‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 3 Recap: A Soso Episode

(Photos: Netflix)

Warning: This recap for the “(Don’t) Say Anything” episode of Orange Is the New Black contains spoilers.

Consider this a warning, not so much about what might be spoiled for you, but instead about the one episode of Season 4 that’s probably okay to use that little red slidey Netflix bar to fast-forward through. Because this is a Brook Soso-intensive installment, from another unnecessary Soso backstory reveal to her present-day relationship with Poussey.

First, the backstory, which again feels like another dose of wasted past mining for a character that isn’t interesting, or sometimes even tolerable, enough in the present to warrant closer examination of that from whence she came.

Soso was a volunteer canvasser, trying to get signatures on a petition to stop a Wal-Mart from being built locally, so a park could be erected in the location instead. Her ex-boyfriend, Ethan, was also a volunteer, and their breakup was contentious because Ethan knew Soso really wanted to be with another volunteer, Oren. After some juvenile squabbling, Ethan bet Brook $50, and a date with Oren, that she couldn’t obtain the signature of a local convicted sex offender on her petition.

Soso got the signature, and found out the truth about the sex offender: he and another adult had sex on what they thought was an abandoned beach, but there was a man present who filmed it and turned them in. He was convicted, and after he had to go around his neighborhood informing everyone of his status, rumors started that he was actually a pedophile.

Brook went off to collect her cash and date with Oren. But Ethan dismissed her “win,” saying it wasn’t a big deal, because the sex offender was probably some guy who got his life ruined by a conviction on a technicality, as Ethan just read an article at Salon.com on that topic. Soso, furious that he was right, lied and said he was actually a very scary guy who tried to seduce her, after bragging to her that he’d stalked and assaulted a nine-year-old girl at his church. Oren overheard and thought she was brave, especially after she told him she went through with the signature pursuit because she wanted to go out with him so badly.

Back to the future, Soso convinces Judy King to go on a “blind friend date” with fangirl Poussey, but she convinces Judy by sharing Poussey’s past… or what Soso assumes is Poussey’s past, with a crack whore mother. When Poussey gets the nerve to sit down and chat with Judy, she reveals she knows three languages (English, French, and German, for the record), prompting her favorite celebrity to ask, “How does the child of a crack whore learn three languages?”

Poussey’s shocked and hurt, first that that’s what Judy assumes about her. But then, when Judy says she was only parroting what Soso told her, Poussey’s angry and hurt that her girlfriend, after spending time with her and with no evidence of those assumptions, believes her to be “some indigent hood rat.”

Soso makes another attempt to make up with Poussey, by John Cusack-ing her with an AM radio — playing Eminem’s not at all appropriate “Bitch Please II” — held over her head as she stands outside the prison library where Poussey is working. She says the song isn’t an assumption Poussey likes rap; the station playing it is the only one she can get in clearly on the radio. She tells Poussey she wants to get to know her, the real her, and for Poussey to get to know the real Soso, the one who promises she won’t rewrite Poussey’s story or accept stereotypes as fact anymore.

Now, can we get the OITNB writers to promise never to give us any more Brook Soso flashback stories?

Elsewhere in Litchfield (and beyond):

— In one of the greatest pop culture mashups in recent memory, this exchange occurs between Morello and Crazy Eyes while they’re cleaning the floors, after Taystee complains about the inmates continuously walking across her freshly-mopped hallway:

Crazy Eyes: “We are like he who the gods have condemned to push the boulder up the hill, only to watch it roll back down.”

Morello: “Oh, right, right, right, and then he has to cut his arm off to get out from underneath it. What’s that guy’s name? Oh, James Franco!”

Crazy Eyes: “Sisyphus.”

Morello: “I did hear that rumor. You know those Hollywood types. They will stick it in any warm hole.”

— Shortly after, talk amongst the trio turns to what Morello’s new hubby might be doing in her absence. “You’re away a long time.” Taystee teases her. “He could be getting his M&M melted in some ho’s mouth and not in his hand.” That sends Morello into a panic; she worked so hard to get someone to marry her, but how will she keep the home fires burning from Litchfield? Speaking of home, she’s trying her best to give Vince good phone sex, but when he’s clearly distracted during their daily session, it leads to a confession: he still lives at home with his parents, sharing a bedroom with his little brother. When he visits Lorna at the prison, she tells him that’s okay, and he tells her he’s only doing it to save money to be with her. “That’s my man-icotti, always thinking of his little lasagna,” she tells him, and they get so into their playing house pretend games that it leads to their version of Meg Ryan’s famous faked orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally, except the big moment isn’t faked, and it’s so disturbing to the other people in the prison visiting room (except for giggling guard Bayley) that no one wants to have what she’s having.

— Taystee gives up her spot on the janitorial crew when she’s hired by Caputo to be his office assistant. Mostly it means taking notes for him and answering his phone, but Taystee has one concern before agreeing to the new gig. “You swear this is legit? Because I saw Shawshank, and I don’t want to go to Seg because I did your taxes too good.” Taystee’s other big concern: she wants a watch. She pesters Caputo to buy her one, so she can help him be on time for things. As for why Caputo chose Taystee to be his assistant, increasingly creepy and menacing new head guard Piscatella asks the warden that very question. “She’s the only semi-intelligent one that I’m only semi attracted to,” Caputo says.

