‘Orange Is The New Black’ season 3, episode 3 review: Is Nicole gone for good?
Now that we are starting to get into season 3 of “Orange Is The New Black” and some of the main storylines are beginning to unfold (like the prison shutting down) we are getting deeper into our Costco sized bucket of cheeseballs and starting to like where they are going… for the most part. As we said in our episode 2 review, we aren’t really enjoying the Piper/Alex relationship as much as we have in the past and feel like these two need something else to do… especially Piper.
Alex and Piper are still having angry sex, but after a improv class at the prison, they get to the root of their problems with each other and Alex learns that although Piper’s reasons for making her go back to prison were completely selfish, she sees just how much Piper loves her.
Healy can’t get his wife to sleep in the same bed with him and asks Red toto be a translator for them so they can work things out. At the counselling session, Red is tired of hearing Healy’s wife complaining about things that don’t matter and ends up telling her off for throwing away a good man over nothing. Could there be a Red and Healy hook up coming up in the future?
So where did Nicole’s drugs really go? She stole them for herself and is hiding them in the laundry room, but things go sideways when they fall out of the light fixture and Leanne finds them. When Nicole sees Leanne rolling around the prison high, she goes to Luschek and tells him the truth about everything. After finding the drugs from Leanne, Luschek tells Nicole that he’s going to take care of selling them and instructs her not to tell Big Boo. Unfortunately Leanne is telling all of the guards about Luschek and the drugs and at first it looks like he’s going to be in the clear because he’s sold them all, but Nicole being the junkie that she is hid a little pack under his desk for herself and Caputo found it. Luschek throws Nicole under the bus… and with that we lost Nicole as she is taken off to a maximum security prison.
Joe is really desperate to keep the prison open, so desperate that he calls Natalie for her help. When she shuts him down, he threatens to expose her husband for his involvement in embezzling as well as the fact that he’s gay. Natalie ends up helping him by pointing him in the direction of someone that can help him.
We were hoping to see more on the Daya/Bennett situation but he never came back to work and she’s starting to suspect things are falling apart. This is the one storyline that has us completely sucked in and we can’t wait to see where it ends up. Losing Nicole to the Max prison has us nervous that we aren’t going to see her again or at least for a long while, which is a real bummer since she’s one of our favorites. Episode grade: B-
What did you think of this episode of “Orange Is The New Black” and do you like where the show is going this season? Leave us your opinion in the comment box below and if you want to read more reviews or news on the show then head over to the link here. Also, if you want more great TV news sent straight to your inbox then be sure to sign up for our weekly CarterMatt newsletter. (Photo: Netflix)