Orange is the New Black Review: Send in the Clowns (Season 5 Episodes 7-9)

The funny thing about this particular 3-episode batch is that the edges of a “3-day arc” idea are starting to show. The Orange is the New Black writers have begun forgetting that this time and this day is technically but a few hours from episode 1.

Pennsatucky, for example, claims that the Meth Girls have been stalking her for days when, technically, it’s been about three hours. But it takes no shine from what are probably my favorite episodes so far this season.

On Orange is the New Black Season 5 Episode 7, “Full Bush, Half Snickers,” the Latinas open a coffee-house working off a new candy-based barter system. Together with the white supremacist woman—whose name I really just… there are so many names, you know who I’m talking about—they come together and create the kind of future liberals want.

This is all ruined, of course, when the Meth Girls, thinking only of short-term goals, steal what’s left of the coffee. Can I just say: I want the Meth Girls dead. They’ve gone from comedically oblivious to reprehensible and pervasively annoying.

Here I sit, wanting everyone at Litchfield to thrive and succeed, but in come the Meth Girls to ruin any designs you might have had about things running smoothly.

But isn’t that just like life, I suppose? [Wo]men plan, Meth Addicts laugh.

Elsewhere, Taystee grows more frustrated at the pace of the negotiations and her lack of control (Leos, man), and Activist Piper convinces her to fill her spare time with an activity in honor of our love Poussey.

What comes of this endeavor is one of the most beautifully heart-tugging moments (no, I’m not talking about Nicky’s makeover) where Taystee finally realizes that it’s possible that maybe Soso really did love Poussey just as much as she did but in a different way, and allows herself to cry in front of her.

And if there’s a way I’d like to be remembered, it’s definitely a hallway full of floating books.

On Orange is the New Black Season 5 Episode 8, “Tied to the Tracks,” we get what can basically be described as a mid-season finale. Gloria, you get a cliffhanger! Daya, you get a cliffhanger! Suzanne, Pennsatucky, Red, you get cliffhangers! Everyone gets a cliffhanger!

The saddest episode of the block, “Tied to the Tracks” begins peacefully and comically enough with a debate about the merits of Home Alone‘s Burgular-Proof Home Defense System, (which has since been proven to kill an ordinary human.)

Meanwhile, as Daya struggles with turning herself in, her Tragic Backstory shows that she’s always been at the mercy of her mother’s bad advice. Aleida’s flashback a few seasons ago (or was it last season? Who can remember?) displayed Aledia’s ache to give her daughter a better life often undercut by her own impatience.

Turns out that all this time, Daya had the best answer for her own life but had been regretfully seeking the advice of others, ultimately leading to the lonely path she currently walks. And so, she offers her own advice—and the truth—to Pornstache’s mother: let your child stumble and make her own mistakes but don’t treat her ideas as trivial, and eventually, she’ll figure out what’s what.

Orange is the New Black Season 5 Episode 9, “The Tightening,” my favorite episode this entire season, gives us a little breather after watching Suzanne tied up and left for dead.

Piscatella is loose somewhere inside the compound hunting down all of Red’s loved ones while following all of the classic horror tropes, including:

• jump scares
• little girls singing in hallways
• a phone call coming from inside the house
• a shower murder scene

…all done with a classic Orange twist that somehow sees the black character as the last one alive (everyone knows the black character gets killed first because they would be the only one with a filter for paranormal sh-t.)

And the best part is that the “killer” is a gay man and thus, in another twist on classic horror, gets no sexual satisfaction from hunting women down. He’s literally just trying to do his job. Gotta love this show.

Meanwhile, Gloria struggles with the notion of betraying all the inmates for the sake of furlough. Like the deontological dilemma presented in the previous episode (pull the lever to kill one but save five), Gloria has to decide whether to turn over the guards and lose all Litchfield’s leverage in exchange for the possibility of seeing her son.

And I hate this, but there’s not an easy answer. Gloria being my favorite, I obviously want her to see her son by any means necessary, but I also don’t want her to be beaten and ostracized for the rest of her sentence.

Do you pull the lever when you know for sure several people will get hurt on one track but the other track holds your possibly dying child?

I don’t envy you, Mendoza.

Let’s see, mid-season finales are always great, and episode 9 is by far the funniest one this season. What the hey. 5 stars.

Full Bush, Half Snickers – 4.5 stars

• There’s Cafe Bustelo in the guards’ pantry. I should start a blog just pointing out shows that feature Cafe Bustelo product placement. Iron Fist, One Day at a Time, Orange is the New Black.
• Yellow drink sounds disgusting, but I guess that’s just my privilege talking. My mama could afford to buy real flavored powder.
• Piper is a Slytherin Gemini. No wonder she bounces between evil and good so readily.
• Maritza: “So much ugh, so little time.”
• The older ladies trading sex stories is the kind of quality content I like to see on my screen.
• The actor who plays Vinnie also played Roland Hlavin on an episode of The Good Wife a couple years ago and for some reason, that never occurred to me until Lorna Facetimed him.
• A white supremacist explaining the concept of Latinx vs. Hispanic is one of those things that’s funny in the writers room, but literally the definition of whitesplaining when put onscreen.
• Taystee starring in “2000 Leagues Under the Vajayjay.”
• Red: “Your eyebrows. They’re plural.” (She gets the best one-liners!!)
• For a moment, I had no idea that was a made-over Nicky. She really does look different when her eyes are pointed up.
• The coffeehouse impressions are too uncanny to not have used ADR. There’s no way.
• Vinnie: “Wrong prison!” (That’s cold, Vinnie.)
• Flaca: “You’re like the Basquiat to my Warhol.” Maritza: “I was gonna say that!”

Tied to the Tracks (Character of Focus: Daya) – 5 stars

• Again, mad props to the casting directors for finding teenage Daya. I thought it was her until she stood up. (The fact that she is literally Dascha Polanco’s IRL daughter removes some of the initial awe, but.)
• Red: “What is it they use in the movies to make the spies weak and talky?” Lorna: “Breasts.”
• Suzanne suggests a circle jerk but without CO Otter, that’s not going to be very intere—oh… she means that.
• I’m not sure what side Judy King is ever on. Her own, I suppose.
• Watching Aleida find out about Daya live on television is legitimately sad.
• Nicky taking care of Red during her comedown is beautiful and wholesome. “Evoking more compassion than rage.”
• Death to all and sundry whom would leave Suzanne handcuffed to a bed.
• Hm. Is Daya actually allowed to reassign a baby from the care of the state? How does that work? Anyone know?

The Tightening (Character of Focus: Red) – 5 stars

• This episode compares the real life horror of a fascist state with the horror of a man hunting down people one by one. It’s pretty effective.
• The writers hanging a lampshade on the fact that these past few seasons of Orange is the New Black technically are all happening within the same month: Black Cindy pointing out that the dead guard was found “like 4 days ago.”
• Piper: “Somehow she found a sexy loner in prison we’ve never seen before to hook up with. We’ve all been there.”
• Flaritza singing at the end of a dark hallway made me LOL.
• As did the shower scene.
• Red has lived through her friends literally killed for selling jeans. She ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

The description for the next episode teases some Piscatella backstory. I’m excited.

What did you think of these episodes of Orange is the New Black? Do you think MCC will ever meet the inmates’ demands? Are you confused about the Duck Dynasty hate? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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Orange is the New Black is currently streaming on Netflix.

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