Orange Is The New Black Season 4: The Full Collection

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK SEASON 4: THE FULL COLLECTION, EPISODES 1-13 (7.7 AVERAGE)

(NOTE: All of the episode descriptions preceded by a * are sourced from Wikipedia.)

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK 4x01 "Work That Body For Me"

"After enjoying a short while at the lake, the ladies of Litchfield are returned to the prison to find 100 new inmates arriving. Piper continues her act of being the big cheese in the prison, Alex confronts the hitman sent to kill her, Maureen and Crazy Eyes decide to flee the prison altogether, ."

OITNB will be hard to analyse succinctly given it has so many threads of plot in comparison to your average 40-minute broadcast network show. Fortunately, the premiere's direct follow-on from season 3's finale means there's not as much to speak about as there will be later on.
   We'll start with the lake: in the season 3 finale everyone escaped from the prison confines to the nearby lake until killjoy guards, including 6 newbies from maximum security, donned the riot gear and shepherded them into the mess hall with 100 new inmates, until they were finally allowed back into the dorms and given their new bedding arrangements. I think this overcrowding is going to be a great plotline: it's going to stress out the guards and new warden Caputo, and it's going to heighten tensions between everyone. But it's also going to make things harder for -
   Piper! Piper, who is a self-titled "gangster with an A" after setting up her illegal used panty business and framing Stella for having contraband. She'll crush some and some will fight her, but either way it'll be interesting. Piper isn't at play much here, and mostly appears only to set up her future conflicts: one of the new inmates, whose name I do not know, wants to know who the big dog in prison is. Flaca, the Latina Piper fired from her panty business for insurrection, tells this new woman it's Piper, who is confronted in the breakfast queue the next day. But, unlike Vee in season 2, Piper hasn't established total dominance of all the prisoners and is relishing her self-aggrandised position a little too much. As I said, she's gonna get a nasty comeuppance at some point. Yay, because while I do like Piper, she's grown waaaaaay too arrogant and needs bringing down a peg.
   Elsewhere, Crazy Eyes realised that Maureen was a bit too crazy even for her and begged to be let back into the prison, celebrity chef Judy King arrives and Brook Soso continues to be a love interest for Poussey.
   But in the premiere's main plot, Alex Vause was saved from her old boss's hitman by conspiracy theorist Lolly, only to come back later that night to find he isn't actually dead. So Alex must kill him herself, and returns the next morning to bury the body, only for one of the gardening ladies to have found it. Then, instead of narking, she advises Alex to chop him up and bury him in the garden. Well, that was all a lovely plot. (Appropriately, the back credits following Alex and Lolly cutting up the hitman's body had the song Motherfucker Got Fucked Up - Folk Uke playing - good choice.) It had some disgusting moments (Alex's boss demanding pics of dead Alex's dead boobs, which Lolly and Alex send him to throw him off; and Alex hiding keys to the shed in her lady bits - was that not painful? That seems like it would hurt...) but overall it was about Alex coming to terms with her past and Laura Prepon's acting was wonderful. This storyline is going to underline whatever happens to her in the future - especially if Lolly flips on her and uses it for leverage or blackmail.

VERDICT: Had some great comedic moments, Piper and Alex's characterisation were brilliant and the overpopulation set up some interesting threads.  8/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BACK - 4x02 "Powersuit"

* "The inmates struggle with overcrowding of the prison. Healy gets Judy King a new roommate, Yoga Jones. Black Cindy battles with her new roommate, Alison Abdullah over shared space. Red attempts to stop her bunkmate’s snoring but to no avail. Piper befriends her bunkmate and she becomes her bodyguard. Doggett is worried that Maritza is being raped by Officer Coates, although he is shown to only have feelings for Doggett. Sophia’s wife tries to talk to Caputo about letting Sophia out of SHU but he does not listen. Caputo meets with MCC and they decide to hire veterans as CO’s who will be housed at cabins on campus. Caputo befriends Linda at the meeting. Daya is worried about her baby being placed in foster care since Cesar is going to jail for a long time for conspiracy to commit murder and assaulting a police officer. Racial tension arises as the Dominicans realise that they are the majority. Maria tries to stop it but ends up leading an attack on a white inmate in defense of Blanca."

