Kill Lolly: Orange Is the New Black S4 E3 “(Don’t) Say Anything” (Netflix)
Orange, Black, or Bleak: S4 E3 “(Don’t) Say Anything” (Netflix)
As a formerly incarcerated person, I have been engaged in a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain some of the things that folks watching the show without a felony background might not catch (a really deep dive, as this is my 52nd recap).
Orange Is the New Black S4 E3 allowed me to explore residency restrictions for registered citizens, etiquette in the visiting room, and drones.
If you have not seen all of my recaps, here is a link to the complete guide.
If you are a fan of the show, you should help me in supporting “Dignity For Incarcerated Women Act” in the US Senate and House of Representatives (ensuring that women prisoners have free access to sanitary napkins, aren’t put in solitary when pregnant, and aren’t shackled when pregnant etc.).
If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*
Some Things About Season 4 Episode 3 “(Don’t) Say Anything”
Netflix
OITNB S4 E3 “(Don’t) Say Anything” is about:
* Exposing SoSo’s history as an extreme people pleaser. In short, to get what she wants, she will often say whatever is necessary regardless of the costs. She manipulates the tragic story of a registered sex offender who helped her to get a date and win a $50 date and she made up a tragic history for her new girlfriend Poussey in order to get her an audience with Judy King
Ultimately, she owns up to having a problem with manipulating people because she wants to be liked.
* Taystee getting promoted from janitorial to working as Caputo’s administrative assistant. In one of the sadder scenes, Caputo admits to Piscatella that he chose Taystee because she is one of the only smart inmates that he isn’t that attracted to <sigh>.
One of her first jobs is to check up on the progress of the new rent-free houses that Litchfield is having prisoners refurbish so that they can be given to a new group of veterans who will be hired as CO’s (the houses will be a ‘benefit’ that makes up for the lack of health care and low wages).
When some of the inmates intimate that they want to steal some of the internet cables, Taystee suggests that things will be much better inside the prison if the CO’s have access to the internet (so that they can get their porn).
Near the end of the episode, the new guards show up to move in and play a game of two truths and one lie with Piscatella.
* Piper playing make pretend prison boss. She is still walking all over the prison accompanied by her fake “muscle.” Unfortunately for her, the Dominicans have seen through her game and new inmates Maria, Pidge, Ouija, and Zirconia along with Gloria start testing her.
As I mentioned like 100 times if you act like a boss you had better be able to back it up. Piper is, as Maria says, talking shit out of a “paper a**hole.”
By the end of the episode, it appears that the Dominicans are starting their own business to compete with Piper’s. In real prison, if Piper let that stand, she would be seen as weak and this all started because she was trying to act tougher than she is.
If Piper had never pretended to be a boss or was kicking some money to someone to protect her business who had power (and wanted the business to continue), this would be less cut and dry. But Piper has represented herself as being a boss and as being willing to back up challenges.
* Morello becoming fearful that, because he is a man and she is alone in prison, Vinnie will start to stray. As a result, she starts being overly sexual on the phone with him and in the visiting room.
* Caputo going to dinner with Linda from purchasing (sounds better as Linda from accounting but whatever).
While they are at dinner, Caputo sees former CO Donaldson who is now working as a busboy. Caputo tries to slip him a $20 but Donaldson chases him down and gives it back to him. Ultimately, Caputo (partially emboldened by Linda) tells Donaldson that they screwed themselves by walking out during a prison crisis (when in truth Caputo had totally screwed them all over before any of the problems happened).
* The prison and inmates fawning all over Judy King. Healy gives King access to the garden and the vegetables which pisses-off Red (who says, things in prison are “earned not given” which is true).
Red ultimately gets a small measure of revenge on Judy with some minor food poisoning.
Meanwhile, all of the activity in the garden has Vause and Lolly’s paranoia off the charts. When a drone flies over the prison yard Lolly totally loses it and starts trying to dig up the dead body that they hid. Vause stops her in time but Frieda tells Vause they are likely going to have to kill Lolly.
2500 Feet
In SoSo’s flashback, she is working with a community organization that is trying to prevent a Wal-Mart from moving to a neighborhood. SoSo’s ex-boyfriend bets her that she can’t get a signature from a registered sex offender in the neighborhood that they are canvassing. In order to win the bet (and get a date with one of the other workers), SoSo takes the bet.
When she meets the Sex Offender, she finds out that he was put on the registry for having public consensual sex with someone of legal adult age (she sees the newspaper article explaining why he was arrested). Despite knowing the truth, and representing herself as someone trying to help people, she tells her friends that he was guilty of child molestation and that he tried to get sexual with her because she believed that it would make her look cooler.
The registered person SoSo meets originally says that he can’t sign the petition because they want to replace the proposed Wal-Mart with a park and if he lives within 2500 feet of a park he would have to move (and lose his house).
Yes, this is a real thing. Regardless of how long it has been since a Sex Offenders offense, or how much time they served, in many States, you are prevented from living too close to a school or a park.
Many reading this will probably feel like this sounds smart, but the research doesn’t actually support this at all. Again, don’t take my word for it, here is evidence from the US Government’s Smart Office (the office that administers the Federal Sex Offender Registry):
the USFG Smart Office agrees that these Residency Restrictions are not helpful. The Smart Office, the agency created by the AWA to oversee the national registry, concluded in their annual SOMAPI report:
“In summary, there is no empirical support for the effectiveness of residency restrictions. In fact, a number of negative unintended consequences have been empirically identified, including loss of housing, loss of support systems, and financial hardship that may aggravate rather than mitigate offender risk. In addition, residence restrictions lead to the displacement and clustering of sex offenders into other areas, particularly rural areas. Given the above, expansion of this policy was not recommended by the group of sex offender management professionals attending the SOMAPI forum.”
And, if you want to read a review of all the evidence, you can read this article from New York Magazine.
Okay, that is probably more than anyone wanted or needed to know.
But, yes, SoSo was being kind of awful there.
Sex In the Visiting Room
Okay, this is an awkward transition.
Lorna simulates a sex act (with sound effects) in the visiting room with Vinnie.
Even with everyone knowing that Lorna has “problems” it is unlikely she would act out a sex act in the visiting room.
Why?
It would get her in SERIOUS trouble because there are usually a ton of kids in the visiting room with parents. Not only would the CO’s intervene immediately (Bayley is a moron but come on) but the other inmates in the visiting room would be furious.
I am not talking about being angry like Gloria was (mildly annoyed and telling her son not to look), if it were a guy in a men’s prison, there would be consequences.
I can’t speak to a woman’s prison, but that just would not fly in a men’s prison.
Drones
I never saw any drones over any of the facilities I was incarcerated at. There were cameras everywhere but no drones.
One time a plane circled over the prison, which I am sure made the CO’s frantic (there are actual guard towers that have CO”s with high powered rifles). Not sure Litchfield, being what they call a “camp” would have very much perimeter security (we already know they barely guard the fences way too many times).
I could certainly see, for instance, gangs trying to fly drugs in using drones. It really doesn’t make much sense for MCC to use drones because installing cameras is a much more efficient and less manpower-intensive way to record everything that happens in the yard.
Honestly, I am not sure what this was about, but I would assume if it were gangs, they would wait until late at night to fly stuff into the yard and have set up a pickup plan (maybe with CO assistance).
Unlocking The Gates
Netflix
I am a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.
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Since only one person has responded to a question in months, I am ending the questions.