I am so excited to recap Orange is the New Black!! I’ve loved it since the beginning, well, since episode 3, once we got past PIPER, but all in all: so ‘CITED season 4 has dropped!! Rolling S4:E1 after the break!

I really want to like the theme song. One day!

We open at the water, it’s a miracle! But Lolly (Lori Petty) isn’t running that way, she’s headed to the greenhouse, where Alex (Laura Prepon) is being strangled by Toothpick CO (Juri Henley-Cohn), who was a henchman of the bad guy from Alex’s former career as a drug / money smuggler. Lolly jumps in and goes all TankGirl on Toothpick’s arse, stomping his throat with those prison Doc Martens. Dayum, Lolly!

She wants to know if maybe Alex wants to come to the water?

Caputo (Nick Sandow) wants moar COs NOW! Everyone’s walked out, 100 new inmates have arrived and Gerber’s (Alan Aisenberg) trying to tell Joe what’s going on, but the yakkin, see. Caputo gets all tough: he wants 6 guys here NOW! *humph* *phone slam* and then Gerber fills him in: ALL THE INMATES ARE IN THE WATER.

Chapman (Taylor Schilling) thinks everyone running is about her move to take out Stella (Ruby Rose) at the end of last season. I feel I should say this right at the jump so we all know where we stand: I hate Piper. I hate Piper with the fire of a thousand suns and I count the seconds until she’s offscreen. She’s willfully ignorant of her privilege and her inanity and Taylor Schilling couldn’t be more bland if she was ACTUALLY made out of oatmeal. Now. Everyone good? Awesome!

Piper stops Gina (Abigail Savage, whom I formerly only knew as NeckScar What Hates Red) to call herself a “gangsta”, that’s right, with an “a”, to be pushed aside so Gina can run to the hole in the fence. Chang (Lori Tann Chinn) lays it out for Piper: nobody knows she’s a gangsta and everyone’s swimming in carcinogenic shite, there is no way anything nice is this close to a prison. She’s off to have a shower and deep condition her hair (hair? The stubbly bits on top? Lustre and shine to be restored!); “see you later, Thug Lyfe.”

Wanda (Catherine Curtin) and Scott (Joel Marsh Garland – has he put on weight? I’m seeing a significant change and since Ron Lester’s recent death at 45 I am wary. Also: in IMdB, Joel is a stone cold fox, yo) are walking out, but they can hear the riot alarms and see the prisoners running, not stopping, dropping OR rolling. Scott is confused: women don’t riot (oh they don’t?) and torn: he LOVES the riot gear. You know who else loves the Riot Gear? ALL the guards, including Charlie, aka Donuts (James McMenamin), whose stitches look horrible. GOOD.

Lolly and Alex are brainstorming about what to do with Toothpick, Lolly’s wrapped up in NSA / NCIS conspiracy theories, but Alex lets her know: this was her old boss’s hitman. Pfft, not a very good one, sneers Lolly. They dig out Toothpick’s cell phone and text a fake status update with an emoji; need pic, plz!

Donuts leads the completely inept group of guards outside, they look like the worse kind of rejects, I tell you..as the S.W.A.T arrives: pure black magic and steam. Charlie leads the charge to follow; I’m sure they will not in no way fcuk this up.

Suzanne and her new girlfriend, the pansexual Orgasmo Maureen Kukudio (Emily Althaus) are communing in the wood; I hated this storyline last season. It seemed so ridiculous, Crazy Eyes moving on Dandelion Piper first season seeming VERY sexually aware, to be reinvented in season 3 as some kind of virgin…pfft, did.not.buy. Anyway, they’re cuddling, checking out all the soft spots on each other’s bodies when the horns snap Suzanne out of it. She turns to go, but Maureen has other ideas, I think involving them not returning to camp. But dinner’s at 4:45, MO! Suzanne just wants to GO, but Mo’s figuring that since Crazy Eyes wrote “TimeHump” *starring Corporal Rod Cocker and his double-shocker*, she should totes be down for a reality shift: why do they have to sit in a box?

Lolly’s trying to take a dead-looking pic of Alex, who isn’t cooperating. She’s a teensy bit of a control freak, hey? Now they gotta hide the body! But the pic isn’t enough; Kubra texts “show me the t*ts”; “back on the floor!” crows Lolly. “Shirt up, bra down, floobies out, face slack: Dead girl pron. Cosby dream shot” oooohhhhhh man. Oh no she din’t.

Everyone’s making their way back to the prison; Taystee (Danielle Brooks) looking for Suzanne, I forgot she was kinda mommin’ on her! Anita doesn’t know from Crazy Eyes but the guard (Brad William Henke) from Max herding them pushes her hard, drawing the ire of Yoga Jones (Constance Shulman); she’s got her eye on him.

In the cafeteria, all we see are new inmates pushing up against the cage (ohhhhh so Caged Heat – I think my entire puberty is contained in that terrible, terrible movie); the Chicanas are worried but Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) just sees it as an opportunity: “think of it as a mandala: of p*ssy” I fcuking LOVE Big Boo.

