixing shit, wires are involved, tools have been extracted — but she’s also snooping. She’s snooping for the scoop with 20 questions for Luscheck.
Has anybody tried to have lesbian sex up here? Seems secluded.
Like — have you noticed all these fuses blowing? Luschek has, yes, is she just now noticing that the place is falling apart? What happened to the electrical budget, Piper wants to know! We upgraded a thing, says Luschek! Did you though? Asks Piper. Obviously not, he implies. This place is fucked up, she says. You don’t want to know the half of it, he tells her. DUM DUM DUM.
Look, I’m not exactly a saint, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for Ezra to be sleeping with Aria, even if he’s not working at Rosewood. It’s just not right, she’s too young.
Cut to a rousing session of Yoga with Yoga Jones. Today’s session will be rudely accompanied by unwanted molestation from our resident lesbian, Big Boo!
IS THAT BITCH WEARING MY SOCKS??!!!
It will also entail a visit from Red and her magical caravan of treats — sunflower seeds for Boo, eyeshadow for Anita, tea for Yoga Jones.
Yoga Jones: “Well look who’s back.”
I’ve hid condoms in these tea bags so now all of us can share sex toys
Red tells everybody to continue being a dolphin. Good call.
Back in White Girl Row, Nicky’s congratulating herself on bagging a four-pointer when Red shows up to tell everybody that they have to forgive each other and be her friend. She even brought presents for everybody to convince them that it’s Friendship Super Time!
Oh wow she has the Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set I don’t know how to say no to that
Nicky says you can’t buy their love, but Red is in a HOT PANIC about how they need to band together now because otherwise Vee is going to destroy everything and everybody forever. This feels accurate.
The moment I held her breast in my hand, that’s when I knew — I was bisexual and there was no fighting it for one more minute
Over in commissary, Maxwell’s threatening to vote libertarian because they can’t stock cigarettes anymore what kind of fresh hell is this!?!?! Then Poussey drops by to ask Vee if they can step outside for a little one-on-one.
C’mon, just pull my finger a lil bit
Vee obliges and the two relocate.
Vee: Lemme guess, “Yo, Vee I’m just so mad since y’all got Taystee transferred to custodial. Just left me in the library with my titties in my hand.” Close?
Poussey: No, you left out, “If you get her in trouble, I’ll kill you.”
This nausea in my stomach? Yeah, that’s what I get from looking at you. And also I had some creamy cole slaw from Long John Silver’s and it isn’t sitting well with the halibut.
Vee challenges Poussey like it’s all just posturing — how are you gonna kill me? Poussey doesn’t know. Poussey would figure it out. Vee’s not scared.
Poussey: I know she thinks she owes you, but from what I heard, you’re just a bully who uses lost kids for her own shit and then dumps them soon as the heat comes down. You’re a fucking vampire!
Vee: There was this kid growing up. His name was Haro Jones. He had these arms. I just wanted to lick the length of his arms. And then one day I walked into the park, found his hand up Jamela Larkin’s skirt. Broke my poor fool heart.
Ugh it’s so embarrassing when she just bursts into song in the hallway
Poussey doesn’t give a fuck about Vee’s little stories, but you get the point, yeah? We all know where this story is going, don’t we? To that point that so many lesbians have had thrust in their face by people who are mean like Vee and people who aren’t mean but think they’re doing you a favor you can’t already do yourself.
Vee: “Taystee. Will never. Love. You. She will never love you. Not the way you want.”
Poussey laughs. She’s heard this one before.
Poussey: “Yo I don’t want her like that. I’m just looking out for her, that’s all.”
Of course Poussey does, in fact, want her like that, but that’s not what this is about, is it? Whether or not Taystee can ever love Poussey back “the way she wants” is irrelevant — Poussey loves her, and wants to keep her safe.
Be real with me do you truly think I remind you of Cruella DeVille, if it helps I can pull up last week’s Autostraddle recap for an illustration
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Best/worst episode. Why can’t Poussey have nice things?!?!?! I just want her to have one nice thing.
