Hello and welcome to the first recap of the third season of Orange is the New Black, which dropped six hours early, therefore saving Intern Nikki from watching Men in Black II with her parents because there was nothing else good on Netflix. Y’ALL THIS SEASON IS SO GOOD.
We open in a brand-new van with air conditioning and upholstery that doesn’t smell like hot dogs and/or despair. Pennsatucky’s at the wheel with an alternative lifestyle haircut that’s evolved into a Mandy Mooreish situation. She’s full of wise observations on buttering your muffin and, um, racist observations about crack. Maxwell and Wanda are unamused — which, as usual, is of no concern to Pennsatucky, who misses social cues like Ruth missed her actual cues in our 7th grade production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Come ONNNN don’t front you KNOW you wanna listen to “Shake It Off” again
They’re headed to CVS to get some sexy party gear for Mother’s Day, because they’re having a big celebration. It’s the New Improved Litchfield, where humans are no longer treated like animals but instead like humans-resentfully-accepted-as-mostly-human.
Look if you’re convinced an electric toothbrush is a suitable vibrator stand-in, then go for it, but that’s not going on the company card
FLASHBACK!
Do I look like a sucker who thinks you can only make bugle noises with actual bugles? BLOW HARDER!
Young Pennsatucky is squirmy and hyperactive like a little monster — possibly ’cause Mom made her chug a bottle of Mountain Dew before their social security appointment.
Doc, you gotta help me get these cups off my ears. I feel like my head is the Holland Tunnel.
So the deal is this: Pennsatucky’s Mom cares about her kid because she cares about the size of her social security check. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
Back in Litchfield, Red’s been released from medical and is moved into where Rosa once lay dying, which’s been transformed into a shrine Red now must deconstruct, much to Anita’s brief despair. Then, to Anita’s brief delight, Red offers up one of the Oxys she’s got stashed away someplace special but again, to Anita’s brief despair, Red’s been stashing them in her cheek. Anita’s not into cheeks, so.
NOW do I look like the grumpy cat?
Seriously, isn’t anybody in this room on the market for some free hydrocodone? ANYBODY?
Yeah sure I guess a hand massage sounds nice
HEY-O!
Yes ma’am, somebody in this room needs some pain relief and her name rhymes with Phallic Moss.
Speaking of moss: out in the lush green yard, Caputo strolls along with a new counselor, Rogers, trying to show her “the ropes” while being repeatedly foiled by her superior intelligence and perception skills. She’s gonna crack everybody wide open like an egg, isn’t she? (Healy will remain poached, I assume, or else soft-boiled.)
So uhh, what do you ladies do in bed anyhow?
Nice try.
Taystee shows up like an old friend we’ve missed since June 7th, 2014, but who is played by an actress whose off-season journeys into Leslandia kept us reasonably entertained on instagram in the meantime.
Brittany and Santana got married? Huh. I guess I’ll have to catch up on that.
Then we’re in the kitchen.
Come on it’s just a Tide stick chill out
Gloria’s doing her darnedest to do some egg magic on the Weeping Woman and generally being boss, as is her way, when Poussey shows up straight outta Saintlandia of My Heartsville. She’s got an idea for Mother’s Day game booth and before you ask, no, it’s not cornhole.
It’s not this
They’re gonna toss ping-pong balls into tiny bowls of water for prizes! Poussey’s even gonna buy prizes for the kids from commissary, ’cause she’s got a heart bigger than the world’s largest intestine. But seriously, maybe someone should text Pennsatucky to see if she’s still at Duane Reade and could possibly pick up some half-off Cadbury Eggs ’cause commissary shit is hella overpriced to be giving away. Like if you were at a basketball game inside a Renaissance festival inside a theme park inside an airport inside an airplane, whatever tootsie rolls would cost there, double that, and that’s what they go for in commissary.
Poussey tells Gloria, “It’s y’all’s day, must be hard as fuck being in here when you got kids on the outside.”
Yo has anybody seen my tiny decorative pillow? It says “Life is about the little things” on it?