— Judy King continues to get special treatment, and no one finds it more irksome than Red, especially when Healy is involved. When he lets Judy pick corn from Red’s garden, the women meet and do not hit it off. And when Red later catches Healy escorting Judy to a private bathroom — with reading material! — she confronts him and suggests that his current hostility toward her stems from her rejection of his attempts to get a little somethin’ somethin’ going with her last season. He will only respond that she is imagining things that aren’t there.

Questions: We Got a Few

— Is Alex going to be able to keep Lolly in check, lest she spill the beans about Ayden? Lolly freaks out on Alex several times, eventually heading to the garden with a shovel to dig up his scattered body parts when she sees a drone circling above the prison and assumes it means her involvement in Ayden’s demise and dismemberment is known. Frieda appears at the garden as Alex tries to talk Lolly down, and Frieda calms Lolly by telling her she already moved the body. Did she?, Alex asks. “Of course not,” Frieda responds, adding that she’s not about to. She has another idea. “We’re going to have to kill her,” she tells Alex about blabbermouth risk Lolly.

— Is Piper about to have a used panty business rival? She’s definitely got problems. All her “posturing,” as Anita DeMarco puts it, is turning off her panty employees, two of whom — DeMarco and Yoga Jones — quit. And while no one who already knows her is taking her seriously, the newbie Dominican inmates are, to her detriment. Maria Ruiz approaches Piper and offers her the employment of her friends — Ouija, Pidge, and Zirconia — but Piper rudely dismisses the offer, and then chastises Ruiz for telling them about her Felonious Spunk used panty business.

“Somebody’s getting a little big for her panties, I think,” Maria tells her. “You’re talking s*** out of a paper a**hole, Chapman. But when an actual hard-ass bitch decides to call you on it, well…” Later, Ouija and Zirconia start following Chapman and Hapakuka around the prison, and when Piper thinks she’s stealthily swiping a pair of panties at the factory, she looks around and sees Ouija watching her… and stealing a pair herself.

— Is Caputo’s dinner date with Linda, from MCC’s purchasing department, going to turn into a full-blown romance? She’s impressed when he shows concern for the guards who, as she frames it, left him in the lurch on the day of the Litchfield inmates’ beach trip and the new inmates’ arrival. But while he seemed genuine in his empathy, she seemed just as committed to her lack of it.

She Said, He Said

“Maybe we should fertilize our women, too.” — Healy, after Judy King points out a “happy tomato” in the garden and says she hopes she fares as well at the prison. Healy’s flirtation — or attempt at one — is among the more disturbing things uttered at Litchfield since the days of Pornstache.

“I’m not so big on ass play.” — Red, to Judy, when Red gets huffy about Judy picking an ear of corn from her garden and Judy suggests she could shove the corn up… refer to Red’s statement.

“Short, black, and bad at basketball. Subverting expectations since 1990.” — Poussey, after missing a shot on the basketball court.

“Litchfield’s latest lesbos, in fun size.” — Boo, commenting on the vertically-challenged statures of Poussey and Soso.

“This place is like Rehab Addict: Litchfield Edition. With, like, real addicts.” — Taystee, to Caputo, when she accompanies him on a visit to check out the progress the inmates are making in remodeling the cabins in the woods to become free housing for newly hired prison guards.

“Those ain’t foam cords, they’re for the Internet. And believe me, you want some of them guards to be able to watch their porn and get it all out before they’re on duty, so you best leave it.” — Taystee, to one of the inmates who wants to take some of the remodeling supplies from the cabin project to make jewelry.

“Because I have a home, inmate. An entire basement to myself.” — Luschek, when Pennsatucky asks him why he isn’t going to live in one of the Litchfield cabins.

“Inmate Scar Neck, explain the problem.” — Luschek, rudely referred to grease-scarred inmate Gina Murphy.

“Your friend acts like a moron around me because she’s black and poor, is that right?” — Judy, to Soso, who tells Judy that Poussey is starstruck around her because of institutional racism.

“If George R.R. Martin wrote about prisons, I’d be The Hand of the Warden.” — Taystee, to her friends after they make fun of her new gig with Caputo.

“Doesn’t The Hand always die in those books?” — Touché, Poussey.

“I’m sorry for you. I don’t regret firing any of you. You walked out on the biggest day the prison’s faced in 25 years. You put the prisoners at risk, you put your fellow COs at risk, you put this whole town in danger. The s*** hit, and instead of moving the fan away, you hit ‘oscillate.’” — Caputo, to former guard Wade Donaldson, who Caputo ran into at the restaurant where Donaldson is a bus boy, one of three jobs he works now.

“I watched The Wire a lot. I made assumptions.” — Soso’s first attempt at apologizing to Poussey.

“You got a stuffed tortilla, and you stuff that with more stuff!” — Black Cindy’s “golden ticket” business idea, as proposed to Janae Watson.

“I think I pissed off the Dominicans.” — Piper, to Alex, when the exes have a moment in the bathroom. Alex doesn’t tell Piper about her Ayden problem, but when Piper shares her business woes, Alex tells her no one’s going to be “stitching [her] face to a soccer ball.”

“I do a lot with a little.” — Red, after Gloria calls her an “evil Russian bitch” for putting eye drops in Judy King’s food.

Behind Bars:

— Would eye drops in your food really send you scrambling to the bathroom like it did Judy King? Yup.

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