“Piece of Sh*t” does a damn good job at examining why its title character, Joel Luschek, is so troublesome. Many viewers, myself included, would count Luschek among their favorite characters on Orange Is the New Black, and why not? His short beard and pudgy guy make him relatable, and his smartass delivery is perfectly suited to his slacker persona. It doesn’t hurt that he gets a lot of the show’s funniest lines, and has a good rapport with a lot of our favorite inmates. Luschek isn’t, say, Coates or Piscatella.
But Joel Luschek is a piece of shit. He got Nichols sent to max because he got with heroin, he shows up to work drunk and high, mocks Bayley for having a name like “a cartoon dog,” and generally doesn’t care about the job he’s paid and trusted to do. Those are the characteristics of a piece of shit.
Three people call him that in this installment, first Nichols, then Luschek’s new BFF Judy King, then Gina. Nichols has been sending Luschek hate mail for a while now, it seems; there’s a lot of letters in a habitually un-checked mailbox. Luschek tries to justify his actions to Judy King, who at her most charitable will allow that he’s “half a piece of shit.” Hell, even Coates gets in on the action, chastising Luschek for drinking on the job and ignoring Gina’s bleeding hand: “It’s your job to take care of these women! Do your fucking job!” (This is by far the most likable that Coates has ever been; maybe his revelation that, yes, he did in fact rape Doggett is making him reexamine himself.)
Luschek salvages what’s left of his likability by admitting to himself that, yes, he is a piece of shit. He goes to max to apologize to Nichols, and this is where Orange Is the New Black makes its smartest decision this episode: Nichols fucking lets him have it. It’s astonishing acting from Natasha Lyonne, who hasn’t skipped a beat in her portrayal of Nichols. The final nail in Luschek’s coffin is that just seeing him drives Nichols, now three months sober, to relapse: she performs oral sex on a female guard in exchange for drugs. It’s a haunting ending, and that orange screen has never looked so bleak.
Elsewhere, “Piece of Sh*t” focuses on storylines it’s been developing all season. Piper’s war with Maria is about to come to a head just as Maria is facing internal problems, in that Ouija wants to move out of the panty game and into selling drugs. Piper’s ego continues to spiral out of control, and her new white pride buddies aren’t going to help (although Piper does get a funny line out of it: “I play these guards like a flute. Like many flutes, like a group of flutes. I’m a flautist”).
But I can’t help feel like the Brooke/Poussey relationship is too sweet to avoid disaster – remember, Piper and Stella (who makes an appearance) were sweet once too. I’m not saying either would send the other to max, but Poussey says “I love you,” which on this show does not bode well.
All told, “Piece of Sh*t” was a nice course correction after the scattered “We’ll Always Have Baltimore.” It didn’t quite have the blunt yet insidious impact of “Doctor Psycho,” but it achieved that trademark OITNB balance of heart, humor, darkness, and absurdity. And more importantly, it did a good job of getting the season back on track.
A Few Thoughts
- Nichols, on her sobriety chip: “This valueless piece of plastic crap really means a lot to me. Symbolism, et cetera. Screw it, I’m fuckin’ proud of myself.”
- Healy and Whitehill are connecting, but I can’t be alone in thinking that Healy has an ulterior motive here, right? Or maybe he just likes the hero worship aspect of their relationship. Either way, it’s classic Healy sketchiness.
- It was really nice seeing Caputo compliment Doggett on her work.
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