Caputo is trying to get an accurate head count of the inmates: each guard comes back with a different total and as for printouts…the printer was out of ink and Luschek (Matt Peters)’s SUPPOSED to be working on it…

And he is! He gets it rolling and decides to take a snack break during: sure! He leaves Joe a little present, farting in a container of cookies with Joe’s name on it. Awww. He’s busted by celebrity chef Judy King (Blair Brown), who ended last season doing her best to check into Litchfield “and they say the art of gift giving is dead.”

The big S.W.A.T. guard Piscatella is stopping Red (my beloved Kate Mulgrew! I heard she loves Sarah Lancashire too!) from entering the kitchen, maybe they shouldn’t eat! Maybe that’s what they should get for breaking the rules! Red makes a run at Caputo, but Piscatella brings her up short; Caputo likes the cut of Piscatella’s jib, even if he doesn’t understand exactly how to spell his name…there IS an “s”!

The Chicanas are yakkin, Blanca (Laura Gomez) has a lot of yeast in her vagina, you know, the fertile orchid of life that we saw in full bloom several times in season one. I feel a little bit bad that I always think of her ladybits whenever I see her, but she’s not usually scratching at them either. Yaaaay?

Daya (Dascha Polanco)’s bleeding through her post-partum pad, her mom calls Charlie over; what are they going to do for her? They show him the bleeding, he’s totally grossed out, but what can he do? Nobody can leave the room. Men are so weirded out by period blood, how any of them can think they’re tough is beyond me.

Angie, the Potato With Eyes (Julie Lake – who looks NOTHING like her Imdb pic and I kind of love how natural the women are kept here: they look like people!! Mostly like people without dental plans), Lorna Morello (Yael Stone) and the girls are discussing the day; Morello figuring she wins: “excuse me, I got married” plus something about her new hubs sperm still being inside her. Awww, who said romance is dead?? Her day was better than EVERYONE’S but these b*tches won’t let her crow about her wedding day!

Just then Charlie comes by and snatches off her napkin/veil, the women protest but it’s not approved, inmate! And there’s bleeding that he is planning to absorb with her wedding veil, not with any of the napkins behind food service. Angie tries to cheer Morello up by asking about the secks, oh now, we’re deep in Too Much Information Land; she and a boyfriend had a shoe they used to put up there while in Catholic school, not just any shoe, a new shoe they called their “doing it shoe” and I legit laughed for a full minute over that. Sometimes I’m 12.

Everyone’s starting to get really itchy…

Taystee’s still worried about Crazy Eyes, but naw, she didn’t drown, she ran off with that Turtle Girl, she tells BlackCindy (Adrienne C. Moore – I absolutely LOVED her conversion last season, I cried like a little girl and I will love her forever for how she carried that off). Janae (Vicky Jeudy) says that’s what you get for hanging out with white folks; but that’s not racist: black people can’t be racist, they have no power. BlackCindy disagrees, black people can’t act on their racism (like putting people in ghettos or killing them in the back of police vans), but they can be as racist as they want in America, land of the free! It’s the home of the racist!

SoSo (Kimiko Glenn) is still trying to chime in with Poussey (Samira Wiley – I LOVE Poussey!! Even if her character development was totally lacking last season)’s protection, BlackCindy wants to start a race war! She’s bored; it’ll be fun!

Lolly and Alex aren’t managing to play it very cool, although that might be because Alex has a a cell phone and keys in her twat and Lolly just killed someone: no don’t call over Piper. Sigh. Lolly’s called her over because she’s recognised one of the new prisoners; I think Lolly stole her apple on ConAir. Piper doesn’t care, she’s too busy pouting about everyone having fun while she was left inside. Lolly says exactly what I’m thinking:

“I’m going to need you to piss off right now.”

Piper chides her; she shouldn’t TALK to her like that. In case they haven’t heard, they will. She’s a force to be reckoned with. And just like Margaret Thatcher said: if you have to TELL people you have power…

A new inmate stops Flaca (Jackie Cruz), she has teardrop tattoos by her eyes too, but hers aren’t eyeliner and ARE ON THE CORRECT SIDE for murdery advertising. She asks who’s in charge here, come on, they’re friends now! They both like to cry in black. Flaca points out Piper, the reader (HAHAHAHA), she may look all *lalala* but she’s stone.cold. The new inmate seems skeptical.

Mo and Suzanne have woven crowns of flowers into their hair and found a gingerbread house in the wood! Covered in lead-based paint, fungus and maybe termites, so Suzanne doesn’t want to lick it any more, pleez. Time oot! There are no timeouts!! Mo really really LOVED TimeHump, and she’s gonna Misery Suzanne, you just watch. In the meantime, she wants Crazy Eyes to take a minute, let the story hula hoop around her brain hips (whet?) and that’s what Suzanne says! Suzanne runs off, she doesn’t want to do this any more!!!

Caputo STILL can’t get an accurate count on how many prisoners are missing “at least 2, but no more than 11” is not at all what he wants to hear. Whew for Suzanne, though! He sends the guards to do a regular bed count as Luschek calls him to come down, presumably to get Judy King. No, he’s not coming down, Luschek can suck his dick. Judy King and her hubs Bill (Richard Masur – he’s been in everything! I remember him most lately as Hannah’s handsy boss on Girls) listen and laugh.