Gloria reminds Poussey to remember to call her mother, and Poussey’s perfect face falls when she’s gotta disclose that her Mom recently died. Oh girl, I feel you. So Poussey is standing there heart-deep in consuming fleeting grief and Gloria says she’s sorry to hear that and then does that thing — that thing they all do on this show, in this world, where they’re only allowed to express a certain small amount of care about the pain of anybody outside of their crew. Because empathy or sympathy is weakness, right? You can be polite and feel a little pang, but that’s it, no matter how sad and soft and vulnerable a person is, you can’t go soft too.
Sorry, I forgot, no talking about anal fisting while you’re cooking
So Blanca’s like, “I won a goldfish once in one of those games. Tequila, we named him. We gave him fruit loops to eat. Like 12 years that thing lived. Until my cousin Antoni ate him on a dare, fucking asshole.” Same.
In the yard, Piper and Luscheck are building a mini-golf course for the party and talking ideal suicide methods when Luscheck lets it slip that “the hot one’s back.” Piper’s whole emotional situation changes and she immediately requests the afternoon off. Her lesbian request is denied.
I mean sure it’s not an exact replica of the squeal wheel, but it’s pretty close!
Over at Vidal Sassoon Litchfield, Sophia’s prioritizing mothers who need haircuts, which doesn’t include Moretti and her imaginary four children.
Moretti: I need this, I lost my van, I’ve been scrubbing toilets. Let me feel like a person!
Maria: You can feel like a person after I see my actual baby who came out of me and exists.
Moretti’s chatty and desperate, sad, displaced: Sophia pities her, much to Maria’s chagrin and says she’ll do her up quick. Sophia’s pretty excited herself about Mother’s Day ’cause Michael’s coming!
Girl for serious? A Shane cut?
No. She’s getting an Alice, we talked about it on the way over, it’s FINAL.
Moretti asks what that’s like, being a “ladyman” on Mother’s Day with her wife now dating a Pastor who’s gonna get celebrated on Father’s Day, and Sophia is all like:
Sophia: You really wanna call me a ladyman when I’ve got a fistful of your hair in my hand?
Moretti: Oh, I just thought it sounded nice. I don’t know from these things. That’s why I’m asking questions.
Then we smash-cut into a flashback of Sophia and her pregnant wife, back when Michael was just an idea and Sophia was keeping her secrets wound tight. They’re so cute and so happy, just two expectant mothers on a couch giddy on hope and hormones, singing and rubbing feet and feeling like the future is still theirs for the taking.
Hey little baby. Anybody ever told you that love is a lie and everybody dies alone?
Down in laundry, Angie’s convinced that Nicky’s been hanging out around there ‘cause she’s crushing on her. Leanne points out that Angie sucked a cock for a bag of ranch Doritos.
Is that puppy obsessed with its own reflection in the mirror?
But nope, of course, Nicky’s not there to show Angie her ass in some tan pants or woo her into some churchy cunnilingus — she’s there to stare at the drugs in the vent. Which brings us to a LITTLE NICKY FLASHBACK!
Significantly better than the original
Specifically, Little Nicky’s staring at the muffins she’s making for her mother, ’cause it’s Mother’s Day, and she’s a kid who doesn’t know yet that her mother is terrible. It’s just her mother, and that’s enough.
Well somebody got cum in my hair and it wasn’t Daddy.
I hope you remember this moment when you wonder why your daughter turned out gay
“She didn’t even read my card,” says Little Nicky after her Mom ignores the muffins and orders the housekeeper to dress her daughter so they can get through brunch at the Four Seasons with Grandma and then Mommy can go to the spa, alone. I can’t even give you a screencap of the card situation ’cause kids doing cute things for other humans who don’t appreciate the cute things BREAKS ME APART INSIDE.
In the Mel-Caf, Nikky’s complementing Moretti’s dark ripe fruits, which fills both of them with a type of temporary sanity, when Piper’s wilted stalk of celery shows up with a black eye, much to everybody’s delight and surprise and much to Alex’s embarrassment.
Hey, isn’t that chick a Scientologist?
Piper’s so damn happy to see her girl she can barely contain it, but she’s gotta, ’cause Alex is in a bad way, and clearly wasn’t, as I thought last season, hinting to Piper that she’d be safer in jail than on the outside and maybe wouldn’t necessarily mind returning if it meant she’d stay alive. “Why am I here,” Alex wants to know. What if we took a walk, Piper wants to know.
Do they have Netflix here yet? I just got super into House of Cards.
