Grab your Kleenex and hold your loved ones close: This episode is a fucking heartbreaker. Consider yourselves warned.
We open with quiet Norma performing healing rituals on the methheads. Someone’s been doing some extracurricular magic on the side. Luscheck wakes up Nicky, telling her that he has a buyer for the heroin. When Nicky tells him it was stolen, he’s pissed, mainly because now his sister thinks he’s an unreliable idiot. She’s not wrong. He tells her that she sucks at crime, and we finally get a flashback to how Nicky got arrested.
We see a strung out Nicky on the streets of New York, looking for a heroin hook-up. She gives her friends the Friday Night Lights speech before stealing a taxi and ramming into an oncoming car. Like any native New Yorker, Nicky has no idea how to drive.
Speaking of car wrecks, Piper and Alex are furiously fooling around in the library. Alex’s anger is the ultimate aphrodisiac, and the more she insults Piper, the more turned on they get. Has hate sex ever looked so good?
Daya’s tanning with Flaca and Maritza, who are full of ideas for her wedding to Bennett. Maria tells them that their friendships won’t last outside prison, because all they have in common is their shared experience. One day, they’ll be nothing to each other. It’s bleak but honest.
CO Ford confronts Caputo about the rumors of the prison closing, but Caputo sweatily assures him they’re just rumors. Also, Caputo has like, 5 porn windows open on his desktop. Who needs all those windows, bro?
Red and the Golden Girls are working outside in the garden, where Frieda suggests that they grow corn. If the corn gets high enough, they can rent out the garden for inmates looking to fuck. Healy bumbles over and apologizes to Red for their argument. He asks/orders her to play marriage counselor for him and his wife.
Alex meets with Counselor Rogers, who asks about her black eye and her enormous hickey. Alex basically tells her that her job is bullshit and she’s helping no one, citing the fact that everyone (no matter how shitty) always thinks they’re the good guy in their story. Rogers takes Alex’s rant as a sign that she should attend the drama class she’s teaching later.
Nicky and Soso have an awkward meeting in the laundry room. Well, it’s awkward for Soso…Nicky doesn’t give a shit. Soso wants them to at least be friendly, considering they’ve been all up in each other’s business, but Nicky is more concerned with hiding her drugs in the light fixture. SHE stole the drugs from herself, but to what end? Soso calls her out for using people and walks off.
We flashback to Nicky in a limo with her mother, begging her for bail money so she can get her junkie friends released. She goes through the addict cycle: pleading, apologizing, begging for money. It’s awful to see Nicky completely enslaved by her addiction, and as she takes her mother’s wallet and bolts, we know she’s just chasing her next fix.
Back in the lunchroom, Morello, Chapman, and Yoga Jones discuss the invention of blow jobs. Piper suggests it was an evolutionary development, and Sister Ingalls is appalled at the idea that mouths evolved to fit penises better. I could not agree more. Alex shows up and is pissed about Piper’s hickey. She claims that Piper is her “sex cow” and I feel like there’s gotta be a sexier way to say that. The power play between the two continues, while Morello is just happy to see them back together. She’s excited for the drama class, as she learned “Chlamydia del Arte” in school. I heart Morello so much in this episode, you guys.
Healy sees Rogers prepping her drama class, and smugly mansplains that she shouldn’t expect much of a turnout. Of course, the room fills with inmates who are psyched to see Rogers, because Healy is wrong about everything all the time. He tries to trash talk with the inmates, but is instead awkward and offensive.
Outside, Poussey and Taystee are holding a funeral for the burned books. They honor the titles they lost, as Taystee returns the book ashes to the trees from whence they came, aka “the ultimate book return.” Daya is looking for Bennett, who has been AWOL, as Poussey pours one out to the memory of Squirrel Nutkins. How can this show be so fucking funny and so heartbreaking at the same time? I can’t think of a single series that balances comedy and drama as effortlessly as OITNB.
Angie and Leanne are in the laundry room, where Angie waxes on about Norma’s magic skills. Leanna asks about her birthday wish, and before she can respond, the light fixture opens and heroin rains down from the sky. Praise Norma!
In drama class, Morello is doing a scene with Chang, where Chang refuses to “yes and” her suggestions. And by refuse, I mean turning Morello’s imaginary objects into dicks. At least she’s getting a laugh. Rogers calls up Piper and Alex to improvise a grocery store scene where Alex has to pretend to return a rotten piece of fruit. I think we all know where this is going.
Of course, the scene has nothing to do with fruit and everything to do with their drama. Piper admits that she wanted Alex back in Litchfield no matter the cost, and she wanted her power back too. She tells Alex that she missed her and her “patronage” and she apologizes for selling her the rotten fruit, but she’s not that sorry. Everyone watches with rapt attention, and Suzanne’s air quotes are on point. This might be one of the best Vausemen scenes ever. Piper offers her a persimmon, and Alex tells her that she loves her soft fruit. Everyone screams and applauds.
Big Boo busts Nicky for stealing the smack, but Nicky lies to her. We then flashback to Nicky in a flop house, lying on the phone to her friends who she left in jail. She conspires with another junkie to rob a mutual acquaintance’s apartment of rare books. Nicky’s cycle of using and abusing spins on.
Word of Norma’s powers has spread, and she leads a prayer circle in the dorm. If Norma is starting a cult, then sign me the fuck up. Nicky realizes that the meth heads are tripping, and tells Luschek where he can find the drugs. Nicky wants to move the drugs before her addiction overwhelms her, but Luschek can’t trust her. That’s why you don’t make deals with addicts.
Caputo calls Fig for advice on how to save the prison, and she tells him to fuck off. How did she never get arrested for embezzling all that money? He threatens to out her husband, but Fig seemingly has no fucks to give.
Red is translating for Healy’s wife Katya, who complains that Healy catfished her by lying about himself online. He wants to work things out, but Katya is in no mood for it. Red loses her temper, and yells at Katya that Healy is handsome (huh?), good (rly tho?) and least trying (barely). Does Red have a crush on Healy? I think I speak for everyone when I say: Red, you can do better!
Luschek shakes down the methheads for the heroin and stuffs the drugs in his pants. He packs up the smack for sale, but Nicky can’t stop handling the product. Luschek compares her to Gollum with the ring, and tells her that she’s a better person off smack. Meanwhile, Caputo hears the methies gossiping about Luschek and the drugs, and investigates the electrical department.
Back in the library, the thrill is gone for Alex and Piper. Now that they’ve worked out their shit in drama class, Alex no longer wants to hate fuck. Nothing kills a hate fuck faster than empathy and emotional resolution. God, I hope this isn’t the beginning of lesbian bed death.
Caputo and the guards search electrical, and find a small baggie of heroin in Luschek’s desk. Panicking, he blames it on Nicky, who in fact did squirrel away the sample. The guards barely listen to Nicky before hauling her off to Max.
We flashback to Nicky and her mother meeting with a lawyer, who has plead her sentence down to 5-10 years. Nicky is awash with regret and anger, but she has no one to blame but herself. She’s burned all her bridges and exhausted the goodwill of her mother, who calls her out for having “an unquenchable thirst to self destruct.” They’re both in tears, completely defeated.
Caputo finds Fig in the parking lot, with an envelope from a company that privatizes prisons. Maybe Litchfield lives to suck another day.
Morello and Red chase down Nicky as she is hauled off, their hearts breaking. Pennsatucky drives her down to the max prison, and they pass a grave yard as Nicky is flooded with regret.
Will Nicky ever come back? Will our hearts ever stop getting broken by this show? Tweet me your sad emojis @Chelseaprocrast