The episode description makes it seem like more happened in this episode than actually did. But everything was really centred around our characters dealing with the new overpopulation problem and therefore individual plotlines didn't move forward very much. And that's OK: it's only episode two after all. But it made it a little dull in all honesty.

   Red taught Piper about the vulnerability of being top dog (a much-needed lesson) but Piper reacted by getting herself a bodyguard and continuing to act insufferably arrogant. Eurgh, we need Vause to come knock her down a peg, but unfortunately she's too busy having no scenes where she worries about having killed, chopped up and buried someone in the fucking prison.

   The new prison celebrity gets a room of her own much to the chagrin of Yoga Jones who has to move from the dorms into a room with her - and Yoga hides her displeasure at the favourable treatment.

   Black Cindy and her new Muslim bunkmate Allison are in the early stages of a bunk war - which was admittedly quite a funny plot - and Red's trouble with her own bunkmate's snoring was just brilliant comedy.

   But on a more serious note, Pennsatucky (Doggett)'s concerns over Maritza being raped by the same guard who raped her are going to make for a great storyline, and I really do fear for Maritza's character. It's terrible how this rape arc has become the biggest will they won't they on the show? No, for heaven's sake! They won't!

   Sophia's wife makes a plea for her to get out of SHU, but to be honest Sophia's a bit boring, so they should just keep her there. There's enough bad blood between the Dominicans, the Puerto Ricans and the new white inmates without reintroducing Sophia into the mould. Keep her where she is - permanently.

   And the private company who own the prison prove once again that a cent spent is a cent lost, in the end deciding to hire out-of-work veterans as prison guards for the tax breaks. Arseholes. I can't wait for Caputo to tell them to shove it.

VERDICT: All in all, this episode was mostly about the integration of the new inmates and how that affects everyone. It wasn't particularly interesting, but it did a necessary job. 6/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x03 "(Don't) Say Anything"

* "Tastee gets switched from janitorial duties to being Caputo’s assistant. Red is both angry and jealous that Judy gets special treatment and that she is always in her garden. Piper loses employees in her illegal panty business as they think that it is becoming too dangerous. Maria tries to help her fellow Dominican by asking Piper if they could join her business but Piper declines, stating that she doesn’t want thugs so instead, the Dominicans decide to start their own panty business. Caputo goes on a date with Linda and in the restaurant he sees one of the CO’s that walked out working as a busboy. When he confronts Caputo and tells him how hard it is for him and the other CO’s who walked out, he states that it is all their fault for walking out on an important day in the prison. Brook and Poussey grow closer together. Poussey is a big fan of Judy but gets nervous every time she sees Judy and is unable to speak to her. Brook tries to talk to Judy and explain why Poussey acts weird in front of her but lies about Poussey’s past in order to get Judy’s acceptance, falsely claiming that Poussey is poor and her mother is a crack addict and acts strange because Judy is rich and white. Judy invites Poussey to have lunch with her but when Poussey hears Brook lied to Judy, she abruptly leaves lunch, insulted that Brook knows nothing about her. It is shown that in Brook’s past, she exaggerates the truth to be accepted. Brook apologises to Poussey and promises to make an effort to know her. Lolly begins to crack and attempts to dig up Aydin’s body in the garden but Alex stops her. Frieda sees Lolly’s instability and states that they are going to have to kill Lolly."

That's one long-ass Wiki description, but I'm not sure I could have condensed it all that much more. So all I'll do is just wrap it up quick: Poussey and Brook's relationship is super cute, so it was nice to see Brook's casual racism tear them apart and then bring them back together later on. I like these two characters and I'm interested to see how they grow later on.

