Okay, let’s do it. Let’s talk about Lorna “Holy Shit” Morello. Y’all thought she was a cutie with the voice of a cartoon animal and that whimsical childlike heart for which Nicky secretly harbored a deep love. When it comes to realistic relationships, though, let’s just say that Morello has a few too many circuits in her motherboard. For those of you who have never played whatever sport involves a motherboard, a transportation metaphor: Morello’s train has passed the Healthy Relationship station and careened out of control over the cliff of Crazy Dangerous Stalker. Christopher isn’t Morello’s fiancé, kids. He is some guy who she went on a date with once — literally one time — and then proceeded to stalk. For those of you who are like, oh, stalking isn’t totally dangerous and crazy, first of all, no, and second of all, stalking is an incredibly uncomfortable gross thing and Morello tried to MURDER CHRISTOPHER’S REAL FIANCEÉ WITH A CAR BOMB. Yikes. Yikety yike yikes.
Let’s back it up, though, because this episode certainly starts out innocently enough. It’s all fun and games when Morello picks up Rosa for her chemo treatment. Even the flashback just makes us sigh a little — Morello living with her sister, taking up a cramped room that she’s decorated like a 14 year old girl. She’s passing her time harboring unrealistic concepts of romance and sexuality and playing around with some credit card fraud. She’s clearly a person who is still very immature in some ways, maybe even in a defensive way, and we ain’t faulting her for it yet. YET.
Back at Ye Olde Litchfield, Vee is up to some No Good All Bad Absolutely Terrible Shit, as goddamned usual. But what you’re all here for is Poussey’s device that allows you to pee stand up, which is technically already a thing, but I think we’d buy spoons if Poussey said she invented them. I think Poussey could say she’s invented the toilet brush and y’all would buy yourselves at least six toilet brushes, you would have a room in your house just for toilet brushes.
Poussey tries to explain how the pee device works only to discover that no one actually knows how their built-in pee device works, and by built-in pee device, I mean the urethra. No one actually understands where the urethra is or how it relates to the vagina, despite certain individuals’ experience with the vagina.
Sophia, whose presence has been seriously lacking in the season thus far and will be seriously lacking for the rest of the season, leading to a feeling of deep depression, takes it upon herself to personally educate these children on how the downstairs parts actually work. A noble calling, darlin, and a worthy cause. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one laughing hysterically during her instructive lesson, complete with diagram. A nice respite from some otherwise yicky shit in this episode.
Vee continues to stir her gigantic crockpot of shit by proposing that she and Poussey go into the craft beer business together, or at least the prison version of the craft beer business. Poussey, not one to jump on hipster trend bullshit and dedicated to her friends, turns her down. Every time someone turns Vee down, I do a dance. A dance, I tell you! Do not enable this bitch! Red’s not allowed with her cronies anymore because her lame gang wars almost killed them, so she goes to sit with the Golden Girls. They’re not as slow and quiet as they seem, but a few bolts may be missing.
Yicky shit, you say? Yes, the yicky shit. The already yicky shit gets yickier when Nicky and Boo decide to have a contest to see how many girls they can fuck. Maybe we all love Nicky because we see her as a grown-up Megan from But I’m A Cheerleader, but she still shares a lot of things in common with that lesbro you used to date who almost made you swear off women to join a celibate commune.
Nicky and Boo are going to see how many of their fellow prisoners they can use for a sex contest, complete with a points system based on availability and conventional attractiveness. It’s something that you’d expect from that fraternity that almost gets kicked off your campus every year, not people who should know the fuck better. But if OITNB is good at anything, it’s taking characters we care about and making them complicated and dark and not good individuals. These aren’t anti-heroes so much as they’re occasionally really bad people, and this is a show that wants you to become really attached to the lives of occasionally really bad people in order to think about all the ways society is occasionally really bad to people.
Look, here’s what I want you take away from all this: I don’t want you to feel like an unforgiveable horrible person because you laughed at the scene where Nicky had sex with Soso to shut her up. That material was carefully crafted for you to laugh at it. The show is designed in order for you to find it funny. Don’t hate yourself because something created to evoke laughter has done its job. What’s important is that you take some time to think about what it means to find shit like that funny. That’s the basic point of consuming media that will never be completely free of problematic concepts: know that shit is fucked up, know that the fucked up shit may not be punished in the world of the fiction, and know that when you see that shit in real life, you’re gonna punish its ass twice over on behalf of the unpunished shit of the media you enjoy consuming. It’s okay to enjoy things that aren’t 100% perfect if you recognize where they go wrong, especially because you recognizing what makes it wrong in the show will make you more likely to spot it in real life, and shut that shit down.
Youthful Morello of the long tresses is at the post office, retrieving her spoils of epic fraudery when lo and behold, a man of below average to average attractiveness runs into her wearing her dreamboat’s sweater. For those of you who haven’t watched every romantic comedy in existence (and you know what, good for you, my life is sad and I’ll freely admit that) that is called a meet-cute and you better believe Morello is ready to Bridget Jones all over this guy’s ass. Christopher thinks she’s cute because she’s Morello, she’s fucking cute, okay? Sure, she’s already committing a serious crime and she’s later gonna try to murder your girlfriend, but she’s cute. Christopher asks her out for coffee, not realizing this is going to be the most insane thing that ever happened to him.
