What I’m Watching: Orange is the New Black

Orange is the New Black: Season 4, Episode 4 “Doctor Psycho” (B+)

It’s a rare thing that a male character gets to be the focus of the flashbacks in an episode. What’s most interesting about it is that the flashbacks aren’t charting Healy’s course towards his time spent in prison because of some mistake the he made to put him there, but rather the events that led him to choose a career in prison counseling. His failure to connect with Judy, on top of his increasingly less warm relationship with Red, hit him hard, and for a man like Caputo to tell him that he would no longer be able to serve as a counselor to a woman that he thought he had selected for greatness with the brilliant idea to have her teach a cooking class stung even more. That’s what made the timing of Lolly being targeted for lockup in the psych ward perfect, enabling Healy to step in and help a crazy woman realize that she could get back to a good place. That solves more than a few problems in one, since Alex bringing Red in to help with the Lolly situation just resulted in her agreeing with Frieda that they would need to kill her. This was the first we’ve seen of Sophia in a while, and she’s doing all she can to escape her current predicament. It was also wonderful to catch a glimpse of Nicky, a character I miss dearly, and I hope that both of them will return to the show as regular players very soon. It was refreshing to see Pennsatucky confront Doughnuts about him raping her, and the ensuing scene was uncomfortable but important. Piper is continuing to make enemies, and it’s no surprise that someone would want to start a competing business. Aleida is getting out, something that should help her to provide a decent life for Dayonara’s baby but will also mean the end of the newfound bond the incarcerated mother and daughter have formed.