   Caputo is just a boss in every episode he's in, and even here he's brilliant in dealing with the CO's that walked out. I miss them though, these new guards aren't as good.

   Piper is finally starting to properly understand the danger of her position as top dog, and doesn't have a particularly strong bodyguard either. The Dominicans are also starting to muscle in on her panty business, but I can't wait for that bit in the trailer where they jump her in the kitchen. She'll deserve it.

   Alex and Lolly start to go mad over the hitman they killed, and with Lolly's mental instability I wonder if Alex and Frieda actually will genuinely try and kill her. That would seem silly, but needs must I suppose.

VERDICT: The first genuinely watchable and enjoyable episode of the series, but that was mostly because of Brook and Poussey, where everything didn't offer too much more than before. 7.5/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x04 "Doctor Psycho"

* "Sophia gets Caputo’s attention by flooding her cell but he refuses to help her. Healy's past is shown. His mother suffered from mental illness and is seen being discharged from a hospital. She wanted to stop her treatment because it makes her forget. Healy doesn’t want her to stop and upon hearing this, she runs away. After some years, Healy sees a homeless lady resembling his mother. He invites her for coffee and apologizes for not being there when she tried to reach out to him. He then realizes that she isn’t his mother but still offers her to finish coffee with him. Healy forces Judy to lead a cooking class. It is a hit, but Judy asks Caputo to change Healy as her counselor, stating that he has power issues. Alex confides Frieda’s plan to kill Lolly to Red. Red tries to mediate the situation but realizes that they have to kill Lolly. Lolly behaves erratically and Healy counsels her, convincing her that she imagined the killing."

I suppose a Healy-centric episode was bound to be written some time or another, but as easily the most boring OITNB character it sufficed to lower the overall decency of the other plotlines. Expanded on were Piper's panty business (which is now facing competition in Maria, who is pinching all Piper's staff. It was nice to see Piper lose her arrogance, because we all knew the moment someone really hard challenged her she would be too passive to fight back properly); Lolly's instability about having helped kill someone (which seems to be resolved for now, but I'm sure will return and is making for great entertainment); Pennsatucky finally confronting Officer Coates about him raping her, which he denies because he loves her and that makes it different (oh boy, this is gonna explode); and Judy King's, the celebrity chef, incarceration and new start teaching a prison cooking class. Ehhh, Judy's as interesting as Healy and they grouped them both together plot-wise ... quicker this ends the better.

   I don't like Sophia - she's boring too - but at least her persistence in staging personal protests such as flooding her cell and setting fire to her bed were interesting. And as max sec was evacuated from the fire, we saw a glimpse of Nicky Nichols again. Yay, Nicky! Hopefully she'll be back soon and Sophia can stay where she is and get no airtime.

VERDICT: The Healy and Judy focuses dulled the intrigue of the plots around it, but at least things are starting to hot up now. 7/10.

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x05 "We'll Always Have Baltimore"

* "Due to the recent economies, the prison starts to run thin on supplies including tampons, causing a black market to form around the prison. The guards meanwhile start targeting the ethnic prisoners and subjecting them to random searches. While Caputo attends a convention for prison employees with Linda, Taystee manages to guess the password to the computer in his office and gets access to the internet. At the convention, Caputo gets into an altercation with Danny Pearson who attempts to use the event to speak out against the system and is arrested however Linda finds this hot and the two have sex in a cupboard. In an effort to stop Maria from cutting into her panty business Piper requests and is given permission by Piscatella to form a security group. However, during their first meeting the volunteers (all white) begin to openly voice racist sentiments. Piper is horrified to realize she has accidentally created a white power group. Flashbacks show how Maritza began her life of crime."

