Orange Is the New Black season 7 premiere recap: Beginning of the End

It really is the beginning of the end for Orange Is the New Black, folks.

Orange Is the New Black premiered its final season today, and I have to say, I’m getting super emotional. Last night, I attended the final season premiere and it was a whirlwind experience witness the season 7 premiere episode with the cast and other fans. While the entire experience was more fun than I’ve had in a while, the premiere episode wasn’t exactly at the same level. And let me tell you why.

The episode spends a lot of time catching us up on Piper and what she’s been up to since her release. As we’ve seen before with Taystee’s release, it’s not an easy adjustment getting acclimated to the lack of funds and jobs available. And such is the case for Piper who is living with her brother and sister-in-law and working at a Thai restaurant called ‘Thunder Thais’.

The fact that Piper got out early means that any fees that come with probation and the like are her responsibility (that is not cool!). Given that she makes enough as it is and has to pay her brother rent, she barely has anything left over, not even enough for a bus ticket to Litchfield to see Alex. I was rather emotional when we see the scene between Piper and her father. She asks him for help, and he won’t give any, like at all. Ugh, and the fact that he would barely make eye contact with her was just annoying AF.

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Okay, so the stuff above aside, the parts of the episode where I found myself confused and not as invested were the random flashbacks. They didn’t have much significance to them (at least not yet), and it honestly felt they were placed there because it’s the final season so nostalgia needs to be used anywhere and everywhere. It was a bit all over the place with little to no explanation. If you want to incite nostalgia for Orange Is the New Black, I think there are many ways to go about it than that.

Back at Litchfield, Badison is still a pain in the ass. I completely forgot about her but it didn’t take very long for the hate and anger towards her to come back. This time around she’s looking to take away Alex’s visitation time so she can use it for herself. Of course, Alex is eager to see her WIFE, Piper and refuses to engage. So, what does she do? Try to incriminate Badison so she gets sent to solitary. It doesn’t exactly go as planned, but hey it got her out of Alex’s hair.

Badison’s roommate, our very own Taystee, is super disconnected from everyone given the crap she had been put through last season. She’s not looking to talk to anyone and pretty much keeps to herself, which makes me sad because a wild and silly Taystee is the best version of her!

Having promised Piper she would behave and stay out of trouble, Alex does everything but, to no fault of her own. You see, one of the COs demands that she take care of the heroin business while Badison is in solitary, and pretty much forces her to by shoving some down her throat during inspection.

The plan is to poop out this heroin, sell it to Daddy, and get paid in exchange while Alex plays the “middle woman” against her own wishes. Of course, matters are complicated when Daya seeks revenge on Daddy after catching her with another woman, and it winds up killing Daddy (she laced some hooch with fentanyl and she had a seizure). So, there’s that.

With the $50 her father lent her, Piper makes her way to Litchfield and has a rather awkward conversation and meeting with Alex. Things are so off right now, and Piper is stuck in the middle of it. Not to mention, she got fired from her job because she takes too many days off. Oh man, when it rains it pours.

In other parts of the season 7 Orange Is the New Black premiere, we see Red and Gloria in SHU, with Gloria trying to keep her spirits up and Red drowning in her sorrow. And then, of course, there’s Aleida who is making Hopper run her drug operation but is busy getting it on with Ceaser.

So, as you can see, quite a bit took place during this episode and it felt a bit scatter-brained and random. We had some flashback scenes with the return of Jason Biggs, and then some other scenes here and there that just didn’t fit in the context of the episode. But I will say that I liked the end very much with Piper heading to the bus station to go home and running into a Vietnamese woman and her son. She asks the son what his mother shouted out and he states, “She says it’s all different now”.

It sure is, kid, it sure is.