Orange is the New Black - S1E2 - Tit Punch
Previously on Orange is the New Black, ‘I Wasn’t Ready’
Russian Cook
We start off with a flashback that shows Red, the prison cook, pre-prison and working as a cook in a restaurant. She owns the place with her husband and he’s very nervous they won’t make a good impression on two tables of rowdy, loud Russians who are there dining.
No Snitch
Piper is meeting with Super Intendant Healy in his office and she wants to be moved to another prison. He explains that this isn’t the Radisson; you can’t just move if you don’t like your room. He wants to take down her statement to find out what happened to her, but for some reason Piper changes her mind and insists that she’s fine.
Piper later sits through an uncomfortable orientation - and it’s not just cause her chair is broken, but her ex, Alex, is there as well. The orientation is pretty much bullshit and held by people who really don’t seem to have the inmates’ best interests at heart.
No Soup For You!
Later, Piper tries to get breakfast but is ignored by all of the kitchen workers. When it seems like one woman feels bad enough to slip Piper a piece of celery, she doesn’t after noticing Red side-eye’ing the situation. Piper tries to leave the cafeteria, but the guard with the douchey mustache tells her she can’t leave until the lunch bell rings.
The table of women who befriended her in the first episode let Piper sit with them and advise her to make things right with Red.
Meanwhile, someone is totally snitching in the library. In exchange for some candy, Taystee is dropping a dollar worth of dimes to Healy and telling him all about what went down with Piper and Red.
Making Amends
Piper interrupts Red’s spa session - she’s getting her legs (and toes) shaved by an underling in the ladies’ room - to apologize. Red appears ready to accept the apology and tells Piper that she believes she’s a sweet girl, but the moment you show weakness in prison, you might as well be weak. Piper wants to know what she can do to make it up to Red, and Red tells her to figure it out.
In the common room, Taystee gets called out for storing her open King Cone ice cream in the ice freezer. Another inmate says it’s gross and the two get into a fight after she slaps it out of Taystee’s hand. The guards come in and break it up, while Piper eyes the dropped ice cream.
Later, in her cell, Piper’s stomach is growling like a motherfucker. Nicky said she’d offer Piper a pretzel, but she ain’t retarded. She doesn’t want to get on Red’s bad side either.
Piper flashes back to convincing Larry to do a week-long master cleanse.
The next day, Larry arrives for his visit. Piper is looking gaunt, but sees a light at the end of the tunnel when she spies vending machines in the visitation room. Larry has change, but they’re out of order. Piper is convinced it’s Red’s doing and that she’ll have to take some earlier advice and brawl with Red to resolve things. After making Larry promise not to watch Mad Men without her, they kiss goodbye and Alex watches while hugging her female visitor goodbye. As visiting hours come to a close, one of the kitchen staff comes in and plugs in the vending machines and removes the ‘Out of Order’ signs.
Dayanara goes to her mother’s cell - her mother who slapped her when Dayanara arrived in the last episode - to ask if she has extra khaki uniform pants. A young woman in her mother’s cell, who calls herself a daughter as well - gives Dayanara lots of attitude. Dayanara walks away getting no help from her mom.
Later, Dayanara sees the young prison guard chewing gum and asks him for a piece. He says he can’t because it would be seen as favoritism, like he likes her. She asks him if he likes her and he walks aways, flustered.
Betty’s Dead
Betty, the main freezer in the kitchen is broken. While the repairman works on it, Red orders the staff to help move the food out of it. Piper picks that very bad time to tell Red she will fight her, but she won’t throw the first punch. Red ends up yelling at Piper, shoving her into a wall. She tells Piper she’s going to leave the prison as a skeleton for calling her food disgusting.
In a flashback, we see Red trying desperately to fit in with the other Russian wives, but they clearly don’t like her.
Red barges in on Healy while he’s taking a dump and demands a new freezer.
In another flashback, we see when Piper and her best friend Polly decided to go into business together making/selling soaps and lotions.
Barter System
In the commissary, Nicky tries to use her account to get Piper some things that she needs, but it doesn’t work. Piper heads to the salon where Sophia is trying to fix Taystee’s weave. Sophie agrees to give Piper some cocoa butter, but changes her mind when she realizes Piper doesn’t have anything she can trade. Taystee has an idea, but warns that Piper won’t like it.
Next thing you know, Taystee is strutting through the halls, rocking a new do with blonde streaks and Piper is headed back to her cell with a baggie of lotion and some missing hair. Awesome.
Sue a.k.a Crazy Eyes overhears Gina telling Red that Piper is going around asking for odd things like hot peppers. She goes to Piper’s cell and offers her three jalapeños. When Piper says she doesn’t have anything to trade for them, Piper insists they are a gift since “everyone forgets that they were all new once.”
Piper flashes back to cheating on the master cleanse and eating BBQ pork rinds. Larry forgives her because who doesn’t love a woman with pork rinds breath?
The guard with the douchey Pornstache (who I just found out is called ‘Pornstache.’) walks by Piper’s cell and sees her crying. He taunts her, telling her that dinner is in five minutes and that it’s a big one due to the fact that they had to cook all the food that was in Betty so it wouldn’t spoil. When he walks away we see that Piper was crying because she’s been chewing the peppers up and spitting them into a piece of cloth.
In the cafeteria, Alex slips Piper a piece of cornbread, but she throws it away.
Tit Punch
Pre-prison, Red sees the other Russian wives out power-walking without her. When she confronts them, they make fun her and insult her. She punches one in the tit and causes the woman’s fake boob to pop. Later, her husband is panicking. The woman’s husband is demanding $60,000 to pay for the damage.
Piper comes to Red’s cell and offers her a lotion she made out of the items she scavenged. It will help Red with her sore back, which Piper noticed was bothering Red earlier in the episode. Red doesn’t say anything, but pockets the lotion and smiles after Piper leaves.
Dayanara finds a stick of gum under her pillow.
At home, Larry watches Mad Men, but turns down a picture of Piper to ease his guilt.
Consequences
The next morning, Piper is given breakfast. Even though Red said Piper’s lotion made her smell like a Puerto Rican, it worked. Piper is overjoyed.
Red’s husband is forced to let the Russian guys store dead bodies in the restaurant’s freezer in order to make things right over what Red did.
Alex is denied food because Red knows that she slipped Piper that cornbread.
It’s movie night and everyone is watching and laughing because they have headphones. Piper can’t hear the movie because her commissary money has yet to arrive. Crazy Eyes sits down next to Piper and offers her up one of her earbuds. All is well in Piper’s new world.
Until Crazy Eyes puts her hand on Piper’s thigh and holds her hand.
This is my new favorite show. I think that we are up to episode 8 right now. Crazy eyes is one of my favorites, she just wants to be loved by her dandelion.