The fifth episode of season four was a solid entry from the writers and the actors involved. After season three's focus on privatising the prison, the overpopulation and the further extremes to which MCC want to pennypinch was displayed through Caputo's trip to a conference with budget woman Linda. It also allowed for the cameo return of Danny Pearson, the bumbly ex-warden who had been one of the shining lights the previous season, in a protest against monetising prisons, and Caputo's attempts to fight him off led to him finally consummating a growing relationship with Linda, both of which are great to watch unfold. I do hope Danny appears again later on.

   Piper's storyline hasn't improved: as she fights the Latinas for control of the used panty business, she ends up accidentally starting a revolt for white power, conveniently juxtaposed against the racial profiling of the ethnic prisoners by the new ex-veteran guards. Things are bound to ramp up soon with these all set to boil over, and I can't wait until it does.

   Finally, Maritza is an interesting character who has been far underutilised, but unfortunately her flashbacks didn't do her any justice - although it was nice to learn she was a con artist. They're always fun characters.

VERDICT: Things are moving forward quickly now, and we can expect the drama to rise exponentially very soon. And the episode was just very watchable. 7.5/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x06 "Piece of Shit"

* "During her janitorial stint in maximum security, Nicky encounters Sofia in isolation and later gives her a magazine to read. Later she is asked to clean a cell and finds it is Sofia's which is covered in blood. Luschek feels guilty about his role in landing Nicky in Max, and Judy decides to have her powerful lawyers arrange to have Nicky sent back to Litchfield. However Nicky's anger has caused her to relapse into her heroin addiction. Taystee decides to try and get a picture of Judy to sell to a magazine (using the internet connection in Caputo's office) while Black Cindy and Allison bond over their disdain of Scientology. Poussey and Soso declare their love for each other. Piper plants a set of panties in Maria's bunk and arranges for them to be discovered, which results in Maria getting three to five years added to her sentence."

Much, much better from OITNB: as it reaches mid-season things are finally starting to heat up. As Piper's accidental white power revolt leads to the revelation that someone is making contraband prison panties, Piper makes a decision to frame Maria - and it's excellent. Watching Piper's resolve as a big bad continue to crack as she is forced to make tougher and tougher decisions is riveting, but setting up basically a war between her and the Latinas is going to exacerbate the already bubbling racial hatred throughout the prison. Judy King does something interesting by helping the whiny guard Luschek attempt to make amends for framing Nicky a year ago, and then blackmails him (into sex?) And Brook and Poussey's cute relationship goes one step further - although I know the outcome (bloody online releases mean spoilers after two days), I'm still enjoying this immensely.

   With the focus so heavily on Nicky, most central characters in the main prison make only small cameos: Red, Freida, Alex, Blanca and Maritza get about five seconds of screen time. Boring boring Stella reappears for one scene in max with Nicky and is back on drugs, and Daya, who has seen her screen time reduced to practically nothing since her prison baby storyline ended, is too friendly to feature in the panty war and could benefit from Matt McGorry's return as Officer Bennet (doubt that will happen, though).

   Standout scene of the episode: Luschek visiting Nicky in max, an intense, emotion-driven scene reminiscent of Pornstache's mother visiting him in prison in season 3.

VERDICT: For a light-hearted hour-long prison drama, today's episode was heavy on everything it needed to be. Things that have moved slowly previously will hurtle forwards from here. 8.5/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x07 "It Sounded Nicer In My Head"

* "Piper starts to realise her power has corrupted her, and though she takes steps to make amends, a plan of revenge is already in motion. Her new 'bodyguard' turns against her, handing her to Maria and her gang, who burn the Nazi swastika into her arm. Lolly finds a friend in a kindly Healy, and her past as a journalist who turned into a homeless 'crazy woman' is explored. Nicky continues on her self-destructive drug binge."

