Maritza and Flaca are the happiest clams in the clam-diver Panty Power Club, it’s like they got a little secret under their pants.
Maritza: I feel like I got a secret, you know? Like we’re part of this secret club that nobody knows about. I feel cool.
Flaca: Oh my god you just said that and my nipples got like, super hard.
Gotta say when I saw that line in the preview I was expecting a different context.
I heard that the macaroni and cheese is actually just potatoes mashed up with dead cats
Get out of here, that looks nothing like potatoes
Big Boo tells the girls that her friend saw the panties online for $70 a pop, which gets them all a little riled up — they deserve more than flavor packs for all the pussy power they’re discharging.
Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Ellen DeGeneres, our Lord. Amen.
Suzanne approaches the broom closet, tentatively… can she do this? Is she able to do this? Does she have it in her to really like, to truly once and for all, to absolutely and definitively do this?
I think I can I think I can
Maureen senses her (and sees her through the glass), gets eager — Suzanne reaches for the doorknob but then, no. She can’t. She’s too scared. She’s not ready.
I hope she’s coming soon it smells like despair in here
I hope Maureen used her private broom closet time to jerk off though at least. Just saying. It is our divine right as gay people to masturbate to homosexual fantasies in the closet.
The Normites meeting falls quickly into chaos ‘cause Leanne’s being bossy and nobody likes it.
Hey look I didn’t invent the game or anything but are you sure this is how you play Ring Around The Rosie?
Poussey: I mean, this is supposed to be about Norma, and now it’s all about you.
Leanne: Somebody’s gotta keep us on mission!
Weeping Woman: We don’t have a mission.
Poussey: Look, nobody’s here for no mission. We don’t need to be yelling our complaints or cleansing our organs or whatever the fuck that means. I mean, we’re here for Norma. ‘Cause she makes me feel seen.
Gina: Norma makes me feel like I matter!
Babs: Norma is my Jesus!
Angie: Norma is my mother!
Leanne: Norma is my grandmother!
Angie: Norma is my great-grandma!
Leanne: Norma is all of my relatives combined!
Angie: Norma is me!
Riese: NORMA IS A, BITCHES.
Before somebody can say that Norma is their right intestine, the guards show up and the flock scatters, only to be relegated to work duty. This is where Soso finds them, and Soso is a mess. Like nothing matters and fuck everybody. So when Leanne says, “See girls, I told you she thinks she’s better than us,” and Soso points out that it’s hard to avoid sounding condescending when they are literally scrubbing the floor beneath her feet, this doesn’t go so well:
Leanne: You’re a bitch!
Soso: You know what? Fine. Maybe I am better than you. And I’m not apologizing for it.
I’M SORRY FOR NOT KNOWING THAT YOU CAN STOP THE SODA FROM EXPLODING BY TWISTING THE CAP SHUT AGAIN AND THEN OPENING IT IN SLOW INCREMENTS, I MEAN SERIOUSLY I KNOW YOU’RE ALL ACTING LIKE I’M THE ACTUAL WORST BECAUSE I DIDN’T KNOW THIS BUT REAL TALK: RIESE CEO OF AUTOSTRADDLE DIDN’T KNOW THIS UNTIL LATE 2007 WHICH IS WHY HER STRATEGY FOR A SODA LOOKING LIKE IT WAS ABOUT TO EXPLODE WAS TO DROP IT ON THE GROUND AND RUN AWAY
In the kitchen, Red’s found purpose by teaching the girls how to cook fresh vegetables and feeding them ratatouille. Eating it makes them feel like people! Human beings deserve real food. This should be a basic right.
mmmmm poison
Coates calls Dunkin’ Donuts into the office for a lecture regarding his failure to show up for a thing and also another thing, which means he’s on probation now, and probably also will blame it all on Tiffany, despite the fact that he’s gotten more job training from her than anybody else in this place.
Look man, the handlebar mustache is MY THING, I made it CRYSTAL CLEAR that new COs were not supposed to be growing their own
But
The Visitor’s Lounge is all spruced up for the springtime! JK it’s like normal, but Mrs. Pornstache is there to say she’ll still adopt the kiddo if Daya’s up for it, which makes Daya almost cry.
Daya: “Yes, please take her. Take her and give her the best life you can give her.”
Mrs. Pornstache: “I will. I promise.”
Look I just finished Back to the Future III and if you don’t mind I have a few questions—
Do you want to name the child Verne?
Everybody’s gathered ’round the teevee to get the deets on where they’re gonna place Judy King, Queen of Strumpets and Quilts. Taystee’s just thrilled to have Poussey back, getting into it and leaning on her shoulder, far away from the increasingly unappealing band of Normaites.
Wait we’re in the drama category now?
Poussey: Man, this whole Norma thing has been fucking up my sense of normalicy.
Black Cindy: Uh-uh, it’s “normalcy.”
Watson: I don’t think any of them is right.
Poussey: Nah, it’s definitely “normalicy.”
Black Cindy: Just say “normal.”
Taystee: Why don’t y’all just look it up!
Black Cindy: Can’t! Ain’t no dictionary!
Poussey: Alright, then, I’m just gonna live in my reality and you can live in yours.
Taystee: Aw, I missed you guys.
Hey hey, the crew’s all back together! Also, bad news: Judy King is going to Alderson.
“Maybe if I just stand behind Watson and stare at the floor with my eyes lowered and don’t move a muscle, it’s like I’m not really even here.”
Piper and Stella are on a date, here’s the theme: Piper wants to know more about Stella so she’ll be less mysterious and then she’ll be less interested in her and we’ll be more interested in her. Unfortunately, nobody wants to give us any genuine backstory on this mysterious tattooed Australian heartthrob, and we get merely these morsels:
1. Stella’s parents moved to the US for a job but now they’re back in Australia.
2. Stella is an only child.
So is that a yes or a no on “do your parents ever mail you Vegemite?”
GIRL.
Piper asks if she misses her parents and Stella says, “I do.” That’s the moment when Alex Vause walks by.
Alex: “I do”? I know we’re all lesbians, but isn’t it awfully soon to be committing?
Piper: Shut up, Alex.
Alex: What? I can’t turn around without seeing Litchfield’s newest butt buddies.
This is the part of the season where Piper starts turning away from “a person who sometimes reminds you of the worst parts of yourself but in a way that can feel, at least, honest, if selfish,” into “somebody slowly taking on a kind of cold and hard monster virus.” Here she dares to be mad at Alex for, essentially, noticing that Piper’s been creeping around with Stella like flirtatious woodland creatures.
Tell me one thing you know about this chick besides that she’s hot and seems to be in DIVA magazine a lot. One thing.
After Alex “sees herself out,” Stella tells Piper that she shouldn’t have to put up with “that bullshit” and then they stick their tongues down each other’s throats. Oh! But first Piper says her and Alex have been through a lot together… but fails to mention that Piper got Alex locked up this time so she’d have somebody to hang out with.
Stella says Piper shouldn’t do anything out of obligation, only ‘cause she wants to, as if Piper hasn’t been living the “I do what I want” ethos, with mixed but mostly terrible results, for 2.5 seasons. Red happens to walk into the corridor as the two ladies are swapping spit, takes note, and dashses.
Dooo doo doo
Oh!
I will see myself out of this storyline, thank you
The rest of this episode contains a series of assaults, physical and sexual, so if you wanna avoid that, don’t go to the next page. As Grover would say, THERE IS A MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK.
Pages: 1 2 3 4See entire article on one page
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.