Welcome to the recap series on the third season of the Jenji Kohan Netflix hit Orange is the New Black. Over the next few weekends (Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays) we will be looking through the episodes and highlighting the events that make this comedy/drama a stand-out in general TV. Does the series have what it takes to make another phenomenal season of TV, and can the tales of Piper Chapman and her inmates satisfy expansion? Stay tuned and make sure to follow along at your own pace.
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| Ruby Rose |
As Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow) tries to find new guards for Litchfield, he discovers that the inmates that are forced to sew together underwear is starting to backfire. Nobody really cares. Piper (Taylor Schilling) meets Stella Carlin (Ruby Rose), who is a nice coworker. New inmates enter. Morello (Yael Stone) attempts to date random men while striking out with most of them. Chang (Lori Tan Chinn) secretly runs operations in the garden and does her best to stay out of people's businesses. Red (Kate Mulgrew) continues to confide in Sam Healy (Michael Harney). Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore) becomes suspicious when she notices other inmates getting special food because they are "Jewish" but not really. Inmates in the acting class perform a script by Chang, which is graphic and similar to her actual life. Red returns to work in the kitchen.
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| Teresa Ting |
Flashback
Chang unveils her strange past. While working at a market with some friends, she discovers that they want to use her for some operations. Why? Because she's good at being invisible. This leads her to go up the ladder very easily. She knows the business and can point out when her friends are being conned. When a deal goes horribly wrong, her friends kidnap a man and brutally assault him. They even dismember him and she watches as the con man's body is torn apart right before her.
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| Nick Sandow |
MVP:
Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow)
Things are starting to change at Litchfield. While it has been a lot of great moments for Caputo this season, he definitely makes hiring new staff into quite an event. Along with helping Healy out by promoting Red to kitchen work, he is one of the masterminds behind the scenes of many of the moments throughout this episode. While it is a very diverse episode with a lot of great character moments, it is inevitably his involvement that makes it all come together. Litchfield is on the verge of collapse, and he is the sole force keeping it together. Can he do it? Is he going to fall for Danny Pearson's (Mike Birbiglia) schemes? We'll just have to wait and find out.
Overall Thoughts
It is interesting to see them add a whole bunch of new faces this late in the game. While the season has been notoriously slow in getting to its point, it does manage to use its characters effectively. We see the return of Red to the kitchen. There's a Norwegian inmate who pretends to be Jewish. There's a lot of small things to like about this episode and while it may be often a case of introductions to people that may matter way, way later, it manages to all come together in a very classic and successful Orange is the New Black form. I like most of the new characters and I can only imagine what they're going to do later down the line. Also, with new guards scheduled to start appearing, are we going to get anyone on par with Pornstache? One can only imagine what's in store.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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