For once a very short and sweet Wiki description for you! I'll start with the main bit of business: Piper's comeuppance. It's been brewing, and in a Wentworth v OITNB comparison blog that's coming to you soon which I've part-written, I talk about the value of loyalty between a top dog and her bodyguard, and today's episode shows exactly how you don't treat your bodyguard. After all the disrespect, Piper crosses the line by leaving her bodyguard (I literally don't know what the woman's name is) out in the cold, so she gets revenge by shopping Piper to the Latinas. Poetic, just and may I say, Taylor Schilling's acting in this episode was top draw. Seeing Piper get the devil's share (to quote my POI buddy Fusco's phrase to describe when someone gets what's coming to them), in that scene I've been waiting for where the Latinas have her arm over a gas hob, was excellent after all her pretence of being a big bad so far this season.

   Lolly's past was extremely interesting but it didn't really reveal anything about her - like she tells Healy at the end, there wasn't a point in time that she would go back to to change her insanity (except birth), and that conclusion made the flashbacks rather pointless.

   Daya got her customary two lines an episode, I loved Nicky's return (which was honoured well by the writers) and Red got some good airtime. Caputo is becoming further disillusioned by MCC and that will hopefully reach breaking point at the end of the season, and Alex Vause continues to slither in the background in a wholly disappointing misuse of Laura Prepon's acting ability.

VERDICT: Now we're getting somewhere. When OITNB doesn't take its bloody time about things each episode can be a thoroughly gripping ride, but its bloated cast list keeps consigning previously major characters to the sidelines, a fact that is becoming glaringly obvious and frustrating. 7.5/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x08 "Friends in Low Places"

* "Piper has hit rock bottom after being attacked by Maria and her crew. When she finds Alex and Nicky in the garden, she gets high with them, and reveals her burn to them. Alex also confesses her murderous secret, but all these only leads their 'family' to reunite, as Red burns Piper's swastika into a window. Maria's selling drugs out of the salon, worrying Aleida as she has days until she is released. Charlie makes a heartfelt apology to Pennsatucky. Crystal shows up at Caputo's house in the search for answers about Sophia, but Linda turns a gun on her to get her off the property. Judy kisses Cindy in an attempt to prove to the world she's not racist."

Rather typically, the fire that was set in the previous episode burned out shortly after this one began. I must admit, however, that this hour didn't feel like it dragged.

   MCC implements the construction lessons they decided to go for instead of Caputo's vocational courses, which allowed a centre for all the arcs to congregate and gave fair airtime to most characters, including Boo and Pennsatucky, two more who had been underused this season.

   I was glad to finally see Alex and Piper come together, since it seems Alex only gets any airtime if her storyline is connected to Piper (and Laura Prepon is a fantastic actress), but Judy King is still a bore and the fact that time is still being filled with Morello's "who took a dump in the shower" storyline is gobsmacking. And on top of that it seems the writers are making nearly everyone relapse or start up drug use, since Nicky, Alex and Piper all shared a crack pipe in the corn fields on top of the dead hitman Alex killed in the premiere. Somehow the writers are managing to make Piper into the most unlikeable character on the show.

   Daya got an extra five seconds of airtime compared to normal and Maria is all of a sudden the big bad as she has everyone under her thumb. What a turnaround two episodes can offer...

VERDICT: A likeable enough episode considering it didn't deliver on the promises made before, but everyone's arcs are splitting off in uncharacteristic, sudden and odd directions. 7/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x09 "Turn Table Turn"

* "The CO's power trip gets worse than ever when one guard forces Maritza to eat a baby mouse. Meanwhile, Blanca rebels against them by stopping them frisking her using powerful odours. Boo turns her back on Pennsatucky when she decides to forgive Charlie for raping her. Morello becomes paranoid her sister is having an affair with her husband. Red breaks down, forcing Nicky to decide to get clean again. News of Judy and Cindy's fake relationship spreads. Flashbacks show Blanca's past as the housekeeper for a demanding elderly woman, and how she got revenge when a fellow worker was fired just to keep her attention on her job."