Nobody knows for sure what happened to Vee but Suzanne, for one, wants to believe that Vee’s out there somewhere, scheming in the sunshine, perhaps once again plotting to emotionally manipulate Suzanne into confessing to a federal crime she didn’t commit. Now Taystee’s in charge of making sure Suzanne doesn’t throw food at people.
Get this, the girl is WHITE! She’s a terrible white girl pretending to be black and heading up the Spokane chapter of the NAACP!
This episode is flashing back like Quantam Leap, y’all, and now we’re time-traveling back to Little Poussey in bed with her mother and oh sweet jesus mary heaven whatever I’m a Jew I don’t know, sweet abraham issac and jacob, Poussey and her Mom are reading Calvin & Hobbes. Poussey is being Calvin and her Mom is being Hobbes!
Really? You swear Bill Watterson is the one who doesn’t want to make Hobbes stuffed animals and it’s not just you refusing to buy me one?
Little Poussey looks like one of those girls who grew up too scrawny and hard and boyish for anybody to know what to do with her. Except her mother. Who loves her and is loved in return. And now she’s dead and now we’re sad.
Aleida, a name my various word-processing situations are determined to turn into another word, like “Allied,” informs her daughter that she’s already a mother ’cause her kid’s already giving her pain and trouble and that’s what motherhood is. Daya brushes her off, so Aleida comes back harder, snatching a stack of Daya’s mail like there’s gonna be a Delia*s catalog or a Good Vibrations commission check in there or something. But there IS a fancy letter from Connecticut!
No we are not paying $5,000 a plate for this HRC dinner
It’s from Mendez’s Mom! She’d like to meet up and discuss the future of Asher Millstone Junior. Aleida sees money and wants it, but Daya wants none of it.
Good news, gumshoes: Boo’s got a guy on the outside to buy the drugs Nicky’s been staring at like Silent Bob at the Magic Eye kiosk. They’ve just gotta figure out a way to get said drugs out of the laundry room and into the greenhouse using something besides their vaginal canals.
This is how lesbians have sex
Out in the prison yard / organic commune, the ladies of Litchfield have taken up a full moon circle. Welcome to the “kinder, gentler Litchfield!”
Now is the time. This is the hour. Ours is the magic. Ours is the power. Now is the time. This is the hour. Ours is the magic. Ours is the power
One woman is so inspired by the moonlight that she begins undressing! This is the best slumber party EVER. Meanwhile, Red’s taking this opportunity to cover the greenhouse tunnel in cement and mark it RIP Vee. She’s probs just shifting all her operations to Shopify or HelloMerch.
Healy’s pissed that Rogers got hired, ‘cause he’s fundamentally opposed to the idea of Two Counselors One Prison Camp. Also he’s racist and homophobic and misogynist and awful, but he’s so pathetic in his awfulness that I can’t even bring myself to actively demolish him with my words anymore.
We can’t BOTH sell little dolls with pumpkin heads on Etsy! That’s MY gig! I’ve worked my whole life for that!
So we flash on back to a Healy flashback: one small plump child with a breakfast tray for his mom, one mom scrawling on the yellow wallpaper, negotiating with nobody for a world only she can see.
Do you think my costume looked all right for Brooks? I think he was a little amazed.
He’s probably seen it before.
No, no, this is the revolutionary costume! I never wear this in East Hampton!
Ah yes, this is where it all began — she throws an ashtray at him and then she wants to dance, and he’s just trying to keep up. Happy Mother’s Day!
Meanwhile, Piper and Alex are kinda-cuddling in the church, stroking each other’s hair and talking about their Moms. Like how Piper’s isn’t coming for Mother’s Day, and how Alex’s is dead because remember that time her mother died and Piper left her? These two!
Look if your boobs are grapefruits, than mine are honeydew melons, alright?
Alex thinks her Mom is probably looking down on her from heaven vomiting angel dust. That’s what I’d do if my daughter was in That 70s Show. Have I talked about how much I hated that show yet. It was ALWAYS ON.
Alex is beating herself up for bearing arms when Davy Crockett came a-knocking, and Piper’s plan to foil the despair with a little kiss is foiled by snot from Alex’s nose. Alex is crying and cursing herself, and Piper is right there on the precipice of telling the truth but just can’t. She’s got this needy girl in her lap who’s the only inmate semi-interested in entertaining Piper’s ridiculousness. Plus, now Piper holds all the cards. Alex named her, so then she named Alex. And here we both are.