During Rosa’s treatment, Morello has a lot of time to kill in the van. Morello has really snapped since she heard the news about Christopher’s wedding date, and decides to do something very, very bad and very, very stupid, which is to go to Christopher’s house, break in, and do uncomfortable stalker things.
I’ve got to give it to OITNB, though. In this moment where we’ve found out that Morello is a batshit wouldbe-murderer, we’re still gasping and biting our nails the moment we think she might be caught. We still associate the stalker attempted murderer with the cute inmate who just wants to be loved, and there’s a little part of us that’s still rooting for her. I know I say it every single recap, but it’s the goshdarn truth: this show is so damn good at getting you to root for the least likely folks.
Piper has to regather her things because everyone took them when she left, and like, good, fine, I’d do the same damn thing. Girl goes away for life, or so we think, and heck yeah I’m getting her copy of Orange Isn’t The Only Fruit. Boo notices that Piper and Soso are on speaking terms and decides that’s enough of a connection for her to exploit. If Piper wants her blanket back, she’ll have to sell Soso to Boo. Yeah, this isn’t getting any better, is it?
Taystee and Poussey share a moment when they have a tickle fight. We’ve all “tickled” our “friends,” right? Actually, why am I downplaying this like you weren’t all crying and sobbing and waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care? They kiss. Poussey looks at Taystee like the whole world just imploded and the only thing left in the universe is this girl in this bed staring into her eyes, and they kiss. Taystee tells Poussey that she doesn’t like her like that, and just like you’d already thought, it’s a thing they’ve discussed in the past. Still, Taystee lets Poussey cuddle her and it’s adorable and it hurts.
Meanwhile at Christopher’s house, Morello is breaking about a hundred laws in ten minutes or less. And here’s where Morello takes a left turn from cute inmate to Lifetime Original Movie villain. Homegirl is breaking and entering, trying on the bridal veil, she is goddamned taking a bath in it. Wouldn’t be surprised if she was gathering toenails to grind up and inhale, to be honest. That’s where we’re at on the Lifetime Original Movie “The Stalker Next Door” villain level.
Piper and Red start talking about chin hair. I don’t… I just… okay. Red asks about Larry and Piper says that she made bad decisions in prison and told her guy anyway because secrets secrets are no fun, secrets secrets hurt someone. Meanwhile in things slightly related to Piper that must be relevant at some point because they’re forcing us to goddamned watch them, Polly and the mayonnaise jar do some things. I think Polly is kind of hot in a “I Have Mommy Issues and a Slightly Older Woman Thing” way so I’m not completely objecting to Polly being onscreen and being flirty. It’s just that she keeps flirting with this jar of mayonnaise and it’s weird, right? Like why did they cast this jar of mayonnaise?
Flashback to Morello in court wearing her TJ Maxx finest, and honestly, I will always have a soft spot for a woman who enjoys a good chain print article of clothing. The trial reveals that Morello only went for coffee with Christopher once, and then she just stalked the shit out of him until he had to take out multiple restraining orders. She planted a homemade bomb under his girlfriend’s car. Let me repeat: a homemade fucking bomb under his girlfriend’s car. Lord Jesus our Savior, deliver us from the most shocking turn on this show since ever.
Red spots an opportunity in the greenhouse and tells Caputo she’s finally found a hobby. She uses that sucker and his sad love of plants to get her way. Yeaaaahhhh. Girl has found herself a pipe under the floorboards and she will be using it for the good of all. Or just Red, it doesn’t really matter. We’re cheering for her anyway.
The Big Boo/Piper/Soso situation escalates when Big Boo spots the other two sitting together in the cafeteria. Obviously this doesn’t go well because Piper tries to straight up trade Soso for a blanket and Big Boo confirms that Piper is indeed a terrible person now. I think this show means to prove that she was always a terrible person because we are all terrible people while also being good people, driven people, hopeful people, inspired people, kind people, passionate people, and loving people.
Vee is spitting absolute poison in Taystee’s direction. If you didn’t want to straight up murder her, you are a stronger human than me. She accuses Taystee of being “gay for the stay,” which I guess is the prison equivalent of “bisexual until graduation.” Then she tells Taystee that Poussey is just using her and not her friend at all which is the worst thing I have ever heard in my entire life, and I have heard multiple people tell me that they’re out of the ricotta cannoli, is the mascarpone okay? First of all, no, it is not fucking okay, it’s like telling me that Celine Dion tickets are all sold out, would I like to see Nickelback instead? Secondly, Vee can get the heck out of here.
Polly does some more things with the mayonnaise jar. Whatever.
As usual, the drama is laid out for all to see at movie night, where Soso and Nicky are post-coital cuddling, not that Nicky gives a shit, and Big Boo is pissed at Nicky and takes it out on Piper, who is pissed that she isn’t getting her blanket back. Taystee doesn’t save Poussey a seat, and Vee is pleased at this shitty terrible fucking development. Morello sobs hysterically after narrowly escaping. All I have to say is “yooooooo”.
