Everything You Need To Know About Season One Of Orange Is The New Black

It’s been almost a year since Orange is the New Black descended upon us, which means it’s been almost a year since a good many of us thought ‘women’s prison looks kinda fun!’, and then felt like right proper jerks. It’s just like a slumber party …that you’re never allowed to leave. We penned think pieces, we read op-eds, we gave our straight female friends The L Word when they ran out of OINTB to watch.

But by the time the trailer for season two appeared, I was surprised to find that I couldn’t keep up. Why was Piper in a different cell? Why wasn’t Red in the kitchen? Why wasn’t Alex there? Why do I care so much? Eleven months in TV years is worth five in Little Boo years — an eternity that I’d filled with other all-women casts, like Ru-Paul’s Drag Race and Real Housewives, while forgetting all about the ladies of Litchfield.

The second season drops on Netflix this Saturday in full, and unless you’re selflessly introducing friends to an incredible show you’ve already seen — like, say, oh I don’t know, Tabatha Takes Over — ain’t nobody got time to rewatch the first 13 episodes. Except me. So I did.

If you’ve gotten this far, I’m going to presume you’ve already seen season one. If not, this is is going to be the biggest lot of spoilers that ever spoilt and you should head back to SHU til you’ve caught up.

Here’s a case-by-case of the biggest characters and ‘issues’ to get you up to speed. And we’ll start with the woman who started this whole mess…

Alex “the hot one” Vause (Laura Prepon)

Back-story: Raised by her late single mother (Teri Garr), her estranged dad is a disappointing, washed-up rockstar. On the outside, Alex worked for a big-time international drug cartel, pushing heroin successfully around the world and plucking her eyebrows into rockabilly arches that I assume would be quite hard to maintain behind bars.  When the law finally caught up with her, she hadn’t seen ex-girlfriend Piper for ten years, and offered her name for a reduced sentence.

Alex works the laundry room in Litchfield, and hits the showers at 5am if you ever wanted to run into her to ask about the eyebrow thing. You’ll probably remember that she and Piper had a lot of sex last season, and a lot of people on the internet made a lot of gifs of that.

End of season: When Piper tells Alex that she’s going back to her snoozy fiance Larry (Jason Biggs), Alex warns that she can never come back to her — and means it. And then she lets Nickels finger her in the spirit of Christmas. Apparently Alex is only going to appear in four episodes of season two, so you’d better make those gifs last.

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Piper “Dandelion/Taylor Swift” Chapman (Taylor Schilling)

Back-story: Piper is the so-called ‘Trojan horse’ of the story for more complex race and class issues (according to show-runner Jenji Kohan) — but she’s more of a Trojan My Little Pony. She’s our WASPy guide through the big house, the character  who — if you actually use phrases like ‘the big house’ — is probably the most like you, whether you’d like to admit or not.

Before the FBi busted into her apartment one day, she’d concealed her drug money-muling, dangerous-lesbian lifestyle from her boring fiancé and conservative family. Now in Litchfield for 15 months, Piper is… well, mostly quite annoying. Hetero in the streets, gay above the prison sheets (remember you can’t sleep ‘in the bed’), she swings back and forth between Larry and Alex, torturing us all, while becoming the main target of born-again wackadoo Pennsatuckey.

End of season: Both Larry and Alex have turned their back on her, she told her letch of a supervisor Mr Healy to go fuck himself while doing a spell in solitary confinement (aka the SHU), and Pensatuckey is out for blood. The season ends with Pensatuckey in Christmas pageant angel garb, cornering Piper outside with a razor while Mr Healy turns a blind eye. And then the heavens, they did open, and Piper finally lets out her pent-up rage of being the main character who is also one of the least liked, and brutally bashes Pensatuckey to a bloody pulp. Hallelujah.

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Tiffany “Pennsatuckey” Doggett (Taryn Manning)

Back-story: A fascinating tele-villain, Doggett is a scrawny meth-addict with a heart of, well, mostly meth I guess? Following her fifth abortion, she snapped over a nurse’s snarky comment, took a rifle from her boyfriend’s car, went in, shot the nurse, and is now incarcerated.

She’s since become a poster child for pro-life, religious fanatics, and believes the lord can speak through her, kind of like Fairuza Balk with Manon in The Craft except – if you can believe it – way more frightening. Her lack of logic and religious tendencies mean she is impossible to have a level-headed argument with.

End of season: The bit about the bloody pulp. See: Piper.