She sends Bill away, he’s not her hubs! He’s her boyfriend and how lovely it would be to be so open about that kind of thing!

Suzanne makes it back to the now-repaired fence to find Caputo, yay! She’s so happy to be safe and away from the Crazy-ier

They’re doing bed counts in the units; trying to figure out how to spell the missing Kukudio’s last name: my favourite is Freida (Dale Soules, aka OctopusNeck).

Caputo and Gerber are searching the woods and looking for stray inmates, finding the gingerbread house with Mo inside: “We know you’re in there” “…no you don’t” and yeah.

Caputo makes it back to his office to get shouted at by Jack Pearson (Michael Bryan French); might his assistant have Joe’s cell phone number?? And what’s going on with Judy King? The public will be crawling all over this with a fine-toothed comb: don’t fcuk up. And get an inmate to answer the phones!

Judy and Luschek are talking about the nature of love and romance; they are different things and she can separate them, even if Luschek cannot. He gets attached. Caputo FINALLY figures out where Judy is; “to be continued” she warns Luschek!

The new inmates are being checked in; we’re gonna use as-culturally-sensitive-as-possible nicknames! First we have Hapakuka  (Jolene Purdy) designated to Piper’s lower bunk; Red advises Pipes to establish dominance right away. Piper swings in with the fat-shaming first, then moves to the usual pushing around shite, to have Red cut her off at the knees by showing kindness to “big girl” Hapakuka with the bad knees. Another lesson from the master, Piper, hope you were paying attention.

Oh and Piper’s stupid infinity symbol tattoo is infected.

Judy’s been assigned to Poussey’s room, SQUEE!!! She LOVES Judy King!! She’s like me, though, she can’t talk around famous people, so she doesn’t say a word as Caputo runs up and snatches their celeb inmate away. “Did nobody fcuking see that??” Poussey sputters.

BlackCindy’s got a new roomie I like already! Anyone who can stare down BlackCindy…has got to be awesome. They exchange religious greetings and the game is set.

Suzanne is ECSTATIC to see Taystee; but she thinks she ate lead. And the beds grew? Also: Turtle Mo is crazy, but we knew that.

Red CANNOT take the snoring of her new bunkie, tossing and turning and I think getting up as Alex tries to wake up Lolly; they’ve got to take care of Toothpick. Lolly’s oot of it, though, so Alex leaves her and makes a run herself.

They left Kukudio in Caputo’s office by herself; is that a Kardashian? Once I was staying with someone I was pretty sure was evil, he let me use his computer but told me not to look at his internet search history, which I honoured for about 30 seconds. I’m guessing Caputo’s the same.

He looks up Mo’s record: who likes to be predictable, hey? She threatens to tell the warden if he doesn’t feed her and let her go to bed…he is the warden. And then he sends her to bed with no dinner.

Alex is inside the greenhouse listening to Donuts complain to Gerber about how cold Pensatucky (Taryn Manning) is being to him; here’s a little tip, Charlie: DON’T RAPE PEOPLE YOU MAGGOTY PIECE OF SHIT.

Alex is distracted by Toothpick’s re-awakening just then, I didn’t THINK he was dead really. He’s breathing, but just a little, so Alex has to suffocate him with her hands. This doesn’t look like fun at all, even with the knowledge that he surely would have killed her had he another five minutes earlier. She cries and he stares at her and it’s pretty awful, for killing a hitman.

It’s 3:30 am and Piscatella’s waking up Red; time to start her shift! Breakfast starts at 4:30 now that there are twice as many people to feed. “Who’s gonna eat at 4:30?” she wonders? Just a perky Suzanne and a guard.

Caputo walks out as Healy (Michael Harney) walks in; he heard all about the new inmates and guard walk-out from another angry guard; go home and change your suit! Be a Big Dog!

Lolly’s up and at them early – shaking Alex / Morticia: they have to take care of some non-plant matter in the greenhouse, yo! Alex struts away.

Healy walks into his office to find Judy King sleeping on a mattress in his floor; “Good morning Handsome!” as he backs out and goes looking for someone who knows what the Sam Healy is going on.

In the greenhouse is OctopusNeck; she’s found Toothpick’s corpse. Lolly tries to play it off “what’d you DO??” “Nice try.” “I’m bored, what’s the plan?” They tell her they’re gonna bury him under the floorboards, but that’s just stupid, haven’t they ever killed anyone before? No, has she? That’s personal. But she knows it’s easier to dig six one-foot holes than it is to dig one six-foot hole, that’s just murder math. And that means: discorporation. Which means gardening shears, which means cut along the joint lines, ladies. Ick

Piper is ECSTATIC that the new inmates are showing her respect, I’m just happy they’re playing Last Resort by Papa Roach, I LOVE this song!

There’s some really gross and hilarious cutting sequences; then sunflower planting! OctopusNeck is starving! We’re oot to “Motherfcuker Got Fcuked Up”, which is a song because of course it is. Welcome back to Litchfield!