‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 2 Recap: There’s Something About Maria

SPOILER ALERT: This recap for the “Power Suit” episode of Orange Is the New Black contains storyline and character spoilers.

Think of this episode as a big picture installment. While not the most compelling entry in the new season, it’s one that sets up lots of character background, interactions, and general storyline that’s going to pay off later in Season 4.

Like the backstory we get on Maria Ruiz. Most of what we’ve learned about Maria throughout the first three seasons revolves around her boyfriend, Yadriel, who broke Maria’s heart in Season 3 when he told her he was not going to bring their baby daughter Pepa for visits anymore, because he doesn’t want their little girl to have memories of seeing her mother in prison. Maria was already crushed about being separated from her baby, and everything that followed has made her angrier and angrier.

Enter those 100 new inmates, and the territorial squabbles that are becoming a regular thing, and Maria sums up her current state of mind when the crowded bathrooms lead her to head into the kitchen to brush her teeth in the food prep sink. “I hate everybody,” she tells Gloria.

Despite that, Maria is trying to help temper the racially-charged tensions that are cropping up in places like the TV room, telling Blanca — who’s happy that she and the other Dominicans are no longer the minority population — that they’re all the same, eat the same food … why should they be fighting with each other because of their “national pride,” she wants to know.

Related: ‘Orange is the New Black’ Season 4 Episode 1 Recap

The idea of national pride, we learn in Maria’s first flashback episode, is one that is particularly sensitive to her, because her father, Jorge, is the leader of the local Dominican club, and his entire way of life revolves around being proud to be a Dominican and talking trash about other cultures.

In a flashback, we learn Maria met Yadriel when he was running from the cops, down the alley behind her bedroom window. She saw him toss a package of drugs into the weeds before the cops caught up with him, so she snuck downstairs, got the package and tossed it up through her window to help him. When she returns the drugs to him at the boxing gym where he works out, they click, and later kiss after discussing their plans for the future; she wants to become a dental hygienist, he… likes convenience stores.

But when Papa Ruiz finds out his daughter is dating a Mexican man, he has harsh words for her. Maria points out Yadriel is simply trying to make a living, just like her dad is, and that Jorge’s Dominican pride is not something she carries with her. That’s when he kicks her out of his house, and she hits the street with a suitcase.

Back to the present, Maria remains firm with her stance that all the prisoners should try to get along, but when she witnesses a pair of white newbie inmates berate Blanca and then push her down the stairs, she changes her mind. She and other newbies – Dominican newbies – beat up the women who assaulted Blanca, and then episode ends with Maria joining a card game in the prison yard, where she tells Blanca, “Let’s see how we do together.”

Elsewhere in Litchfield (and beyond):

* Roommates Red and Piper both have bunkmate problems. Dwight, the newbie in the bunk above Red, snores so loudly and consistently — because of an enlarged uvula, she apologetically explains — that Red is dragging her tuchus around the prison as she runs on no sleep. After Sister Jane suggests taping tennis balls to someone’s back so they can’t roll onto their back during the night might help curb the snoring, Red tapes a bunch of tin food cans — sardines? — to Dwight, and it results in her waking up, startled by the cans, and falling out of her bunk and onto the floor. When she goes to medical to get treated, Red says she should accompany her… but takes the Dwight-free bunk time as an opportunity to finally catch some winks.

Piper, meanwhile, has the top bunk while her new bunkmate, Hapakuka, has to take the bottom bed because of her bad knees. Hapakuka is also immune to Piper’s attempts to bully her, which tickles Red to no end. After turning down Piper’s offer to work for her used panty biz, Hapakuna is hired to be Piper’s muscle… but she does not agree that her duties will include fetching Piper’s lunch.

* Black Cindy also has bunkmate issues, but hers are more of a cultural matter. Cindy, a.k.a. Tova after her conversion to Judaism in Season 3, has to share space with Muslim Alison Abdullah, and neither is being very respectful of the others’ religious beliefs. Their current tiff is about the “West Bunk” — get it? — the side of the dorm Alison sleeps on. Cindy wants to know how Alison even knows which side is the west side, and Alison explains she has figured out directions after praying to Mecca five times a day. On top of that, she does not care for Tova’s name. “Your name ain’t Tova,” she insists. “Black people been naming their kids some crazy sh*t, but Tova ain’t on the list, unless the ‘v’ is like a 5 or something.”

Cindy’s response: “You and Tova got beef now.”

* Things are not likely to get more comfortable for the inmates any time soon, as MCC’s ideas about addressing the overcrowding issues include giving each inmate a free pair of earplugs, installing some port-a-potties (which the inmate janitorial staff has to clean), and having menacing new guard Piscatella teach them some breathing exercises for stress management.

* Sister Jane asked where Sophia is, and Gloria, feeling guilty for her part in Sophia landing in the SHU, called her son and asked him to go to Sophia’s house and tell her wife Crystal that Sophia is being unjustly punished. Later, Crystal shows up at the prison and confronts Caputo, who ultimately blows her off to go to an MCC meeting.

