In the Mel-Caf, Black Cindy is searching for Jews and Taystee wants to talk to Poussey about Judy King but Poussey’s hanging out with the Silent Faith-Healer Normamites.
Dude, did you see that “Megaladon The Monster Shark Lives” documentary last night? That shit was crazy!
That shit was made up. It wasn’t a real documentary.
CO Ford’s pissed that they’re not in a union anymore, but CO Luscheck doesn’t give a fuck ‘cause he’s a drug dealer now and he doesn’t have kids who need to get vaccinated… just like, I imagine, all the underqualified brand new part-time hires.
Somebody has that screwdriver and I’m gonna find out who it is if it’s the last thing I do
Black Cindy has located a Jew! The bad news it that it’s not me. The good news is that it’s a Jew.
Ginsberg: My last name is Ginsberg, for fuck’s sake.
Black Cindy: And?
Ginsberg: My Hebrew name is Shayna Malka.
Black Cindy: Huh?
Taystee: Shayna Mala?
Wait, I thought Hannukah was the most important Jewish holiday of the year? The one with the presents?
This whole exchange is pure gold. Or PURE GELT, if you will.
Ginsberg: I was Bat Mitzvah’ed at Temple Beth Israel, and at the party, I played “Wind Beneath my Wings,” backed up by a full orchestra. I killed it, by the way.
Black Cindy: But hold up now shawty, you got blonde hair and blue eyes, you know what I’m saying? That combo don’t show up much with y’all from what I hear.
Ginsberg: So clearly you’re already an expert! Okay, I’m gonna go sit at another table—
Black Cindy: No sit sit sit sit sit. Now I’m just assessing over here. I’m offering hella commissary for some Jew 411. So I’m gonna need to know if I’m getting my candy’s worth okay? Now calm the fuck down. Next question: what you in here for?
Ginsberg: Money laundering.
Black Cindy: Okay, now we talkin’.
As a Jew who feels pretty confident that she’s convinced her Christian fiancé to convert eventually and who has a newly-converted friend (HI ELIZABETH!), this storyline makes my heart sing Oseh Shalom with the ghost of Debbie Friedman. Once again, I am challenged to recap a Black Cindy scene because she is already funnier than anything I could ever write about her.
We then travel to a high-security prison where Pornstache’s being held to save us from having to look at his face too frequently. Mama’s come to visit! She listens to him whine about how Daya ignores all his love letters about how they’re star-crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet and Shane and Cherie Jaffee.
Oh honey, you look awful! Who gave you that haircut?
I GAVE IT TO MYSELF.
Unfortunately, when Mama breaks the news about his alleged offspring’s parentage, he will not take “you are NOT the father” for an answer. See, as Pornstache sees it, that woman and her baby, like so many women and their babies, are not in fact actual humans with their own needs, wants, desires and dreams, but rather they are vessels created to cure the rotten souls of men like this man right here. Surprise!
Suzanne and Morello share a touching sweeping moment together in which they sweep and Suzanne discloses that she’s a virgin, and she’s so tender and embarrassed about it and Morello is so tender and sweet in return. All that sex stuff she writes is just made-up, like that time I managed to get a lesbian erotica story published despite never having had lesbian sex before. Don’t worry, I had LOTS of lesbian sex shortly thereafter and you can trust me now. Anyhow!
Now you’re gonna wanna start gentle, maybe just one little finger —
But I masturbate with my whole hand…?
Morello says Suzzane’s first time is gonna be messy and weird and bumbling ‘cause everybody’s is, like her first time in joey Italiano’s basement when she was 14.
Suzanne: What do I do with my hands?
Morello: Put ‘em inside her.
Just two little misfits, hanging out in the hallway, talking about putting hands inside girls.
Tiffany and Coates go for a drive, shooting each other sly smiles while Tiffany angles for some ice cream by flirting. He makes her pull over and tells her what she needs to hear:
Coates: You don’t have to do anything. We’re friends now, I like you. If you want ice cream, you just ask, okay?
Tiffany: Okay.
Wait did that ad say ladies got in free BEFORE midnight, or AFTER midnight?
She loves double fudge chocolate and he loves rainbow sprinkles, so they’re both pretty gay.