Also does anyone else have a slight crush on Murphy? She doesn’t seem to get nice things either. Maybe she and Poussey would get along. Litchfield should get OkCupid for inmates.
Yes to the Murphy crush. I don’t quite know what it is that makes her so compelling, but she’s real cute and I want to know more things about her.
I saw her in person once at a movie theater with my gf at the time, I could not keep it together. She’s effing adorable.
I thank you for providing the specific screencaps you knew we all needed.
Kids I didn’t watch any of season 2 until my trip to Germany so I could watch it with my dual-citizen girlfriend. When Poussey’s flashback started I yelled at the tiny laptop screen that my German girlfriend was WAY HOTTER than Poussey’s German girlfriend.
You are one lucky duck!!
I have watched this episode while crying profusely an unhealthy number of times, and while it didn’t have that picture of Kate at the beginning, this recap did this episode justice perfectly. It picked up every hilarious detail and now I get to scroll through them all again at work and try not to snort laugh when customers are here.
I like OITNB and this season was fine. But here is one thing that I have to say. This isn’t a “fan plea” or a “pipe dream” but an official declaration:
Poussey in Germany – everything going on there; should be its own show.
I would burn my retina’s into to blindness watching, and re-watching all the awesomeness that it would be.
That is all.
Maybe they shouldn’t make it, for the sake of your (and all of our) health…
But I…I already started writing fanfic. It must happen, I shall not let my sultry words go wasted!
Wow. This gif really captures all my feelings about this episode, and I fully appreciate it’s existence, so I’m just going to post it again. I also kind of wish it could be my screensaver? Too much?
Make it into a moving wizard tattoo
also would v. much like this to be a tiger beat cover
SO MANY POUSSEY FEELINGS. Can’t even articulate them all. This was a standout episode, Samira Wiley did a stellar job, Poussey is my favourite.
Also, I really enjoyed the old lady crew this season. I hope we see more from them.
In other news, I do not care about Healy or his sad feels. I really, really do not.
The older ladies are absolutely so badass.
I would love it if Franziska got back into contact with Poussey next season! Maybe she could start sending Poussey letters? I just love stories where people who were cruely ripped apart find each other again. Real spit in the eye of Franziska’s asshole of a dad!
I always thought Poussey was great but wasn’t THAT obsessed. But then she starts speaking German!! I was officially done right there and then. In love with Poussey forever and for always. Also the final Germany flashbacks were the only thing in the series to make me actually cry…but I guess I am only on episode 10 so there’s still time haha.
i have to say i don’t know what to do about Pennsatucky. in the first season she was deliciously evil, the kind of evil that you wonder what kind of psychosis she had i compare her to heath ledger’s level of evil in batman. And i don’t know if the nastiness is still there or the beat down she took knocked the evil out.
If you didn’t love Poussey after this episode you were never going to love her. She has always been my favorite character but this episode really set that in stone.
This episode also provided a nice little moment between Morello and Suzanne which confirms that Morello is actually capable of not being a racist asshole at times. It’s the one character flaw that I really wish they would do away with altogether.
Oh, and Vee will forever and always be THE WORST PERSON EVER. Lorraine Toussant is amazing. It’s been a while since an actor has been so compelling at making me hate their character beyond words while admiring their ruthlessness at the same time.
YES that scene with Morello and Suzanne was really perfect, and so unexpected.
Toootally agree about Vee. I hate her, but love her character. Her manipulation skills, man.
“Here. It’s poison.”
“I LOVE POISON!”
-All of us gulping down liquor at the gay barz
!!!
Definitely all the feelings for Poussey. We’ve been getting flashbacks like crazy this season. Jimmy reminds me a lot of my geriatric-psych patients. When they have dementia and they’re just looking for someone.
I know this is very out of place and all, but I just needed a space to say that I just really love Watson and think she’s a babe. Good? Good.
