‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 8 Recap: Window Dressing
Warning: This recap for the “Friends in Low Places” episode of Orange Is the New Black contains spoilers.
It can be nearly impossible to muster up a dose of sympathy for Piper Chapman. Those first seasons of Orange Is the New Black did so much in establishing her as a pathologically self-involved character, and everything we’ve seen from her recently — getting Stella sent to Max, setting up Maria to have years added to her sentence because she dared to start a rival business, and, oh yeah, organizing a white supremacy group at Litchfield — has just continued to sharpen the picture of her as a spoiled person who will go to any lengths to get what she wants, far-reaching consequences, especially for others, be damned.
But when being mutilated by her enemies coincides with her finally realizing the woes in her life are largely the result of her “always going too far” — and yes, the latter most definitely only came about after the former — it might be time to cut Chapman a little break.
She’s been broken down by what Maria and her friends did after Hapakuka helped them grab her from Nicky’s party. Physically, she’s in so much pain from the swastika they burned into her arm with a DIY poker that she can’t move the arm, and the wound is bleeding through her clothing. Emotionally, she’s just as wiped out, confessing to Alex and Nicky during a session in which the three of them smoke crack in the small cornfield of Red’s garden, that, “I think that I’ve been trying to win prison. And I’ve destroyed people’s lives.” She admits she didn’t even feel bad about what she did to Maria, and during a chat with Nicky in the previous episode, she actually expected sympathy for finding herself aligned with the wannabe Nazis, ignoring the fact that it only happened because she had used them to advance her plot against Maria.
But during the crack-fueled bonding session, Alex confesses to killing Aydin. She breaks down, telling Piper she had been right in her suspicions that Kubra would send someone into the prison to kill her, and now that person, dead and chopped up into pieces, is buried right beneath the ground where they’re parking their tuchuses.
When Piper drags herself back to her bunk that evening — actually, Hapakuku’s, because she’s too spent to climb into her own top bunk — she turns into a sobbing mess, and during a chat with Red, reveals what is troubling her most: how upset Alex is about what she did to Aydin.
For once, and in her most challenged state, Piper is actually thinking about someone else’s pain. “I just can’t, I can’t believe she did what she did. She told me, and I didn’t listen. She was all on her own… I should have been there for her. If I had known, I would have done something. She’s in pain.”
Red tells her Alex will be OK, and that she wasn’t alone, that Red and Frieda have been helping her. And she tells her what Alex did to Aydin is morally defensible — he was there just to kill her — and that that fact will help her accept the situation someday.
And then Red asks about Piper’s arm. Hot plate accident? Another tattoo? Red insists on looking at the injury, and when she sees what it is, she demands to know who did it. Piper says it doesn’t matter… “I probably deserve it,” she says.
“Well, you can’t go around with that horror,” a softened Red tells her.
That night, in the kitchen, Red does some DIY branding of her own. With Alex and Norma there for support, Red burns a few more lines into Piper’s arm, turning the swastika shape into a window shape.
“When God gives you a swastika, he opens a window,” Red says. “And then you remember there is no God.”
Elsewhere in Litchfield (and beyond):
* Nicky is fully back in addict mode. Not only is she smoking crack in the garden, but she also goes to the salon, where Maria is running her drug business, and trades several items — including a mirror — for a bag of drugs Maria’s minion stashes in her hair. Nicky also tries to spark up her affair with Morello, who insists she wants to remain faithful to new hubby Vince, and when that fails, she hits on Vause, who also resists her charms.
* Inmates who were working at the Whispers factory are fired. Piscatella tells them they’re going to be replaced with prisoners who can be trusted, after the used panty biz mess. Insult to injury: The former Whispers employees will now spend their time building a new prison dorm, for free, as part of the “Construction 101” class that sprung from Caputo’s somewhat well-intentioned attempt to create an educational program for the inmates. The free labor situation does nothing to make Piper more popular with her fellow inmates, who blame her for creating the drama that means they’ll no longer be making $1/hour for their commissary accounts. The small bright spot for the women in Construction 101: the very muscular teacher, Leon McDonald, whose attractiveness is the one thing almost all of the Litchfield cliques agree on.