FLASHBACK! Nathan and Tiffany are chillin’ out maxin’ watching some porn, porn that shocks her ‘cause it involves a woman smiling and getting eaten out and seemingly experiencing something unlike the malice of a frightening insect. So this is where we learn that she’s never had an orgasm or masturbated or learned, in any capacity, that sex is supposed to be fun for women, too. I’m so glad she found a lesbian boyfriend.
Tell me again why I can’t call your penis “Mr.Piddles”
He undresses her and tells her she’s beautiful, brings her closer, kisses her, puts his hand down her underpants and she’s not sure if she likes it until she realizes that she likes it. “You ain’t gotta smile,” he says. “just trust me.”
“Is this what they write songs about?” She asks. She says he’s magical. She feels amazing, this is not like the sex she learned about back then. This is not a bee sting. This is honey.
It’s okay, everybody queefs!
In the luxurious yet low-key ambiance of the Litchfield Correctional Facility Ultra Lounge, Morello’s found a nice young Italian man who thinks she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen!
I think my Diva cup just flipped over
Have you ever heard of tampons?
“There’s something about a man in a gold chain that makes me feel protected,” she gushes. Lennie says he’ll protect her from whatever, from anything at all, and she pounces: There is this one guy who’s just been so awful to her…
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Thanks for this recap; this must have been a very difficult episode to write about.
Thank you for this recap Riese
this one was rough. Thank you for writing about it anyway. <3
i loved boo and doggett this season.
best buddy pair
nathan though. totally unconvincing pixie dream guy.
Thank you for this recap, Riese. I am totally here for Boo and Tiffany’s friendship.
Actually, the fact that Doggett’s rapes fit her character so well are why I wasn’t happy with it. Daya and Bennett were *not* an anomaly, they are a romanticized version of Doggett and Coates. I wanted the show runners to explore the abuse of power there instead of introducing another, more black-and-white version of the same story. I feel like a lot of the subtlety got thrown out the window this season, unfortunately to the disservice of the characters the show has spent so much time illuminating.
I’m completely agree that the storyline about Daya and Bennett is disgustingly romanticized, and I think similar problems show up in the interactions between Red and Healy. In the earlier scenes involving Tiffany and Coates I was expecting more of the same, so I feel like at least for once the show didn’t go that route.
Red and Healy were problematic, but Red at least got that great speech about leaving a woman with only one option when you take away her power. Fuckin patriarchy in a nutshell, right there!
I kinda hate how the flashbacks made Healy into a fucked up version of Charlie Brown.
it drove me batshit that we were supposed to believe red would ever go for healy, though. it just grated at me all season!
It’s so annoyingly done! Kathryn Janeway would not stand for this
“This isn’t about a sex act between two people, it’s about one person being attacked by another.”
Thanks, Riese, for articulating the difference between rape in OITNB and rape everywhere else on TV (GOT I’m looking at you). Game of Thrones not only glorifies rape by portraying it as a sex act, it pretty much does the same thing with violence and murder.
I am not interested in rape on TV as a plot device. I am not interested in rape on TV as titillation. We will only advance past the rape culture in this country when rape is shown for what it is — an attack, a show of violence and power, the effects of which can be extremely difficult to overcome.
OITNB had some issues this season but I think they dealt with Tiffany’s chain of abuse better than anything else I’ve seen.
“I am not interested in rape on TV as a plot device. I am not interested in rape on TV as titillation. We will only advance past the rape culture in this country when rape is shown for what it is — an attack, a show of violence and power, the effects of which can be extremely difficult to overcome.”
AMEN
really feeling this stock photo
My LDR was in town when we watched it, before we gave up on the whole LD thing. It was the hardest episode to watch, I needed a minute to just hold her on my couch, but yeah, this is the feeling.
This storyline made me so fucking sad. It reminded me of how lucky I am that this has never happened to me, and made me think two thoughts: “will this ever happen to me,” followed quickly by “when will this happen to me?”
Because rape seems so inevitable to so many woman, and it breaks my heart and I can’t even deal with the rage that this inspires in me.
I want to take a sword and go out and fix all of rape culture.
Actually in my ideal world, Big Boo would be wielding a sword, and she would have a horse, and there might be artistic flames. And everyone would be out of the prison but the guards, and the women would live in a beautiful commune surrounded by a ring of fire to keep out everyone that had wronged them.
This episode seriously made me feel all the feelings.
