Piper is woke up and shipped out of Litchfield in the middle of the night. The guards refuse to tell her anything. She is put on a bus with a bunch of other prisoners. None of the other prisoners seem to know where they are going. She is on the bus for several hours. The bus ride ends at an airport. The prisoners are put on a plane. She winds up sitting next to Lolly Whitehall (Lori Petty) who also doesn't know where they are going.
The plane makes one stop. More prisoners get on the flight, male prisoners. McRae, one of the male prisoners talks to Chapman, starts calling her First Class. She does her best to ignore him. The plane lands a second time and the prisoners are led off and into a detention facility in Chicago. Piper still doesn't know what's going on. She fears that she killed Pensatuckey in the previous episode. She remembers beating her up but she doesn't know what happened. She just knows that she was thrown into SHU after that and went a little crazy.
Piper is thrown in a cell with a few other inmates. She screws up the minute she sets foot in the cell by stepping on a cockroach. Two of her four cellmates had been using it for racing. It was earning them money. She needs to replace the cockroach. One of her other cellmates is a little wacky with astrology and starts asking Chapman all sorts of questions, trying to divine her sexual compatibility.
Throughout the episode there are a few flashbacks to Chapman's early life when she was 11 or 12 years old. She tried to be good and do the right thing. She didn't jump off the school bus with her friends when she wasn't supposed to, even though the bus driver didn't seem to care. Her friend drags her to see Dazed and Confused. Piper sees her father kissing a woman other than her mother before they see the movie. She tries telling her mother later that day. Her mother ignores the story about Piper's father and punishes her for seeing an R-rated movie.
Piper spies Alex one day. She pays McRae to get a message to Vause. She winds up giving McRae her panties in exchange for delivering the message. She manages to get some time with Vause, through some bars. Alex explains that they are there because one of her criminal business associates has been put on trial. She urges Piper to tell the court that she didn't know the guy. Piper is very uncertain about this strategy.
Piper makes a call to Larry's father. He is a lawyer and he tries to help her but he tells her that she needs to tell the truth. Piper wants to but once she gets into court she goes along with Alex' strategy and claims that she can't remember if she ever met the guy. Larry's father is very disappointed. Piper sees Alex just after the trial. Alex is apologetic, she changed her mind and told the truth. Now Chapman is screwed. The episode ends with her spotting a big roach crawling across her cell.
Thoughts
Good opening to the second season. I can believe I waited this long. It has been about 2 years since I started watching season 1. This episode had me riveted. I'm not sure what to say about Chapman's decision to lie in court. This seems like a case of prisoner's dilemma. If they both lie then they are both best off, but if only one of them lies then then that one will suffer more than the other one who tells the truth. If they both told the truth then it would have gone worse for both of them. I'm not convinced that there was a best course of action in this case.
One of my problems with Piper in the first season was that she always seemed like a goody-two-shoes who couldn't seem to learn or accept the reality of her life. Her decision to lie in this case seemed to me like she was growing up but I think that there is another read of it. I think she just fell for Alex' lies once again. I assume that this won't get dropped and that this will have repercussions throughout this season.
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