Hey Oranginas! Welcome to the season three recaps of Orange is the New Black, the show that turns every queer girl into a shut-in for a solid weekend! The latest season of OITNB is filled with laughter, tears, and tons of queers, so let’s get to it.
Just one request: Not everyone is mainlining the whole the series in one go, so please keep the comments section spoiler free for viewers who have the willpower to stretch this season out.
We open as COs Maxwell and Bell being driven by Pennsatucky, who is explaining that any phrase can sound sexual if it’s said with the right inflection. They are on their way to a supply store to get decorations for the Mother’s Day fair that the prison is throwing for the visiting children. This episode is all about moms, and instead of the usual one character flashbacks, we get a smorgasbord of mother-child experiences.
The first one features a young Pennsatucky being forced to guzzle a Mountain Dew by her mother, as a ploy to receive extra social security benefits for having a hyperactive child. Between all that soda and meth, it’s no wonder Tucky needed those new teeth. Back at the store, Tucky suggests that the guards get the discount Cinco de Mayo decorations, and they leave with a chili pepper piñata and some leftover shamrocks from St. Patrick’s day.
Back at Litchfield, Red is released from the infirmary and assigned to Miss Rosa’s old bunk, which is now a shrine. Apparently Rosa crashed the van in a quarry and is now holding up banks in Heaven. RIP Rosa. Red offers DeMarco some of her pain pills, but a roughed-up Alex Vause pops up from the top bunk to take them. Welcome back, Vause.
Caputo gives the new counselor Berdie Rogers the tour, and she seems more than up for the job. The fact that she is a woman and seems to give a shit is a step in the right direction. Despite the drama of last year, Caputo has made strides in his efforts to create a “kinder, gentler” Litchfield. We’ll see how long that lasts.
In the kitchen, Gloria is performing a Santeria blessing with an egg for that one lady that keeps crying at the pay phones. She accidentally cracks the egg and covers the woman with yolk. Poussey (le sigh) comes in looking for bowls for the kids games, and asks Gloria if her sons are coming to the fair. Since Poussey’s mom passed away, no one will be coming for her. Guys, I spent so much of last season crying for Poussey. Can’t she just be happy?
Out on the field, Piper and Luschek are constructing a mini-golf windmill and discussing the best ways to commit suicide. You know, shop talk. Luschek tells her that Alex aka “the hot one” is back, and Piper tries to run off to find her before getting called back to windmill duty.
In the salon, moms are lined up for Sophia’s skills, and Morello tries to lie her way into a make-over. She looks rough, and when Sophia busts her for having no kids, she begs her just to make her feel human again. You know Morello is in a bad place when her lipstick game is off point. She asks Sophia if her son is coming to visit, and how the whole “sharing a mother’s day” thing is going to work. We get a flashback of a pre-transition Sophia (played by Laverne Cox‘s twin brother) rubbing his pregnant wife’s feet. They are nervous and excited about their baby, and they are very much in love.
Down in the laundry room, our favorite meth-heads Angie and Leanne watch Nicky fix the lights. Angie is convinced Nicky has a big lesbian crush on her, but Nicky is only crushing on the stolen heroin she’s hidden in the wall. We flashback to Nicky’s childhood, where she spent all morning making breakfast for her mom for Mother’s Day, but her mother just breezes past her and plans to spend the day alone at a spa. A heartbroken baby Nicky holds the card she made that her mom totally ignored, with only her nanny to comfort her.
Nicky is flirting with Morello in the lunch line and grossing Piper out, until she sees her “tall stalk of celery” walk into the cafeteria. Alex and Piper hug, but Alex seems beaten down both figuratively and by a crackhead in lock-up. She’s full of shame and regret over getting sent back to prison, and Piper looks guilty…but not that guilty.
Meanwhile, Taystee and Poussey discuss the demise of Vee, who is definitely dead. Suzanne freaks out, screaming that Vee lives, before her friends can calm her down. They talk about communicating with the dead and Gloria’s kitchen voodoo, but Taystee read what happened to Cedric Diggory so she wants no part of the dark arts, thank you very much. We flashback to little Poussey cuddled up with her mom reading Calvin and Hobbes together. It’s a real heart-melter.