I’ve always thought of rape as inevitable. “When will this happen to me?” is a question I’ve often asked myself, and though I’ve never thought this was a unique thought to have, it hit me pretty hard to see you ask the same question. *tight, consentual hug*
I really appreciate you doing this recap, even though I know it must’ve been rough. I did appreciate their focus on Tiffany’s face, and her experience.
Thank you for writing this.
Can I also say that living in a tiny house and spending all my time outside, eating donuts would be the perfect life?
you are not alone in that desire, i suspect
my gaydar shouts tiffany is very much lesbian who’s with me
I took this episode pretty damn hard. But this was a really good recap- and I’m glad you continued the conversation at the end.
(also PURE GELT made me laugh a lot)
This was excellent. Thank you.
Well the great commentary at the end of the recap made me cry.
So I’m gonna go back to that line with Morrello’s face “I think my diva cup flipped” because this is the funniest thing on the Internet today.
This episode was fucking depressing. Considering how hard it was to watch, I know it had to be hard to write about. Thanks, Riese.
It’s amazing how my feelings regarding Piper and Pennsatucky have changed through the seasons. I was 100% cheering on Piper in season one and hating on Pennsatucky. That was slowly changing episode by episode until this one firmly planted me in the opposite camp. I felt horrible for Tiffany especially at the end as she was just resigned to getting raped. Meanwhile I wanted to rip Piper’s hairs out of her head one by one as she once again cheated on Alex and treated Alex as the interloper when she is her girlfriend not Stella. Oh and yeah as Riese pointed out there’s that little thing about how Piper got her thrown back in there so she’d have someone to play hide behind the library shelves with. Too bad Piper wasn’t the one getting coldclocked instead of Lolly or Gloria.
I agree I think that Tiffany has come along way from who she was in season 1 and I’m glad that she’s found a friend in Big Boo. Also I really began to despise Piper as the episodes went on. In season 1 and 2 I disliked her but found her to be more annoying than anything else. I’m not the biggest Alex fan but at least she’s more self aware and doesn’t try and pretend to be morally superior.
No shade but Maritza and Flaca have way more sexual tension than Stella and Piper. I mean really their whole “panty twinsies” and “nipples got hard” lines, come on. Also I agree Sophia was acting pretty out of character when she hit Gloria. I mean you could argue that maybe stress from her son acting out combined by the threat of not seeing him as much caused her to do it but we’re just assuming these things.
Pennsatucky was built up to be this horrible character in Season one and I felt this episode strike doubly hard because I was one of those who judged her and loved to hate her back then.
Her whole arc tied in so perfectly with this episode, though, that it hurt.
I wouldn’t have believed in a million years that of all the inmates, Pennsatucky’s storyline would almost physically strike me like this.
I agree so much I hated her she was the annoying religious-freedom bearing kiddo and now ugh I love her and boo
I am sad, and I am angry.
I appreciate the way you handled the TW, also. Sensitive in a way that is also upfront, frank.
It was so difficult to keep reading these recaps, knowing that this episode was coming. Thank you for doing it, for using humor where you normally would have and letting it fade away where real life starts to really slip in. Thank you, thank you.
This whole episode was terrible. Not even getting into the sexual assault bits.
I also very, very much hated Alex in this episode. Again. Like, she’s a terrible person, but manipulating a seriously mentally ill person and just eugh. Using a seriously mentally ill person’s paranoia for your own gain. I really don’t like Alex. (I also really don’t like Piper and her blatant disregard of Alex’s mental health issues.)
(But you don’t see a whole lot of criticism on Alex about the whole manipulating of a mentally ill person. And that’s a shame. Speaking as a mentally ill person.)
I’m confused…are you talking about this episode? How exactly did Alex manipulate a mentally ill person? She found Lolly’s journal that showed Lolly was tracking her every move. And then she attacked her when Lolly brandished the huge piece of sharp glass at Alex. As soon as Alex realized she was mentally ill and not send by Kubra she stopped choking her. I thought Alex behaved pretty admirably all things considered.
Thanks for writing this. I am so sad about this storyline because it hits so close to home for me, and so close to home for so many. I always envied those who had some anger and defiance at their assualts (I don’t for a second think that’s a logical or fair feeling), but all I have is tiredness, sadness, and self-blame. I’m glad Tiffany has Boo.