* Caputo makes a good impression at an MCC meeting, when he asks for more guards — trained, experienced ones — and suggests the old cabins on the Litchfield campus, the ones he and Bayley came across when they were searching for the MIA Kukudio after she ran away from the prison, could be cheaply remodeled to serve as free housing that might be incentives for military vets to take on guard jobs at the prison. Fellow MCC employee Linda is especially impressed — the remodeling can be done with free inmate labor, she suggests — and Caputo’s so taken by what seems to be her flirtatious interest in him that he springs for a new, $1,100 suit.

Questions: We Got a Few
* Who’s most likely to run into trouble now that Maria has decided to make a power play with her friends at Litchfield? Will she try to regain control of the kitchen on behalf of Gloria? Or might she try to take on wannabe “gangsta” Piper, who was already pointed out to the newbie Dominicans as the one running the prison?

Related: Emmy Talk: ‘OITNB’ Star Selenis Leyva on Mama Gloria’s Family Troubles

* Coates tries to chat with Pennsatucky, telling her he’s been reading up on seizures, and that she should make sure she gets plenty of sleep to avoid one. She, meanwhile, is watching Maritza, the new prison van driver, for clues that Coates may be attacking her, too. When Boo points out Maritza is exhibiting no signs anything is wrong, Pennsatucky says maybe she’s just putting on a brave face, “Like, you know, turn that rape upside down.” Pennsatucky has Boo to talk to, but is she going to be okay without some serious professional help to deal with what Coates did to her? It seems like she may be heading down a path of blaming herself for what happened.

*The jury remains out on Caputo — good guy or dangerous idiot? At times he seems to have a heart, but he also can get caught up in those rare moments when he gets a little taste of power at Litchfield. He clearly doesn’t want to have to deal with Crystal, telling her putting Sophia in SHU wasn’t his decision. But he also tries to be honest with her — and also seems to be talking as much about himself as he is the inmates — when she tells him she knows Sophia, and knows that Sophia could never be violent. “You think you know what goes through her head in a place like this?” Caputo asks. “Everybody in there is doing things they don’t want to do, every single day, things they’re not proud of. Whatever it takes to keep your head above water.”

* Will anyone step up to help Daya and her baby? Aleida melts down later in the episode when she finds out Cesar is going to jail for a long time, but she’s upset for herself, that he’ll be old when he gets out, rather for the fact his sentence means there’s no one else to get Daya’s baby out of the foster care system. Bennett, where are you?

She Said, He Said
“Kids that go into the system is like flushing a goldfish down the toilet. They don’t swim back up.” — Daya to mom Aleida after finding out Cesar, who had custody of Daya’s baby girl, was just arrested, meaning the baby is now in the foster care system.

“But of course, no fatties, no Nebraskans, or anybody with too much hair.” — Judy King, to Healy, on who she would find objectionable as a roommate.

“I cold-heartedly fed my own paramour to the wolves.” — Piper, trying to convince Red she’s tough.

“She was a rebound, and you retaliated against her after she stole your money. So what I learn from that is, don’t give Chapman the chance to retaliate. Take her out first.” — Red to Piper.

“If I hadn’t buried my feelings so deep that they only come up when I watch Stepmom, I’d totally be tearing up right now.” — Maritza, after BFF Flaca says her mother may be dead before Christmas.

“Oh, went there, bought a house, moved in, b*tch. And now I’m remodeling the kitchen.” — Cindy, to Alison, after Alison asks if she really wants to “go there” during an argument about their shared dorm space.

“But she would be so quiet if she were dead.” — Red, after Sister Jane tells her she can’t kill her snoring bunkmate.

“Eat, pray, and mingle limbs with some Italian con grande pene.” — Judy King, explaining that she’s using her prison time to learn to speak Italian, for the post-prison trip to Italy she’s planning.

“I was a hippie once. I outgrew it. But I still do miss that rickrack edging on blouses and skirts. I did love me some rickrack. I wonder if it’s ever gonna come back?” — Judy King, responding to Yoga getting her “crunchy parts into a tizzy” because she feels like “the one percent” after she’s assigned by Healy to share Judy’s special treatment prison dorm.

“Why haven’t I vibed with someone already? Someone who is not gingerbread in the head? I’ve been alive for as long as I can remember.” — Suzanne, being impatient after Black Cindy assures her she will meet her soulmate someday.

Fun facts:

* For those who also are clueless about quipes, the food Maria’s dad’s friend Arlenis made for Maria’s birthday party in the flashback, they are Dominican deep fried bulgur rolls, and though apparently pretty tricky to make if you never have before, sound pretty tasty in this recipe.

* Love Maria’s DIY picture frame, the one she’s making from candy wrappers in the TV room? Here’s how to do it.

* The song at the end of the episode: “El Blu del Ping Pong,” by the Dominican Republic-based band Rita Indiana y los Misterios.

Orange Is the New Black Season 4 is streaming on Netflix