“Chcoloate Chip Nookie” Orange, Black or Bleak? Season 6 Episode 10 (Netflix)

Yup, this is recap number 74.

Last week on Decarceration Nation I did an episode summarizing my criminal justice reform agenda and also expanding on a speech that I gave a few weeks ago in Ann Arbor.  

It is easy to check Decarceration Nation  out. We are on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher and Tune-In. You can also find every episode at DecarcerationNation.com.

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5 Things About Season 6 Episode 10 “Chocolate Chip Nookie”

Everyone wants to be a pink lady...Hard not to love a callback to Grease. Anyway, this was a fun episode. One thing I have to mention before we get going, Fig basically exposed the hole at the core of this entire season in this episode. When she is schooling Caputo, in how to defend Taystee, she suggests he put MCC on trial for being responsible for the start of the riot.

Exactly.

Only it would be MUCH worse than suggesting they were responsible for the start of the trial. Piscatella, the alleged victim, was on a widely-distributed video torturing inmates prior to his “untimely” death.

I have said it many times, the MCC and BOP would not want to prosecute ANY of these women for the riot because it would open them both to a full investigation. To be 100% honest, there would be no way they wouldn’t already be under a full Congressional investigation based just on the Piscatella video.

Basically, for the second straight year, the central plot conceit doesn’t make much sense.

5. “I don’t see enemies, I see customers”

Orange Is the New Black managed to jump right into a real life hornets net here. Over the last few years, all over the country, Departments of Corrections have been trying to fight “contraband” by enacting draconian visitation rules.

What most studies have shown is that the main vector for contraband entering into prisons is Correctional Officers and in both cases on this season of OITNB (Luschek for phones and Hoppper for drugs) the delivery vector is correctional officers too.

Interestingly enough, ‘Chocolate Chip Nookie’ demonstrated a delivery method which is real.   Most recently, the Virginia DOC attempted to ban women using tampons from visiting prisoners because they were suspected to be using the tampons to hide and dispose of drugs in the visitors bathroom (which would then be “cleaned” by inmates).

Virginia had suggested some crazy alternative entry  scheme where women visitors could wear pads but not tampons before they entered the visitors room (they go through a body scanner, if anything suspicious is discovered on the scan the visitor must allow a full body search or forfeit the visit).

Luckily, after massive outcry, the Virginia DOC reversed their new guideline and women can now, once again, visit while they are wearing tampons (or pads). The whole thing was tragically funny and sad to me because:

• If the visitors bathroom was where the tampon full of drugs was where to be deposited, instead of banning tampons, they could just have easily ban inmates from cleaning the visitors bathroom

• If the vector was a transfer between the women and prisoners, how in the world would the transfer happen? How in the world would a visitor exchange a drug filled tampon in the visitors room (and how would both prisoner and inmate pass searches on the way in and out of the visitors room?

I, of course, think there is an easier way to reduce contraband entering Virginia prisons...given recent events, I would suggest subjecting  CO’s to more intrusive searches. Anyway, while Aleida’s scheme to use Hopper as a mule is unlikely, but possible, the scheme where the Correctional Officers lounge would be the place where the transfer occurred seems to rely on a number of factors  that seem more than a little questionable (why would they go through large jugs of an awful-tasting dietary supplement quickly and how could you ensure people would throw it away in a timely manner?).

4. Tadpoles

So, we find out that Carol and Barb are both in prison because they tried to murder their little sister Debbie Denning during high school. The short form was that Debbie was a successful rhythmic gymnastics competitor (mostly so the writers could work in a Larry Nassar reference apparently) but her success came at the cost of their family having to move all the time (causing Barb and Carol to lose boyfriends and space).

Here is my problem with this gerrymandered story...We are supposed to believe that Barb and Carol have the smarts and power to maintain iron control of two full prison blocks at a max facility when anyone with even the most remote amount strategic sense would have told them was idiotic.

Why in the world would ANYBODY believe Debbie died in an accident when after the police pulled the car out of the lake they would immediately notice that Debbie had been locked in the car and all the lock releases had been removed from the car?

I am supposed to believe these two aren’t stupid enough to see the obvious hole in this anything but master plan?

As I mentioned last week, there is also the problem that Barb is clearly very weak (and spent much of her last years addicted to oxycodone) but, whatever, this series hasn’t been strong on internal logic in a very long time.

3. “You have your Prison Daddy and Prison Mommy all on the same block”

Can anyone explain to me why D block is cleaning C block (or the reverse)? In every prison and jail I was in, every block has its own porters (essentially janitors). I was a porter for two years, so I remember how this works pretty well. Some porters are assigned to clean other areas or assigned (and trained for) bio-hazard duty, but basic block cleaning is carried out by the porters on that same block.

Given that these two blocks are so antagonistic towards each other that they cannot even share yard time, why would you truck porters back and forth from block to block? This makes zero sense.

2. “Our One True Leader”

Why do the writers keep insisting that Piper is a total moron?

If Badison is the muscle and chief lieutenant to Carol, why in the world would Piper keep trying to challenge her authority (unless she is planning on going to war with Badison, which would be insane)?

Piper has been in prison long enough (and been through more than enough drama) to know better than consistently challenging Badison (especially since Badison is literally her bunky).

No way this would happen. Piper might be a lot of things, but she is not a moron.

1. “Pitching a tent in your pants badge”

Luschek would never walk into a female’s inmate cell and just sit on the bed and hang out. He could come in under the pretext of doing a search or enter when other officers were present. Officers do talk with you in passing, in the office, or while doing searches...but, they don’t come in and hang out like friends.

Correctional officers have, obviously, been known to have sexual relations with inmates...Usually, these assaults would happen (inmates can’t give consent, so any sex is an assault) in areas of the facility not near or around cameras or in the view of other inmates or correctional officers.

Unless I am totally naive about what happens in women’s prisons (which is possible), it would be very unlikely for abuse of any kind to go down in an inmates cell in a unit environment (just too many people passing by at any time). I could see this happening in segregation, but not in a unit. I mean Gloria has a cellmate...CO’s don’t want to get sued or fired any more than anyone else does (in my experience). Luschek, in particular, has proven time and time again that while he will take risks, he won’t stick his neck out while doing it.

Unlocking The Gates

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