OITNB stoppered the flow of tension by switching its focus from the Latinas' burgeoning panty market to the guards' prejudice, and by using flashbacks of Blanca's past to show how she got her revenge on the elderly lady she worked for, they opened a way of furthering the prejudice plotline. Blanca, who doesn't get much airtime anyway, shone.

   Meanwhile, Maritza's innocent joke with a friend about "if you had a gun to your head what would you rather eat, a live baby mouse or ten dead flies?" turned waaaaaaay too literal at the end when one of the guards forced her to actually play the game, in the episode's (and in fact the entire show's) most shocking, revolting and memorable scene.

   Piper and Alex mostly sat and dreamed of burgers, but it was nice to see them both friendly again; Nicky's decision to get clean fills me with joy, since Nicky is a much more fun character when she's not on drugs; Boo has the right idea by trying to convince the impressionable Pennsatucky not to forgive Coates, but sadly I think she's likely to ignore Boo's advice; Morello's crazy girlfriend past morphs into a crazy wife present, which always adds that extra dimension to her character that was missing since season 2; and Judy remains a bore. I'm convinced I'll never find her interesting. Finally, Aleida begins to say goodbye and spends her commissary money on gifts for her friends - at this point I'm rooting for nothing to go wrong and for her to be freed, but hasn't she been two days away from release for two episodes now?

VERDICT: With Blanca starting a rebellion against the guards and Piper's accidental white power group simmering in the background, I can finally see roughly where season 4 is intended to conclude, and this was a strong episode to lead it all there. 8/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

4x10 "Bunny, Skull, Bunny, Skull"

* "Blanca continues to take her stand, quite literally, in the cafeteria, and Piper is forced to join her when she tries to help her by smuggling her food. Sister Ingalls manages to sneak a message to Sophia in Max, but her plan to expose Sophia's treatment backfires when Caputo finds her secret phone. However, Caputo sends the picture to the press himself, rebelling against MCC. Aleida leaves the prison, and has to adapt to the outside world, her only friend is the woman Cesar was dating before he was arrested and who gave birth to his baby. Later, the ground's men discover Aydin's body in the garden."

Well, finally a cliffhanger that has to carry over dramatically. The building work in the gardens has uncovered the body of Kubra's hitman, who Alex and Lolly killed, which will no doubt be the centre of the next episode. It was a great, out-of-the-blue ending, especially when most of the attention recently has been on the guards' racism.

   Speaking of which, Maritza tells Flaca about Humphrey forcing her to eat a mouse, in a heartbreaking but brilliantly acted scene, although this felt weakened by the absence of Humphrey throughout the episode. A lunatic like him I would have expected to be present to gloat.

   Aleida gets out and struggles to adapt to life, which surprised no one. Hopefully she'll stay out of prison, but, unless the writers chuck her back in, Elizabeth Rodriguez will still be key to Daya's storylines next season, I'd imagine. And it was nice to see more of the outside world.

   Piper tries to smooth things over after accidentally inciting race hate and ends up stuck with the same punishment Blanca incurred: to stand on a table and not move until she physically can't. Meanwhile, Red stops drugs being sold to Nicky by threatening everyone, Sister Ingalls' attempts to release images of Sophia's cruel treatment in Max lead to Caputo going rogue, and in Danny Pearson's excellent cameo, Caputo hands him the photo to leak.

VERDICT: MCC finding resistance at the same time a guard's body is discovered and racism is ramping up? Nicely-timed, Jenji. 8/10

4x11 "People Persons"

* "Following the discovery of the body in the garden, the prison goes into lockdown. While Caputo tries to get past the red tape at MCC, Piscatella defies orders to begin interrogating inmates; starting with Red. Suzanne's past, and her involvement in the tragic accidental death of a young boy, is explored, while she faces the wrath of Kukudio while holed up the guards. Humphrey takes enjoyment in their clash and forces Suzanne to fight her, causing her to explode and nearly beat Kukudio to death. The COs are spiraling out of control. Judy, Yoga Jones, and Joel have a drug fueled threesome. Healy wrestles with the idea of handing Lolly in, and nearly commits suicide, before deciding to face his problems. He hands Lolly in to Piscatella, and she is sent to Psych A."