* The inmates have found out about Lolly’s time machine, and while working on the non-chain chain gang, they talk about what they would do with it. Pennsatucky suggests going back in time to kill Hitler. Hapakuka says she’d go back and raise him differently. “Give him lots of love and encourage his artistic side, try to be a good mom figure to him,” she says. “Maybe he’d have less anger issues.”
But one of Sankey and Skinhead Helen’s cohorts has a different suggestion. “I’d go back and tell him to seize the Suez Canal early on. That’d secure most of the Mediterranean, giving the Third Reich easy access to oil,” she says, leaving the rest of the women speechless.
* Coates is standing nearby during the time machine discussion, and Pennsatucky asks him what he’d do with a time machine. He tells some lame story about going back to attend a Judas Priest concert he missed when he was younger because he got really sick after he attempted to down the 30 cans of Coors Light his friend Champ Silvers dared him to drink. Pennsatucky is visibly disappointed that’s the regret he’d choose to call a mulligan on, and he tracks her down later in the day to change his answer.
“Truth be told, I’d probably go back to when we first met. I would have treated you like a person, not like a duck,” he says. “Or a thing. And 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 and… yeah, 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.”
* Caputo has a guard — the uber-creepy Dixon — accompany Judy King into the shower room now, because there’s still concern she’s in danger after her Chitlin’ Joe scandal. She pooh-poohs the extra security… until Crazy Eyes walks by her, sock puppet on her hand, singing one of Chitlin’ Joe’s songs.
Judy, now assuming Black Cindy and Crazy Eyes want to harm her, goes to Poussey to ask for help. She tells Poussey Cindy trapped her in a hallway, and when Poussey asks her friends about it later, they tell her they were just trying to get a photo. So Poussey and Judy cook up a plan: When Cindy finishes her first day of “Construction 101” class, Judy runs into the yard, in front of everyone, and plants a giant kiss on Cindy’s lips. Cindy’s shocked… and remarks how Judy tastes like strawberries. Poussey, meanwhile, took a cell phone snapshot of the event, which Judy shows it to Cindy.
“Interracial lesbian love behind bars,” Judy says. “We’re gonna hold out for the big bucks, ladies! Make the rags fight over it!”
Cindy’s confused reaction: “My mama’s gonna see me kissing a white woman.”
Questions: We Got a Few
* Will Pennsatucky forgive Coates? And if she does, will they resume their relationship? It’s usually only in daytime soaps that rapist characters find redemption on TV — most notably General Hospital’s Luke Spencer and One Life to Live’s Todd Manning — but the OITNB handling of this storyline has been interesting so far. Opinions? Does Coates’s apology change how you feel about the character? P.S. Did you ever see the scene where Luke and Todd meet?
She Said, He Said
“Look, it was the ‘80s. Everybody was a moron in the ‘80s.” — Judy, summing up how and why she did the Chitlin’ Joe puppet show, to Yoga.
“40 acres and some eggs.” — Judy, brainstorming ways she can make reparations so her fellow inmates don’t think she’s racist.
“At least I didn’t talk to puppets that used the word ‘jigaboo.’” — Yoga, when Judy calls her a hypocrite.
“You are so much warmer, you are so much lovelier, and you are so much awesomer. Plus, you married the anti-Mom.” — Piper, assuring her brother Cal that he’s going to be a good dad when he shares the news that he and his wife are expecting their first child. It’s another check in the “don’t hate Piper in this episode” column, because she had called Cal to talk about the pretty serious mess she’s gotten herself into, but spares him the details and focuses on him instead, and he’s touched by her encouragement.
“Don’t do crime, because prison is unpleasant.” — Piscatella imparting a lesson to Hapakuka, who asks him how “Construction 101” is educational.