Oh my god I’ve been in love with Watson for a while now. But I’m sad her and Yoga don’t hang anymore… they were the cutest of friends.
i was in love with watson and was convinced she was queer until we found out that she wasn’t queer and then i was sad and decided to like poussey instead but watson is still my first love
I feel like my story is basically the same except that Watson is still my main lady love because of her never-ending babe factor and distant memories of her attractive badassery in season one
Super excited about this episode, super excited about Poussey! As a German I really liked that she spoke “real” German and not just some invented words that kind of sound German (I’m looking at you, SCRUBS!). They even found a German actress for a girlfriend.
I really liked the recap as well, just one thing…this might not be understandable for someone from another nation but I am soooo tired of Nazi jokes whenever someone is German, it is way overdone and even offensive to many of us.
Question! How was Samira Wiley’s German accent? Did she sound fluent?
Her grammar was great (kudos to the writers) but she had a pretty strong American accent. It sounded cute though ;) I don’t think she speaks German in real life but she really made an effort to sound as german as possible.
Yes. Another German here.
I found that joke off-color to the rest of the recap.
‘Any German in Uniform = Nazi’ is such a cheap shot. I expected more of Riese, even if just that she’d come up with something wittier.
Let’s not forget the Jews, Romani, Poles, Serbs, Rheinlandbastarde, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, sexual minorities, mentally and physically differently abled persons, Soviet POWs, and members of other ethnic, religious, political, sexual, or otherwise-marginalized groups that suffered under the Third Reich and its client states; some of them may also be offended by what could be interpreted as the belittlement of their suffering.
And those German actors were responsable for that? Should we Start calling Americans slave owners all the time then? I’m sorry but that’s just stupid.
And those marginalized groups you mentioned were not German?
My great-grandfather was a communist and almost ended in a concentration and I am so sick of these jokes.
I’m sorry; I must not have been clear as to my intention. I agree with you that the joke in the recap was in poor taste. I just wanted to supplement your comment by adding a list of others who might find the joke offensive.
Some members of some of these groups who suffered under the Third Reich or one of its client states—Communists, for example—were indeed German. I never sought to didpute that. Other Communists who suffered under the Third Reich or one of its client states were not. Still other Communists who did not themselves suffer under the Third Reich or one of its client states may nevertheless take offense at the joke on account of their comrades’ suffering. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, for the other groups.
Once again, I apologize for any misunderstanding I may have caused.
Oh I’m sorry I misread your comment, now I get what you meant and I agree.
It is just frustrating when a nation has worked very hard to overcome the horror their ancestors have done to other people and make sure not to take part in any wars anymore and all that but no one seems to care because Germans = Nazis = War and that is all your nation stands for even if you were born 40 or 50 years after that. And Autostraddle just usually is not a place for something like that. (And yes, then there’s also the problem of the feeling of Holocaust victims when it comes to Nazi jokes).
I understand. If it’s any consolation, I don’t blame you for the Holocaust.
Before this episode my favourite memory of anything German was dancing with some random slightly drunk people, bonding over our apparently mutual love of Fine Young Cannibals “She Drives Me Crazy” while I tried to explain that it was the #1 song the day I was born, which was a challenge, because I was at a Hard Rock Cafe in Munich and didn’t speak ANY German.
After this episode, I have a new favourite German thing.
This was my favorite episode of the season and solidified my obsession with Poussey. I loved her backstory and I was shocked at the scissoring scene! I thought it was really tender and great but also pretty graphic, it was a very pleasant surprise. Also, Franziska really does have great boobs.
Jimmy at the Sideboob gig was legit one of the best moments on the show.
To be fair, there are plenty of stupid white guys who do speak German: over thirty million in Germany alone, actually.
To be honest all I care about in this episode was that Maritza and Flaca hooked up, I think that they secretly dig each other. I’m even more curious as to what Poussey’s crime was. I always had this idea that Poussey’s mom had cancer and she was working an 9 to 5 while selling weed to pay for her moms medical bills but I’m happy with her canon backstory and I also really enjoyed the fact that her father supported her. That scene between Morello and Suzanne was really sweet
thank you for recapping!