Nichols hits Poussey up for a cigarette, assuming that Poussey works for Vee and Poussey is like “Nope, you are mistaken, I am not friends with Vee.” Nichols is like, “your friends are friends with Vee, so…” and then Poussey drops this gem, which further confirms my initial analysis that Vee assuming risk in the ciga-tampon racket is bullshit because she is self-serving and manipulative and clearly establishing a hierarchy wherein other people will ultimately take the fall for her:
“She’s using them to do her dirt while she counts the cash. You ain’t gonna find her hands in no contraband.”
Nichols starts telling Poussey about this “thing that happens to lesbians in high school” where you fixate on your straight best friend and everything is cool until she gets a boyfriend. Then you irrationally hate the boyfriend even though he’s “probably a decent enough person.” Did this happen to people? I was like, pansexual in high school, so I basically fixated on everybody and hated everybody. Just kidding. Sort of.
Anyway, in this analogy, Taystee is the straight best friend and Vee is Taystee’s boyfriend. This is kind of weird because Vee is also kind of Taystee’s mother figure, but it’s just meant to imply that Poussey is in love with Taystee and feeling jealous absent her affections. Nichols is wrong, because Vee is not a “decent enough person,” because we have already established that Vee is terrible. Nichols suggests that Poussey needs to get Vee to like her in order to get back into Taystee’s good graces even though it is a terrible idea.
Bennett shows up empty-handed to Maritza, Blanca and Maria with the latest blackmail order (I believe they asked him to buy them gay porn) and states that he won’t be blackmailed any longer. Instead, he gives all of them shots and throws Maritza in SHU for super valid reasons. Just kidding, he throws her in SHU for literally no reason at all. Then he yells at everybody and it is mildly terrifying. GUESS WHAT: BENNETT IS NOT NICE.
We were supposed to think that Bennett was the “nice CO” last season but it is quickly becoming evident that there is no such thing as a “nice CO.” That, even if a CO intends to be “nice,” there is an inherent power imbalance between CO and inmate that makes it impossible to consider that relationship using the same parameters that you would a relationship in a non-prison context. Even the “nice” interactions are suspect because you can’t eradicate the fact that, ultimately, COs have the power to do something like what Bennett just did.
Which sums up Daya and Bennett’s problematic relationship in a nutshell: You can’t remove that power imbalance from their interactions, but everybody seems to want to, which weirds me out.
Coincidentally, the next scene is Caputo calling Piper into his office to ask her to portray the COs as “human” in the Litchfield newsletter while creepily tending to his plants.
OH GOOD A LARRY SCENE, I REALLY MISSED LARRY AND HAVE BEEN WONDERING WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH HIM. Just kidding, nobody cares about Larry. I forgot that he was even on this show. Polly shows up and slaps him and then fucks him, but not in a fun way.
The Litchfield riot grrrl zine is still underway, but starting off a little tense. Vee is still collecting her stamps for her stamp collection ciga-tampon empire. Cindy doesn’t have any stamps for her, since she has traded all of her cigar-tampons for personal favors. Vee takes her ciga-tampons and gives them to Poussey, who says she’ll think about selling for Vee.
Flashback number three! We’re back to Cindy taking her little sister out for ice cream. By the way, the little sister wants bubblegum ice cream, which is gross and terrible.
I don’t want to “yuck” anyone’s “yum,” but I think we can all agree that bubblegum ice cream is a travesty to ice cream dates everywhere. You know what else is a travesty to ice cream dates everywhere? Saying that you’ll take somebody out for ice cream and then doing something completely different, like making them wait in your car while you go hang out with your friends. Which is what Cindy does to her little sister.
Fig is married to somebody who is trying to become a senator and he is (spoiler) clearly having a secret gay affair with somebody named Gavin who is working on his campaign. We all deduce this immediately given the fact that he won’t sleep with Fig coupled with his Gavin bedroom eyes.
It’s so important to be open with your partner. If I end up with somebody like Fig, I will one hundred percent make sure to check in about hooking up with people named Gavin, and if they are like, “Nope. Hard boundary. No Gavins” I will be like “ok, bb, don’t worry, just keep embezzling money 4 me and I’ll stick 2 brets n trevors.” Direct communication, y’all.
Polly’s husband shows up to bro down with Jason Biggs, nobody cares. Jimmy’s dementia causes her to jump off a stage in the chapel mistakenly thinking that it is a diving board. She needs more care. She needs full-time care.
Vee wakes Cindy up in the middle of the night and you think it’s going to be for something scary, but she just calls Cindy out on hiding behind her humor and not working towards building a future. So, Cindy is basically in the middle of a surprise-nighttime-prison version of all of my therapy sessions. Except that Vee calls Cindy a loser, which wouldn’t fly in a therapy context.
Which brings us to another flashback: Cindy’s mother is upset with her for keeping her little sister out until midnight and bringing her around “pot smoke.” They fight. We find out that Cindy’s little sister is actually her daughter. Cindy’s sister/daughter doesn’t know about this. Cindy’s mother insinuates that Cindy is not capable of raising a child and the look on Cindy’s face implies that she believes this about herself.
We return to the present, Fischer is listening to the inmates’ phone calls. Caputo makes a cameo with a tiny plant. Fischer overhears news of Daya’s pregnancy. Uh oh!
Everybody is an equal editor at the Litchfield Riot Grrrl Zine. It is non-hierarchical and very punk. They literally publish a piece titled “Guards: They’re People Too.” Caputo hangs it on his wall.
Gloria asks Red to grow cilantro for her, which is as “black market” as Gloria gets. Vee is talking long-game strategy while playing chess with Suzanne when Cindy walks in. Vee has gotten into Cindy’s head and she’s ready to sort through used tampons and work at the bottom of Vee’s hierarchy.
During Cindy’s final flashback she states that she doesn’t have kids. We never learn what Cindy was ultimately incarcerated for during this episode.
Jimmy still needs full time care and has become a liability to Litchfield. Two corrections officers drop her at the bus station with literally no resources under a “compassionate release” policy. This is the final scene of episode 207. You are now weeping and not leaving your house tonight as you had originally planned.
