Friday, August 30, 2024

Orange Is the New Black 7.08

Baker’s Dozen

Aledia is put in general population. She quickly picks up on the fact that Daya has a crew now. Aleida tries to assert her motherly role within the group. Daya does not take well to her mother's attempts to take over the group.

Nicky is concerned for Red. She tries to look out for her but Red doesn't want to be mothered. She is the mother of their group as far as she is concerned.

Red gets the backstory flashback which focuses on a time when she was trying to get the crime boss (who was using her husband's store as a front) to listen to her. She tries to convince the boss to lay off on one of the younger, softer guys in their organization, whom she mas been mothering. The boss agrees but then kills the young man.

Piper and Neri get some survivalist training at a training session for women. Neri sets Piper up with Zelda, another woman as the training session. Piper thinks that Zelda is in on the set up. It turns out that she isn't. Piper opens up to Zelda after that and tells her about having served time in prison.

McCullough and Vause share a few moments. McCullough apologizes for forcing Vause to sell drugs for her. McCullough later opens up to Vause about her life up to that point and they share a moment.

Linda returns and lands hard on Ward for the job she did with the interview. Ward takes it hard. Taystee overhears the conversation and tries to offer some words of encouragement to Ward after Linda has left.

Ward makes Taystee tutor Doggett. Linda won't let Ward spend anymore money on her programs. Doggett needs help getting ready for the GED. Taystee and Doggett get off to a rough start.

Suzanne is put in charge of the chicken project by Alvarez. Whitehill and at least one of the other inmates are jealous but go along with the appointment. Suzanne and Whitehill discover that there is one more chicken than there is supposed to be. Suzanne takes it as a sign.

Mendoza figures out where Diablo is incarcerated and passes that information along to Flores, who tells the other ICE detainees about what Mendoza did for her. Other ICE detainees start lining up for help discovering where their loved ones can be found.

Aleida tries to keep her relationship with Hopper going. He starts to feel pressure from other correctional officers who know about his relationship with Aleida. 

Taystee finally gets the drugs she wanted from Daya. Taystee starts to have second thoughts about killing herself and instead hides the drugs in Ward's office.

Thoughts

Caputo, Fig, Hellman, and Ruiz were not in this episode. 

Flaca plays with fire. She stole one of the ICE guard's sunglasses in the previous episode and sprays him with a hose in this episode. Unless she is hoping for a romantic interaction with him, I don't see how this could end well. Even if that is what she is hoping for I don't see how doing what she is doing is a good idea.

Is this the beginning of the end for Piper and Alex? I dunno.

What will transpire between Aleida and Daya in the last few episodes of the series? I think that Daya will make some attempt to assert herself but I'm not sure how successful or what the exact outcome of that attempt will be. What's going on with Red? I dunno. I can see more than one possible outcome. My guess is that it might be a tragic one. Will Flores play a big part in the remaining episodes? I'm starting to think that she will not, now that Diablo has been located.

What's going to happen to Hopper? I think he's going to get arrested before the season is over for having a relationship with Aleida, smuggling drugs into the prison, or possibly both. Will Ward still be the warden at the end of the season? I have my doubts, especially with illegal drugs hidden in her office. Even if she doesn't know about them she is likely to take the fall if they are found.

This was better than the last episode but that’s a pretty low bar to clear. This episode didn't end on cliffhanger like some of the previous ones did. That kind of counts as a strike against it but it did fill in some details on an least a couple plot threads that I'm curious about. 

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