Piper: It wasn’t you. It was the system. You got caught.. in the system.
Alex: I’m just a fly in the prison-industrial complex?
Piper: But at least we’re in the same web, right?
But haven’t you read the fanfic? We’re so hot together!
You know I only read Sparia fan-fic.
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LMAO! Good work getting the Sparia fic reference in! Poor Poussey keeps hurting my heart. I wish she could get a lovely lady to make her feel better. :( I mean i’m on episode five and she hasn’t so far.
I know she just keeps breaking my heart over and over and over!
This season is just. Oh man. I finished it and oh man.
Also while I have no tv-recap-writing experience, I have recapped tv and have writing experience, so I Am Interested in tryin out for an episode or two.
I finished it last night and it was so good I can hardly contain myself
Damn it Yadriel I was rooting for you we were all rooting for you how dare you also Flaca’s make up skills are on point also poor Poussey and poor Gloria and poor Maria. Man I just want nice things for everyone
YES i was like NOOOOOOOO i was so happy at the end of the last season when they busted his story open — when it became clear that he did love maria and did care desperately about their child, he just wasn’t a big talker, and it really forced the viewer to confront their own pre-conceived stereotypes about what his silence meant. AND THEN.
I know I was really rooting for them, man and I also liked that little twist last season. I mean on some level I get where he’s coming from but I don’t see how he thinks it’s a good idea to take away one of the only things that Maria has to look forward too.
Sparia fanfic and mysterious lesbian sex are my all time two favorite running gags and here they are, together at last
bless it
OK so at some weird point in my life this winter I had a dream that OITNB came out super early and y’all recapped it. The whole dream was just me sitting there reading the recap, so this is giving me a weird sense of deja vu right now
Phallic Moss?Oh no,you didn’t! *wipes tear*
“Taystee shows up like an old friend we’ve missed since June 7th, 2014, but who is played by an actress whose off-season journeys into Leslandia kept us reasonably entertained on instagram in the meantime.”
LOL! Oh Reise, if you only knew how much I enjoyed this line. I wasn’t expecting a recap so early! Thank you Autostraddle
You’re welcome!
this recap was brilliant. also love the captions- specifically the references to Rachel Dolezal and the Phantom Tollbooth one. excellent!
i wasn’t sure anybody would get the phantom toolbooth reference but i think about that part all the time! bless you
the phantom tollbooth reference was my favorite! very closely followed by the labyrinth reference. SO GREAT.
Tears, this episode nearly brought them so many times! I saw my mother today, <3
Poussey’s vignette really caught me. I REMEMBER that Calvin and Hobbes strip (said everyone ever.) When she saw it in the pinata remnants…
I've only seen the first two episodes, but Sophia's parts have hit close to home as well!
Bless you for filling the void after finishing the season with hilarious banter and captions.
bless you for blessing me grasshopper
I just finished the season. I have so many feelings. So good and somehow they redeemed every character that I never really liked before. And somehow made me love tastyee and black Cindy even more. But now I don’t know what to do with myself. Who was I before season 3, what did I do with my spare time? Also ruby rose was criminally under used. I look forward to reliving it all with future recaps.
This is the only episode I’ve seen so far! I want to watch the rest but I’ve got prior engagements (watching Sense8).
Also I thought that was so weird when Sophia was talking to her son about how to shave and talk to girls. but i think she was just trying to deal with being a trans parent and not quite knowing how to do that, you know?
also that part with maria and her baby and Yadriel KILLED me. that was too much. like, way too much.
that part with sophia WAS weird, i felt like it was kind of out of character for her as she’s been written so far
That scene between Sophia and Michael (her son) was definitely weird and out of character for her. But I’ve been erring on the side of that was the intentional point? She’s in a position of trying to relate to and parent her teenage son who has only just now began to allow her back into his life. And I think she’s also (subconsciously) trying to “one up” her ex-wife’s new boyfriend and the role he plays in her son’s life. She’s a little afraid of being replaced, I think. And maybe all of those layers led her to make some misguided choices re: advice to give her son.
