Source: theatlantic.com
Episode Synopsis:
Paranoia strikes deep for Lolly and Judy, aggravating an already tense situation. Red sticks to a Russian tradition for an important occasion.
The Inmates:
Backfire
The task force is still in full swing, and Piper’s roommate is worried about her protection from Maria’s gang. Annoyingly, Piper tells her that she can’t really guarantee her protection, so she’s on her own. Already, Piper is killing me. Her roommate has been by her side for a while now, and still, Piper isn’t gonna budge about helping another person out. Later, she talks to Nicky, and confides in her about what has been going on with the task force and the panty business. She tells her that she didn’t mean for everything to get out of hand, and for adding more time to Maria’s sentence. Thinking about his scene now, I feel like Piper is having super mixed emotions because on one hand, she’s all about revenge and having power at Litchfield, but on the other hand, she’s still her innocent self, who doesn’t want to create trouble, if she doesn’t have to. At the party, towards the end of the episode, things get taken down another notch. First of all, no one wants to talk to Piper anymore because of what she has become, and secondly, karma bit her in the ass because her roommate decided to help out Maria’s gang instead. I literally cringed watching the branding scene. First of all, I wasn’t ready for Maria to punch Piper in the face, and then seeing her get branded with the swastika, was brutal. Yes, Piper has been getting on my nerves, but I felt so bad for her. She was in so much pain, and now she’s going to have this symbol on her arm for the rest of her life.
Nicky’s back
We first see Maritza showing Nicky around Litchfield again, and then we see Nicky realize that things have definitely changed. First off, she meets Lolly, and figures out pretty quickly, that she’s insane. And then she gets to see her old friends again. Piper introduces her to the task force, and of course, gets a huge hug from Red. That was a great moment to see because Red was like a mother to Nicky, so it was great to see them back together. I loved that Red was willing to get a shot for a chance to really hug Nicky again. Later, Nicky catches up with Lorna, and finds out all about the shower pooper. Lorna explains all the evidence her and Crazy Eyes have found, and funnily enough, Nicky cracks it in two seconds. At her welcoming party, Gloria and Sister Jane ask Nicky about Sophia. We don’t really get anymore insight about how Sophia is doing, but Nicky does tell them that there was blood everywhere, and that she went to medical. I thought it was interesting, that after hearing the news, both Gloria and Sister Jane knew they had to call Sophia’s wife. I can’t wait to see what happens after she finds out. Also, during the party, we see that Nicky is still continuing with her drug habit, by asking Angie for drugs. I hope Red figures it out and tries to set Nicky straight again.
Lolly’s past
We get a deeper insight into Lolly’s life before prison, and it was definitely an interesting one. We first see her in her younger years, as a reporter, and already, she was getting into trouble. She was writing articles about things that she didn’t get approval on, within that first flashback, we see when the voices started. By the way, the actress that played young Lolly, was AMAZING! She acted and sounded just like Lori Petty. Continuing on, we then see that she apparently lost her job, and had to find a place to live, since her mom had moved and her sister didn’t want her near her family. While talking to potential new roommates, we see that she already is coming up with conspiracy theories, and is progressively getting worse. Back to real time, Lolly gets in trouble for stealing things out of the trash, and she gets sent to see Healy by Piscatella. The thing that made me mad was that Piscatella told Healy to keep her in check. I mean, this is a person with a mental disorder. You can’t drastically change a person’s personality overnight. Afterwards, we start getting into a flashback of Lolly; older, and living in an abandoned area. It looks like it was once a junk yard, but now her and another man are living there. The voices are still there, but now, she shakes a bunch of bells in order for the voices to go away. It’s good to see that at some point, she was trying to get rid of the voices herself. What was nice to see, was that she was friendly with all her neighbors, but unfortunately, she sees that her home will be taken over by condos. Later, at Nicky’s party, Lolly is super nervous about being there. In her mind, she thinks that everyone doesn’t want to be her friend, and she immediately has a panic attack. Flashing back to her older self. We see that she is now homeless, and is apparently causing a scene. Police come and tell her that there have been complaints about her and that she needs to leave the area. At that moment, her voices start taking over, and she starts shaking her bells. The police immediately think she’s using them as a weapon, and they arrest her. We’ve seen that Lolly has run away from the party, and Healy has gone to find her. We see that she has been stealing things out of the trash to make a time machine because she wants to go back and save America. Lolly tells Healy about the different voices in her head, and I thought it was another great moment between the two. I think Healy is using these moments to reflect on his own upbringing and is trying to do a do over with Lolly because he couldn’t help his mother.
Telling a story
Taystee, Cindy, Crazy Eyes and Alison are still trying to get the best picture of Judy that they can. The first one they got was super blurry, but Taystee tells the girls that they need to take a picture that tells a story. Make is seem that Judy is still the nice woman everyone knows her as. Later, Yoga Jones comes over and talks to Judy. She asks her about her visitation and finds out about a YouTube video that has gone up of Judy doing a puppet show. Thinking that puppet show is harmless, Yoga Jones finally finds out that the puppet show was extremely racist towards African Americans. While they are talking, Yoga Jones notices that Crazy Eyes is spying on them, and tries to get Judy to move to their room. When they’re leaving, Cindy tries to come in and talk to Judy alone, but that backfires. And funnily enough, Judy thinks the girls heard about her puppet show and are out to get her. Sometime afterwards, when Judy is trying to get to one of the bathrooms, she is stopped by Cindy and Alison. Cindy asks for a high five, and Judy is already starting to panic because she doesn’t know if the girls are going to harm her. She gives Cindy a high five, while Alison takes a picture, but the picture doesn’t look good, so Cindy tries again. Judy refuses to give her another high five, and tries to run away. That was one of the funniest scenes from this episode. The next day, Yoga Jones confronts Caputo and tells him that Judy needs more protection. We eventually see that Caputo asks Red to sending food to Judy’s room. Alison finally shows Taystee the picture of Cindy chasing Judy down the hall, and it’s the best thing ever. Definitely not a happy story. Of course then they see the racist puppet show on the news, and think that maybe they should send their picture they took after all.
Educational program
Linda calls Caputo and tells him that everyone on the board loved his idea about the educational program. The only problem is, they would have to switch some of the courses with ones that the board approved of. We see later, that yes, the board decided to move forward with the educational program, but all the courses Caputo wanted to have taught to the inmates, got pushed aside, and filled with vocational courses, like plumbing and carpentry. It kind of sucks because Caputo is trying his best to accommodate the inmates, but everything seems to fall through. I wonder if that sort of thing happens at real prisons. They have to learn skills like plumbing and carpentry, instead of important classes like math and english.
What next?
Aleida is having a hard time coping with the fact that she’s going to be getting out of prison soon. We saw before, that she was studying to get her GED, but now, she thinks it might be useless. She wants to get her kids back, but she’s not sure how. While giving Judy her food, Judy notices how nice Aleida’s manicure is. Aleida ask Judy how much she would pay to get her nails done like hers, and after finding out how much money she could earn from doing nails, she instantly knows how she’s going to make her living when she gets out of prison. I was just thinking, has Aleida’s nails been polished before in past episodes, or are we just noticing now that she likes painting her nails? I guess it doesn’t really matter, but good for her, that she has a plan and is ready to get her kids back.
