“Turn Table Turn” was, in most respects, a pretty good episode of Orange Is the New Black. We got a good flashback, some disturbing developments at Litchfield, and some evolution within relationships. The episode was, however, hampered by one seriously boring subplot. If it had taken up more time, it might have knocked the episode’s score down half a star or more, but “Turn Table Turn” was able to salvage a pretty decent installment.
The subplot I’m talking about is, of course, Alex and Piper. Good lord was it boring. First of all, when ever any character in a movie or TV show says they really want something, it is almost always a burger. And it’s gotta be from a specific chain, too; no one ever wants a homemade burger (for Piper, it’s Shake Shack). The whole thing is such a groan-inducing cliche that when Piper brought it up I’m surprised she avoiding using the word “juicy.”
And this burger plot takes up way too much of “Turn Table Turn.” The only dividends it pays are when Alex and Piper try to conscript CO Bayley into getting them burgers, only for him to immediately demand the handjob that he feels Piper promised him. (“They grow up so fast,” Piper marvels.) They decide to eat Spam instead. Then they decide screw it, a handjob is a small price to pay? Who cares. About any of this. The episode’s overall quality notwithstanding, the burger subplot is a serious stumbling block.
However, that’s not a comment on the episode as a whole, which was pretty good. Probably my favorite part was Blanca’s flashback, which was a nice bit of character building. From the start of OITNB to, well, now, Blanca has been a bit of a visual punchline, with her ratty hair and unibrow. But she gets really fleshed out in “Turn Table Turn,” and while in the past I’ve carped about Orange reaching deep into its ensemble for flashbacks, here it works well because we largely know nothing about Blanca.
Which is what “Turn Table Turn” does so well: offer us not only backstory but insight, which is arguably the purpose of a flashback. In Blanca’s flashback, we see a woman not afraid to suffer indignity if it means helping her family. We also see a no-bullshit badass who’s not afraid to pull a serious power move – in this case, having loud sex with the gardener Dario in the bedroom where her nightmare of a boss sleeps. When the woman awakes, Blanca looks right at her without stopping; it’s funny, sure, in an absurdist sort of way, but also strangely empowering. At the end of the episode, when Blanca is made to stand on a table as punishment, we get a better idea of how she’ll react. It’s well-done, and a smart way to tie the present-day action with the past.
And that’s as good a segue as any to the next focus of the episode, which was the new guards, who are turning out to be seriously scary. When Piscatella tells them to “freestyle” because the SHU is nearly full – which is itself a really bad sign – it’s expected that someone like Stratman would come up with Blanca’s table-standing punishment. That’s a power game, one he’s going to lose.
But CO Humphrey is a different case altogether. He’s scarier than someone like Mendez or even Coates, because Humphrey is smart. He speaks Spanish, which is why he’s onto Maritza, and the game he plays with her is truly sadistic. A baby mouse in a shot glass, surrounded by dead flies, is one of Orange Is the New Black‘s more upsetting images, almost to the point that the gun Humphrey puts to Maritza’s head feels redundant. In an episode with so much interminable talk about burgers, it’s good to see that OITNB has lost none of its flair.
A Few Thoughts
- Huge fan of Sister Jane Ingalls here. Her attempts to get sent to the SHU were reliably funny, and it even gave her a sweet scene with Mendoza, of all people. Sister Jane’s look when she finally gets to the SHU, though, is heartbreaking.
- Great breakdown scene from Red, as she asks Nichols how she can help. Kate Mulgrew should be drafting her Emmy acceptance speech right now. “I played tough with Tricia, and now she’s in the prison cemetery with her name spelled wrong!”
- Angie knows the plot of Breaking Bad, but not how it ends. “I assume it goes wrong somehow.” That’s actually pretty accurate.
- Apparently Judy King and Nigella Lawson get high and make out. Good to know.
About Author