Sadness all around. In the aftermath of the prison lockdown following Aydin's body's uprooting, we get this emotional, chaos-ridden episode that follows everyone as they all reach breaking point. Whether that be Nicky dealing with trying to quit drugs or Alex at the end of her tether for killing Aydin - or Crazy Eyes' horrifying past that led to the death of a young boy - nobody is safe. Healy is barely rescued from committing suicide by work commitments (I could've stood to see his character bid farewell), Crazy Eyes reacts to Kukudio's tormenting by nearly killing her while the guards watch on in delight and Caputo continues to hate himself for how he is being puppeteered by MCC.

   Great humour (Freida was distraught she wasn't suspected of Aydin's murder, having been convicted of four murders in the past), well-written and shows every side of the situation, be it the guards', the prisoners' or the management's.

VERDICT: Still doesn't quite scale the heights it should be at this point, and the length of the episode continues to dilute some of the tension. 8/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x12 "The Animals" (penultimate episode)

* "Caputo attempts to suspend Humphrey for his part in what happened to Suzanne. However Piscatella threatens to have all the COs walk out if he does so and informs Caputo he no longer has any real authority. The different prison families come together to discuss a plan to force Piscatella out and restore order to the prison. Though they initially fail to come to an agreement, Piscatella's unfair treatment of Red unites the inmates. They stand on the tables in a peaceful protest, refusing to move until Piscatella resigns. However, he orders his men to remove them by force. Meanwhile, Suzanne breaks down over her fight with Maureen and Poussey rushes to her aid, but the young CO Bayley quickly reacts and improperly restrains her. While everyone's attention is on calming Suzanne down, no-one notices that Poussey is unable to breathe, and she eventually dies. In the past, Bayley's decision to become a prison guard is explored. Healy wrestles with his decision to send Lolly to Psych A, and decides to return to a mental health facility himself. News of Piper and Alex's reunion spreads around the prison. Pennsatucky unites with Boo. Sophia returns to the prison."

And there it is. The cliffhanger death I knew was coming (yay for full-season same-day releases). So Poussey is dead. I can't help but feel desensitised since I knew it was coming at some point, and the scene itself was written poorly. I mean, Poussey had been dead for all of about ten seconds when Taystee fell sobbing at her body and no one even tried any CPR. However, the puzzling flashbacks to the young guard Bayley's life - and Caputo warning Bayley working in the prison will change him - wrapped up season 4's theme of "breaking point" in a nice little bow, and in the end it was a bold and intelligent move by the writers.

   The revolt against Piscatella in the cafeteria which led up to Poussey's accidental death needs mentioning. Blanca, who was first punished by standing on a table a few episodes previously, was the first to stand on a table in revolt against Piscatella. Piper, who tried to help Blanca originally, was the second. I thought that was brilliantly written.

   Elsewhere, I'm glad to see Piper and Alex "back on", since their relationship is a huge part of the show that's been missing for quite a long time; Healy turning himself into a psychiatric institute is hopefully the last we'll see of the miserable old fart; Sophia's return brings a slight sinking feeling to my stomach; Pennsatucky finally convinces Boo to leave off her rapist; and Caputo makes the trip to the ex-warden Fig's house that we've all been waiting for, and admits to her that she was right: the job broke him, too.