“Ain’t about want.” — Maria, to Maritza, who is getting very nervous about using her job as the prison van driver to transport the drugs Maria and her crew are slinging inside Litchfield. Maria tells her to just keep doing what she’s doing, but when Maritza asks, “And what if I don’t want to?” Maria makes it clear she doesn’t have a choice.
“I figure if I loosen and tighten the bolt repeatedly, it eats up the whole f–kin’ day and keeps me out of the trenches.” — Boo, telling Pennsatucky she has no idea how to fix the stalled backhoe she’s volunteered to repair, but concocted a plan to avoid spending the day with a shovel in her hands anyway.
“You’re lucky if you could afford a few bottles of polish. You got make believe on your mind.” — Daya to Aleida, when Aleida shares her plan to start her own nail salon when she gets released in a couple of days. Daya immediately regrets buzzkilling her mom’s plans when she sees her hurt expression, but it’s a sad example of how hopeless Daya is becoming in prison after everything she’s lost.
“I did a lot of blow back in the early ‘80s, and it kept me thin and awake, but it didn’t do much for my cultural sensitivity, or my bank account, or my gynecological health.” — Judy’s excuse to Poussey for why the Chitlin’ Joe puppet show happened, as she asks Poussey to talk to her friends so they won’t beat her up because of her racist past.
“Ever occur to you that it’s racist to assume that black people are going to beat you up for being racist?” — Poussey to Judy.
“Do you know how complicated phones have gotten since we been inside?” — Taystee, trying to convince her friends that her job as Caputo’s assistant is just as tough as their “Construction 101” jobs. And failing.
“Stop giving me the side eye. I know how it got there.” — Heartbroken Red, to Norma, when they see Blanca using Red’s stolen mirror. Blanca says she got it from the salon, in a trade, and Red realizes that means Nicky stole the mirror from her and used it to get drugs from Maria in the salon. When Nicky’s in the garden smoking crack with Alex and Piper, she tells them she got those drugs by giving Angie a lipstick, also, presumably, the one Red had discovered was MIA from her makeup bag.
“I heard that Alex told you how our garden grows. If you say a word, I’ll end you.” — Red to Piper.
“That was so hot!” — Caputo, remaining clueless about Linda, even after she pulls a gun on Crystal Burset. Unable to get any info about Sophia, even confirmation that she’s still alive, Crystal goes to Caputo’s house to talk to him. But Linda is unsympathetic… and unhappy that Crystal is interrupting their pasta dinner, so she pulls a gun out of her purse and forces Crystal off Caputo’s property. Instead of wigging out on her, he’s turned on. Because, Caputo.
Behind Bars:
* The guards, nasty and inappropriate as they can be with the inmates, are also interacting with them in strange ways. Dixon, who ogled and commented on the womens’ bodies while accompanying Judy to the showers, also borrows her issues of O and Women’s Health magazines. And female guard McCullough wants Maritza to give her eye makeup lessons. Maritza tells her to go to the drugstore and get a black eyeliner stick and a tube of mascara, “the pink one.” Of course we know she means this.
* Speaking of guards… Bayley. We know he has a father obsessed with dyeing dogs’ fur, we know he’s a very nervous fellow, we know he does a pretty funny imitation of Piscatella, and we learn in this episode that he’s a fan of a podcast about retro radio dramas like The Shadow and does an impersonation of its famous opening. Can’t wait to see what we find out in his backstory, coming up in this season’s penultimate episode.
* That book Bayley borrowed from the prison library: The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss, from his bestselling The Kingkiller Chronicles series.
* The song that plays after Red turns Piper’s scar into a window? “Lighted Windows,” by Hoagy Lands.
Orange Is the New Black Season 4 is streaming on Netflix.
Read more OITNB recaps:
‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 1 Recap: Over Alex’s Dead Body
‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 2 Recap: There’s Something About Maria
‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 3 Recap: A Soso Episode
‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 4 Recap: ‘I Know Everything That Goes on Here’
‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 7 Recap: ‘That Sickness in Me’