Down in Spanish Harlem, Maritza is excited to see her baby girl, and Aleida wants to know what she’s getting from Daya for Mother’s Day. Aleida finds a letter from Pornstache’s mother to Daya, and sees an opportunity for money. Nicky and Big Boo work on a clown costume (for the kids) and discuss smuggling the heroin out through Red’s contraband tunnel.
That’s going to be a problem, seeing as Red is sealing the tunnel with concrete. Now that she has two years left on her sentence, she wants to leave behind the drama and focus on the future. While she’s pouring the cement, Gina is leading a Wiccan prayer circle in the field and making sure that nobody takes the “naked dancing” too seriously.
Healy complains to Caputo about the new counselor, because God forbid these women get counseling from someone who knows what the fuck they’re talking about. We see a Healy flashback, where he tries to serve breakfast to his mentally ill mother, who is busy screaming, dancing, and writing on the walls. Now we know where Healy’s issues with women stem from.
Alex and Piper are cuddled behind the altar, which seems to be everyone’s favorite jump-off point. Alex keeps crying and beating herself up for being back in prison, and seems like Piper might confess…until she blames it on the system. Is that what we’re calling lesbian drama now? Before they can continue making out, they’re busted by a CO.
It’s Fair Day, and Litchfield is awash with kids and family members. There are games, snacks, puppies, and Suzanne even made a kite. Unfortunately, she is banned from the fair and can only clutch her kite and look longingly out the window. Suzanne, you’re breaking my heart.
The kids aren’t allowed to have sticks for the piñata, so CO O’Neill has them punch it to let out their anger. After a few hours of this, CO Bell has had enough, and uses her night stick to whack the thing open. She forgot to fill it with candy, so the kids only get broken paper-mache. Soso says it’s a metaphor for their lives, and she’s not wrong.
Everyone else seems to be having fun. Yoga Jones and Chang play Simon Says, Black Cindy yells at children, and Morello is stuck on port-a-potty duty. But it’s still Mother’s Day in prison: we see a junkie mom pull drugs out of her baby’s diaper and leave her on the ground to get high. We see Poussey missing her mom terribly and asking Norma for some of her voodoo. Gloria’s oldest son skipped visitation, and has been fighting and getting in trouble. It’s hard to parent from prison.
Sophia spends time with her son, but is bothered that he’s getting the wrong kind of dad advice from the pastor. Sophia tells him how to shave (with the grain) and how to pick up girls (train on the insecure ones-gross). Being a woman and a father aren’t mutually exclusive. Bennett tries to joke with Daya’s family, but they are in no mood. Aleida tells Daya that having babies ruins your life, but we see a flashback of Aleida in the hospital with baby Daya looking happier than we’ve ever seen her.
Lucy, Aleida’s daughter, has wandered off, and Daya goes to look for her. Bennett tells her that he has to call it in, but she begs him for some time. If he calls it in, that’s the end of fair day for everybody. Inside, Red visits with her three sons and her husband. When she asks about the store, they try to lie to her, but she sees right through them.
Pennsatucky makes a popsicle stick graveyard of all the fetuses she’s aborted, and pours little capfuls of Mountain Dew for them. She is comforted by Big Boo, who is dressed as the scariest clown ever. Big Boo explains, via Freakanomics, that Tucky did her fetuses a favor by never giving birth, considering that they would have turned out as strung out criminals like her. By not having these kids, she maybe did the best thing for them. This friendship between Big Boo and Tucky is so weird, but I love it.
Aleida goes to the dorms and pockets the letter from Pornstache’s mom. She finds Lucy hiding under Daya’s bed, just as the alarms sound. Children start crying as the guards are screaming at the inmates to get down. It’s a brutal end to Mother’s Day. Maria says goodbye to her baby, and her baby daddy tells her he doesn’t want the baby seeing her in prison, so he’s cutting off visitation. Maria screams at him as he walks away, but she has no recourse. She’s a mom, but she’s still in prison.
Poussey is picking up pieces of the broken piñata when she sees the same Calvin and Hobbes strip she read with her mom.
What an emotional episode! Tweet me your feels @ChelseaProcrast. We’ll be running three recaps of “OITNB” per week so check back on Wednesday for #2.
