‘Orange Is The New Black’ season 3, episode 8 review: Alex being watched, Daya reveals baby truth
Red had a win on the last episode of “Orange Is The New Black” when she gained control of the kitchen again, but it was short lived when she learned that they would no longer be creating menus and cooking food. Caputo has basically made her a glorified leader of the microwave now that all of the meals are coming in pre-packaged and ready to go. Can Red come up with a plan to get the pre-packaged meals out the door and gain her power back or will she just throw in the towel?
The new food is going over like a lead balloon and it’s bringing attention to the women that have been pretending to be Jewish to get the tasty kosher meals. Corporate has noticed the spike in Kosher meals as well and they are not happy. We haven’t had a chance to see much from the corporate side of things, but we saw Danny stand up to the board to try and get some of Caputo’s demands met. Unfortunately no one is listening, including his father who is running the show.
The meals are so bad that inmates are going to commissary for instant noodles, but Piper has bought them all to try to trade them for help in her new underwear business. Piper’s epic underwear speech (along with the instant noodles) gets some of the women on board, but when Alex refuses to work over one of the newbie guards to get the underwear out of the prison, she takes it upon herself to get the job done.
It has been a long time since we’ve had any back story on our main characters, but we had a look into Alex’s life. We caught up with her right after her break up with Piper as she attended her mom’s funeral alone. After the funeral she goes back to work, but she finds herself in trouble again when she convinces the team to leave the drug mule at the airport to get pinched. When one of the group gets killed over the mess up, Alex realizes how dangerous the situation really is, but her boss gives her a break. Back in prison, Alex is worried that one of the new girls is there to kill her for turning on her drug boss… is she paranoid or is there something to this? As it turns out this new girl is charting every move Alex makes.
Suzanne’s story is growing in popularity, and now everyone in the prison is pressuring her to get the chapters finished quicker. When Poussey gets a chapter of the book that affects her pretty deeply, she gets drunk and hurts over not having real love. She realizes that she needs help with her problem and joins Norma’s prayer circle.
One of the new officers is pretty clueless about the job and Tiffany is trying to help him know what’s right and wrong… like don’t leave an inmate in the car with the keys unattended. Tiffany has the best day with him as they eat donuts, feed the ducks and joke around with each other. Is she getting a love interest or just a new friend?
Daya learns that her mother has made a financial arrangement in exchange for the baby and now she doesn’t want to give up the baby under these terms. She reveals to George’s mother that that the baby isn’t his and that she refuses to lie for money in exchange for her baby.
It was nice to see some more back story on Alex and have it loop back to present day. Is she really in danger or is this new girl watching her for some other reason? Red quitting the kitchen was a bit of a shocker, but we still have hope that Healy will be the light at the end of the tunnel for her. Also, we would really like to see Poussey find love at some point, even if it’s just a glimmer of hope by the end of this season. Episode grade: B+
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