I dunno. That situation has got to be hard. And awkward. I think the scene necessarily and adequately demonstrates that.
But It’s entirely possible that I’m giving too much credit to the writers here.
@c-p @meyrude It struck me as SO WEIRD too but like you suggested @c-p, also reminded me of how when I’m feeling insecure about winning somebody over, I’m often liable to say all kinds of ridiculous things that i shouldn’t say in order to get them to bond with me? and then i hate myself afterwards? like it’s easier to form a bond with somebody by sharing something that isn’t fit for public consumption — something special and controversial and just between the two of you — than it is to say something anybody could say because it’s a thing that’s acceptable to say. like specifically to say a thing the pastor would never say.
but yeah, that could be too much credit. i think even if it was what we’re saying it was, the advice itself still doesn’t make much sense? like what? that’s stupid advice any way you cut it. why an insecure girl? ’cause she’d be more likely to put out? i mean, sure, okay… but that doesn’t really compute… also like, if you want to learn how to be a good sexual partner, it’s probs better to be with somebody who’s vocal and confident about asserting what’s good for them and what isn’t.
i think maybe the spirit of the writer who’s been ruining broad city haunted the script of oitnb in that moment. cuz i was like, wait…so now we’re praying on insecure girls? how did we get here??
YADRIEL!!!!!!
Great start to the season. It really set up the theme of the season which, to me, is that trying to make everyone happy doesn’t work…especially in prison. The “kinder, gentler Litchfield” is going to backfire and big. The girl doing drugs she smuggled in her baby’s diaper was a nice reminder of where they were.
And I loved little Nicky!! (Not the movie.) So cute!
Oh man this episode was A LOT. Like, a lot a lot. Moms and sad Poussey and Bennet meeting Daya’s family (BENNET ) and just too too much. They really started off the season with all of the Feelings.
yes! i liked that everybody got a little time, too — like last year’s premiere felt so weird ’cause it was only piper? and i totally understand, story-wise, why it had to be that way, and it was an interesting experiment. but this felt better, seeing everybody at once, and set the tone for the whole season to be more evenly distributed between storylines than previous seasons.
I WILL HIT YOU UP ABOUT RECAPPING. Should we just leave the “your submission” section blank?
you should maybe recap a few scenes in the “your submission” part to let us see what you can do. or link to recaps you’ve done elsewhere, if that’s a thing!
Thanks!
More ruby rose in season 4 please.
at a-camp lauren morelli said they’ve already started writing season four, i wonder when we’ll find out if ruby rose is gonna be in it
If the season doesn’t follow up on the Maria/Yadriel situation I am going to melt into a sad confused pile.
HOW IS DAYA STILL PREGNANT? I’M WRITING MY OWN RECAP LIKE WTF HOW IS DER STILL A BEBE IN DER??
piper and alex need to get on the Maury. they’re whole love thing isn’t cute. the name of their Maury episode needs to be Help I’m Still In Love W the B*tch Who Put Me In Jail
that would be such a good episode of maury
I would TiVo the hell out of that.
[Does TiVo even exist anymore? Anyway]
Pennsatucky’s hair this episode was the bane of my visual existence aaaaagh.
Hello thank you for this, it was very funny, especially the part about the cost of tootsie rolls.
That last scene made me tear up… Wanna give Pousey a big hug! Her Mama’s hanging out with my mama in heaven…
Yes Recaps!
I’m late to the party – just finished watching the third season today. So many mother issues, so many feelings! Looking forward to reading through the recaps as they get published so I can process some of those feelings with all you wonderful persons.
Who else squealed when Alex was the one who turned around in the bunk?! I never thought I’d be so happy to see someone in prison clothes again lol. I think I literally had heart eye emojis for eyes during the Alex and Piper snuggling scene in the chapel. They might be the most dysfunctional couple ever but they’re also the cutest couple ever *sigh*
SO LATE TO THIS BUT. I really am enjoying the season so far! I like how they kicked it off with Mother’s Day. Way to give everyone feelings.
I don’t want to be rude, and I know that it’s been a month and so nobody will see this probably? But it’s Morello, not Moretti… just wanted to let you know. (I referred to my roommate’s gf as Steph for an entire conversation even though I knew full well her name was Soph and when called out realized I genuinely hadn’t noticed I’d been saying something else. So. I feel u)