VERDICT: Sad realisations are abound, from Caputo to Pennsatucky to Bayley, and our upcoming finale, which invariably will be 90 mins instead of the usual 60, will have a lot to deal with, especially after the revelation that the prison is set to receive even more inmates in the near future. But for this episode, everything was dealt with beautifully. Never has the slow destruction of so many characters been so sadistically watchable. 8/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x13 "Toast Can't Never Be Bread Again" (season finale)

* "Following Poussey's death, MCC tells Caputo to hold off on calling the police until they can develop an angle, while Taystee urges Caputo to at least call Poussey's dad, and break the news to him. Soso wanders into the library to find Suzanne trapped under a fallen shelf. She rescues Suzanne, but in medical, Suzanne gets put next to Kukudio who is still recovering from the beating Suzanne gave her. Piper finds out that Alex has been leaving notes around the prison, revealing Aydin's real name, and then the two of them track down the notes, and prepare to burn them. MCC grants release to Judy King wanting to get her away from the crisis. Caputo ignores the MCC prep, and on camera refuses to fire Bayley. Taystee overhears, and snaps - she incites the other inmates, who all march through the hallways of the prison, and eventually converge on where Judy King is being escorted out of prison. Humphrey instinctively goes for the gun in his sock, but Maritza pushes him over, and it slides across to the Hispanics, and Daya picks it up. She initially takes aim at the white supremacists, but instead takes Humphrey and McCullough hostage, cocks the gun and takes aim at Humphrey's head, while all the inmates present collectively urge her to pull the trigger. In a flashback, Poussey has a fun night with strangers she meets in New York City that ends in her arrest for drug possession and trespassing."

There is so much to talk about with this finale I don't really know where to begin. Maybe my consistency at guesswork: Netflix stuffed all the action into 75 minutes rather than my predicted 90, but nothing was missing that hadn't already been present. And by that I mean the theme of this year was a significant decrease in most of our main characters' airtimes because of the overpopulation plot that introduced something like six to ten new characters. Maritza, Flaca, Aleida, Healy and Yoga Jones are among a number of people who made cameos here, but the biggest principal example I can give is how little we've seen of Daya since her kid was born and shunted off to live with her ... cousin? However, we'll see a definite uptick in airtime for Daya next season what with the final prison scene of the season being her holding a gun to the head of Humps in the middle of a prison riot. No gunshot though, like with Shaw in Person of Interest. You like to keep us guessing, don't you, Jenji?

   The prison riot itself was a magnificent scene. Instigated by Taystee after she overheard Caputo's press conference where he defied MCC's wishes and refused to fire Bayley for Poussey's death, all the prisoners ended up in the middle of a corridor, surrounding Humps, a female guard and the about-to-be-released Judy King. Humps (who had brought a gun to work that day) lost control of his weapon and ended up facing his own barrel.

   But that was just the climax of the fallout from Poussey's death. On a personal level Taystee and Watson took it extremely hard and ended up fighting with nearly everybody in their grief, Crazy Eyes felt so guilty she tried everything she could to discover what it felt like to struggle to breathe and Soso drank away her pain; meanwhile, Caputo had to deal with the political machinations of a corrupt company hellbent on covering its own arse by not moving Poussey's body until they could find a way to make Bayley their dangerous, unstable scapegoat - when in reality he was just in way over his head. The acting from Nick Sandow (Caputo) and Alan Aisenberg (Bayley) was superb and captivating, and as much as I hate MCC, seeing Caputo break under the weight of the corporation's corruption is fabulous TV.

   I didn't really understand the Poussey flashbacks, although I judge from the Wikipedia description that what was displayed was the lead-up to her arrest. (I shouldn't need a Wikipedia description for me to understand, however, and this just epitomises how vast the OITNB world is and therefore how hard it can be to keep up). And for me the Poussey flashbacks were an unnecessary disturbance that disrupted the flow of the episode, and her cheesy smile which broke the fourth wall was a poor shot on which to end a cracking episode.

VERDICT: Much of the fourth season has been troubled by the over-large cast but somehow the incredible finale has managed to hold together and close out the majority of its arcs. A superb episode to ring out the season and set up season five. As someone says in the episode (I'm paraphrasing) "We've got time." Yeah you do. Another three seasons. 9/10