Episode 8

The most important thing you need to know about this episode is that the panties employees have been reassigned to work construction. Sorry, “learn” construction for free. And their instructor is a total babe. His name is Mr. McDonald, and he can’t say anything without the inmates turning it into sexual innuendo. I am so here for it.

Okay fine the real important things are that Red’s mirror and makeup are missing, and she slowly realizes Nikki is the thief. She’s trading her things for drugs. Also Piper’s hit rock bottom. She finds out her brother and his wife are expecting a baby, her burn is bleeding through her clothing, and feeling pretty defeated by all this, she decides to smoke some crack in the garden with Nikki and Alex.

You know how they say crack smoking is basically like a tree of trust? Of course they don’t. But Alex felt vulnerable enough to share with them that she killed a guy. When Piper asks where she put the body, she simply says. “You’re sitting on him.” Later, Piper tells Red about the swastika burn, and they have no choice but to bring her to the kitchen and even it out so it looks like a window instead of a Nazi symbol. And the whole time Piper’s like “I’m sorry” and crying, but I guess it’s too late for that.

Maria’s selling drugs out of the beauty salon, which stresses out Aleida because she has two days left in prison, and she doesn’t wanna get caught up in any of that. And Maritza wants out of the drug smuggling business, but Maria has turned into a cold-hearted business person at this point and refuses to let her leave. Morelli gets this idea in her head that maybe her husband’s cheating on her, and so she asks her sister to go find out about it. Oh! And Cindy and friends finally got their paparazzi picture, once Judy finds out from Poussey that it would be the perfect way to forgive that whole racist puppet show thing. And what better way to show you’re not a racist than to kiss Cindy right on the lips for a photograph?

The Abe and Doggett situation continues to rear its head in ugly, uncomfortable moments. She’s handing out water to the construction class and he tells her if he had a time machine that he’d use it to go back to 1999 to a Judas Priest concert where he got too drunk and missed some of the show. “Regrets, you know?” he tells her.

Later he corners her in the hallway and delivers what I guess we could call a heartfelt speech, but really just highlights how rape culture works. He tells her the Judas Priest thing was just a joke, and that he’d instead use a time machine to go back to when they first met. “I would have treated you like a person, not like a duck or a thing. I would have liked our first time, if we had gotten there, to have been nice. And I would have wanted to see your face and to have told you what I told you about loving you, but softer. I wish I hadn’t been so mad. It wasn’t fair, what happened. That’s probably what I’d go back to. And I’m still trying to figure out why it happened. Why I did what I did. I’m sorry, Doggett.” She just says, “Thank you for saying that,” and walks away.

I think the point of this moment was to maybe show how complicated the situation is, and how deeply ingrained rape culture is in our society. But it certainly doesn’t make me feel bad for Abe — especially because he won’t even say the word “rape.”

At the end of the episode, Crystal shows up at Caputo’s house when Linda’s there for dinner. She demands to know that Sofia is alive, but Linda pulls a gun on her. What the hell! And instead of channeling his inner glimmer of good guy, Caputo gets turned on by Linda threatening Crystal. “That was so hot,” he tells her, and the rest is behind closed doors. Gross.