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Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox)

Back-story: A transgendered woman, Sophia Burset runs the prison’s hair salon while paying her dues for credit card theft. On the outside she has a wife who has supported her though her transition, but would now like to pursue other relationships while Sophia serves her sentence. Their young son is still coming to terms with the whole situation, burdening Sophia with guilt.

Her prison story mostly revolves around her ability to get the right meds and delivering sassy comebacks when faced with rampant transphobia.

End of season: Sophia gives her wife her blessing to pursue a relationship on the outside, and her son shows signs of coming around.

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Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne)

Back-story: A sarcastic, warm-hearted “junkie philosopher” asshole and one of the greatest characters on the show, Nicky gets most of the best lines. She’s been in prison a while and knows how the whole place works.

Nicky comes from a wealthy, distant family and has a complicated relationship with her bristly mother, which became further fraught when Nicky’s rampant drug abuse ended in open heart surgery and a bunch of blood transfusions. (Lyonne’s own previous addictions infamously landed her in hospital in 2005 with a collapsed lung.) A raging out-and-proud lezzer, Nicky has a lot of on-again-off-again sex with inmate Morello (Australia’s Yael Stone), a woman who passes her time inside by planning her (straight) wedding with her fiancée, who is supposedly still waiting for her.

End of season: Morello breaks it off because she (among other things) is worried her vagina is being too stretched out by all the lesbian sex, which throws the usually unflappable Nicky. At the same time, Nicky’s relationship with maternal figure Red begins to unravel a smidge.

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Galina “Red” Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew)

Back-story: The matriarch of the prison, Red rules the kitchen and pretty much all of Litchfield. Feared for her temper and ability to serve you a bloody tampon in a roll if she doesn’t like you, Red can also be a bit of a softie (but two strikes and you’re out).

We’re not quite sure why she’s in there, but it seems to have something to do with the Russian mafia (and the accidental popping of a fake breast). She’s tough but fair and runs ‘special deliveries’ through her food orders. When she stands up to sadistic prison guard Mendez who wants to illegally smuggle in drugs the same way, she’s forced out of the kitchen, displaced, and very, very angry.

End of the season: With Gloria Mendoza and her girls now in charge of the kitchen, Red sneaks in one night and douses the oven with grease, causing a fire when it’s next lit. Unfortunately, it’s one of her own ‘daughters’ that cops the burn, leaving Red riddled with guilt and starved out by the new kitchen team.

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Daya Diaz (Dascha Polanco)

Back-story: Also in trouble with the prison guards, Daya entered Litchfield on the same day as Piper on drug charges. Her fucked-up mum is also serving time and, like on the outside, doesn’t want much to do with her.

Daya strikes up a secret relationship with prison guard John, eventually becoming pregnant. To try and diffuse the situation, she arranges to have sex with aforementioned sadistic pornstarche guard Mendez, and joins other inmates who hate the guy to set up a situation where he’ll be caught on rape charges. This storyline should be way more gripping than it plays out on screen.

End of the season: Mendez is put on probation and begins to believe that he is in love with Daya — “man’s greatest struggle in life is to find a woman who’s sexy but still could also be a mom” — not realising that John is actually involved with her. Daya is still pregnant.

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Tasha ‘Taystee’ Jefferson (Danielle Brooks)

Back-story: Taystee is the other contender for Character Who Gets The Best Lines. Though heavily featured, her history remains a mystery. We know that she got out of Litchfield for a while but returned after she found the transition too difficult to cope with. In an AA meeting she spills a cryptic detail about waking up with “barbecue sauce on [her] titties” and a dead guy – also covered in “barbecue sauce” – lying next to her. Seems like that might have something to do with it.

Taystee is well-loved and works in the prison library, occasionally snitching details to Mr Healey for lollies. Her BFF is Poussey Washington.

End of the season: Nothing major.

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And then there are a few inmates we’ve been merely teased with so far – plenty of good lines, but no real backstory, which is sure to change next season:

Morello (Yael Stone)

Poussey “Accent à droite, bitch” Washington (Samira Wiley)

Big Boo (Le DeLaria)

Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren (Uzo Aduba)

The real question for the season two launch, however, isn’t about the characters or the the gif-friendly moments, or the epic think pieces we’ll be treated to. What I’m most curious about is: will someone trim those goddamn, overly-long Regina Spektor opening credits? Because even though, yes, the sun is out and the day is new, I really don’t have time.

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Season two of Orange is the New Black lands in full on Netflix at approx. 2pm AEST, on Saturday June 7. Don’t have access to Netflix? Maybe give this link a click — or wait until it hits Showcase on Foxtel, from Wednesday July 16.