What I’m Watching: Orange is the New Black

Orange is the New Black: Season 3, Episode 10 “A Tittin’ and a Hairin’” (B+)

It’s incredible to see how much Pennsatucky has changed as a character from the start of this show up until this point, and I always think that shows have a responsibility to stick to characters’ historical backgrounds, which means that the pre-prison her shouldn’t make her seem like a better or more mature person. I think what it shows is that she has never had a glamorous life, and the blank look in her eyes every time some man forced himself on her over the course of this episode was haunting. It was sweet that her new guard friend Donuts came up to her to clear the air and explains that he wants to be her friend, and unfortunately it only took him getting in trouble with Caputo once to regress and force himself on her when all she was trying to do was be nice and help him adjust to a job for which he’s clearly not cut out. We got to see another terrible guard in the form of Pornstache, whose mother broke the news to him about Daya’s baby not being his and then still managed to convince Daya to give the baby to her, albeit without her son being involved. Getting him out of prison could be tricky, but it’s not like Bennett is around anymore anyway. Piper is being particularly awful when it comes to her level of discretion and guilt surrounding her budding affair with Stella, and Alex doesn’t seem to have the energy to be able to deal with it. The apparent revelation that Lotty is just plain crazy is almost more disconcerting than her actually trying to kill Alex on behalf of her former boss. The hubbub surrounding the trial and potential new Litchfield inmate was one of the group moments that brought the episode together, along with the Norma lovers screaming in the yard and having some internal difficulties and Red making a real vegetable dish for her kitchen crew. Lorna sending her Italian suitor to beat Christopher up was not great, and I wonder how much more trouble she can get in now. Gloria and Sophia’s feud is rooted most in their relationships with their sons, but it’s not going well at all. I like that Crazy Eyes has an admirer and that she had to ask advice about sex from Lorna, putting the cherry on top of her season-long erotica saga.