Sophia Burset committed a crime and was sentenced to serve time as a debt to society. As part of her prison term she was allotted access to basic human rights, like all the other prisoners. However, as a trans woman she needed access to her hormones, was subject to prejudice, and eventually was taken away from the general population of prison under the utterly ridiculous charge that she was a danger to others, and vice versa.

“Doctor Psycho” shows us Burset in solitary confinement, her only window to the outside world a cold and monosyllabic guard. From self-harm to mental illness there are those in the prison systems that find themselves locked away in boxes utterly alone. Is it ever fair to treat any human this way?

Schmucks and Fucks

Piper thinks she doing Ruiz a solid by letting her know that her cheeky-cheek friend Ouija’s been taking fabric from the Panty Mill, but Piper’s always been a little slow on the uptake when she realizes the world does not revolve around her.  Ruiz is now her competition and the wide-eye Piper is taken completely off guard.

Piper follows the board game named inmate to try and find out where she is stashing the product, only to get metaphorical egg on her face and literal shit on her hands. I don’t think Pipe’s going to Palace Of the Mind her way out of this one.

Burset doesn’t have the luxury of roaming free and rummaging through porta-potties, but she does use her cell’s toilet to get Caputo’s attention. Flooding of the bathroom is quite common for inmates in solitary as a way of getting human contact. Caputo lies to Burset claiming her wife isn’t too concerned that she’s in Seg.

Waiting, all alone, feeling like there is no one out there who cares about you. That’s the feeling Caputo is impressing on Burset, and it’s a dick move to say the least.

Caputo might be the biggest asshole in this episode, but he’s not without some competition. Sam Healy, as we all know, is the fucking worst. It’s not just that he’s a racist, bigoted, homophobic, man-child; it’s also that he does anything and everything to impose his own will onto others.

He crams the idea that Judy King should start a cooking class right down her throat, even though she says that she’d rather not. King’s no fool and follows Healy’s order, and despite the fact she’s doing this reluctantly Poussey’s face when she gets to help is priceless.

“Locate a shit ton of butter.” — Judy King

 I think to date; we’ve seen more flashbacks from Sam Healy’s past than anyone else. I suppose it’s a way to give us some insight to why he is so terrible. In this episode we see more his father explain to him lesbianism is a disease, and more of his manic mother.

It’s heartbreaking, to watch as the young Sam listens to his mother talk about how her shock therapy dulls her existence. He ultimately rejects her for her mental illness; unable to grasp at the complex notions of the demons his mother wrestles. She leaves his life forever, wandering out past the yard.

Fast forward a few years later and the adult Sam is continuing (or is it just beginning) what might be a life long habit of forming inappropriate emotional attachments to the women he provides care as a social worker to.When he sees a homeless woman he believes to be his long lost mother and apologizes for rejecting her that night. The woman turns out to not be his long lost mom, but he still begs her to stay, begs to help her in some way.

“Stay with me. Stay with me.” — Sam Healy

His begging is all for naught, and like the long line of women before and after her, the homeless woman runs away from Sam Healy.

Great Responsibility

“This is a secret that fucks everyone who touches it.” — Galina “Red” Reznikov

Frieda wants to kill Lolly using the poisonous leaves of an oleander plant because of Lolly’s loopiness around the whole digging up the dead guy in the garden thing. Alex does everything she can to intervene and has no choice but to turn to Red.

Red holds a summit between the three and deduces, just like Frieda, that they are going to have to kill Lolly in order to keep this secret safe. Before they can Lolly has a full mental breakdown.

The one and only Sam Healy intervenes in the woman’s care and sits down with her. Judy King may have essentially fired him because of how uncomfortable he made her, but someone like Lolly is way more vulnerable to Healy’s suggestions.

She admits the murder to Healy. Since 1) she’s nuts and 2) no one has noticed a guard has gone missing, Healy deduces this is nothing more and nothing less than the voices in Lolly’s mind convincing her she did something wrong. Since she outs no accomplices and admits that she does hear voices in her head, it seems to make sense. And so, Healy convinces her she did not commit the crime that she did in fact commit and swears to cure her of her mental ails.

In other words, Healy has a new pet.

“Great counseling here. I am continually impressed.” — Lolly Whitehill

In her position as executive assistant to Caputo, Taystee now has a label maker and calls the library to find out the state of Beyonce’s marital status. Guess they don’t serve lemonade in prison. She complains to bunkmate Suzanne about the mundane life of filling out order forms for order forms. “With responsibility comes great power” is in inverse of Uncle Ben’s advice from Suzanne.

Do you know who else needs to take responsibility for their power? Fucking Charlie Coates, that’s who. He corners Penn; totally clueless about why she won’t talk to him. Because he raped her, that’s why. She tells him as much and he, in what seems to be totally and utter earnestness, explains it wasn’t rape because he said he loved her. That the words made it different.

“But that didn’t feel any different,” she says before walking away.

CON-FUCK-ULATIONS

Taystee isn’t the only one complaining about seemingly good news. Aleida confides in Gloria that she’s scared of what is for her on the outside after news of her early release. It is a big question: what to do with yourself after prison. He fears of job security, raising her children, and adjusting to life on the outside are all fears, that Gloria is there to quell.

I hope she makes it okay on the outside, and maybe can find Daya’s baby?

Out In The Yard

I formally petition series creators and the writers of Orange to pretty please give us Frieda’s flashbacks. I am so utterly curious about her life, how she got her tattoo, what it was for her to be a biker chick. So far, we get little tidbits and nothing more. I laughed out loud when Red heard about Frieda’s plans to use the oleander, “Those fucking leaves, she’s been dying to use those. Shit.”

Alex and Piper’s relationship continues to baffle me. They seem to be kind of friends? But I mean, Piper really did screw over Alex. And what’s with this midnight booty call thing? I guess Alex just needs to blow off some steam.

This isn’t necessarily a critical analysis, but holy shit, how cute are Soso and Poussey? I would not mind seeing more scenes where Poussey gets Soso to “loose control.”

I’m also loving the connection that Luschek and Judy King have, even though Healy hates it.