'Orange Is the New Black': The 9 Most Surprising Season 3 Relationships
Life at Litchfield makes for strange bedfellows… and even more unlikely friendships, enemies, spiritual gurus, and whatever you want to call those weekly meetups between Caputo and Figueroa (which seem to gross even them out). Season 3 of Orange Is the New Black is particularly packed with unexpected relationships that keep the drama and the laughs at a nice respectable level, so here’s our shout out to the pairings that will keep us guessing about (and counting down to) OITNB Season 4. Warning: Season 3 spoilers ahead.
Taystee (Danielle Brooks) & Suzanne/“Crazy Eyes” (Uzo Aduba)
Didn’t See This One Coming: Taystee and Suzanne have always run in the same circle, but they really bonded in Season 3 while they both were reeling from the death of their manipulative mother figure, Vee.
Why It Makes Sense: Crazy Eyes’s most endearing characteristic is her desire to make connections, and in Taystee — who is always one of the most practical, down to earth members of her group — she not only shared a sadness over the loss of Vee, but, sorta, found a new mama figure.
Relationship Prognosis: Looks good. Taystee and Suzanne not only seem to have built a solid friendship, but Taystee continues to be a big supporter of Suzanne’s literary aspirations. After all, had Taystee not encouraged Suzanne to continue writing her erotica after it was rejected by Berdie, the ladies of Litchfield would have been denied their own version of Fifty Shades of Grey: Suzanne’s The Time Hump Chronicles, a story about “two people connecting… with four other people. And aliens.”
Red (Kate Mulgrew) & Healy (Michael J. Harney)
Didn’t See This One Coming: He has been, at times, harshly judgmental, and she can be one immovable force. But they are both usually well-intentioned, caring people, and two of the few people in their age group at Litchfield, and when both found themselves in a vulnerable place, sparks definitely flew between Red and the man Pennsatucky described as a “silver fox.”
Why It Makes Sense: Sure, Red was being manipulative with hopes of worming her way back into her beloved kitchen, but she was also being sincere when she told Healy’s frosty wife Katya she was lucky to be married to a good man who cares for her. And that review from a woman he respects was pure gold to Healy, a man whose selfish wife wouldn’t even share with him her Lasagna Classico leftovers from the Olive Garden dinners he pays for.
Relationship Prognosis: Red, heartbroken and lonely herself after finding out her now ex-husband lied to her about the demise of their business, tells Healy — who has agreed to help his mail-order bride finance an apartment — that their “ships passed too late in the night for one of them to change course.” Still, with little time left on her sentence and her fresh divorce papers, we have a feeling there’s still potential for “Redealy.”
Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) & Big Boo (Lea DeLaria)
Didn’t See This One Coming: Pennsatucky was initially Healy’s biggest ally in his quest to rid the prison of lesbian activity, and Boo is among Litchfield’s out-est and proudest Sapphic sisters, so the chances of them becoming BFFs seemed nonexistent.
Why It Makes Sense: They’re both outsiders without true friends or family in Litchfield or the outside world, and when circumstances threw them together, the bunkmates forged a frienemy-ship that helped Boo deal with feelings of regret about not saying goodbye to her dying mother and Pennsatucky deal with a lifetime of mother-sanctioned dehumanizing treatment by men.
Relationship Prognosis: Boo’s been fickle with her loyalty in the past — see: selling Red out to Vee in Season 2 — but she seems to genuinely care for Pennsatucky and want to help her victimized new pal demand the basic respect she deserves. Opposites attract, and in this case, could make for a lifelong — or at least, sentence-long — friendship.
Poussey (Samira Wiley) & Soso (Kimiko Glenn)
Didn’t See This One Coming: Poussey and Soso run in completely different Litchfield crowds, with Poussey a favorite member of Taystee’s crew, and Soso desperate (and unsuccessful) to get any of the inmates to let her join in their reindeer games.
Why It Makes Sense: Poussey was feeling particularly lost and desperate to find a way to deal with her incarceration in Season 3, and when she stumbled upon an OD’d Soso, Poussey found a purpose in helping to sober Soso up and keep her suicide attempt secret, lest she end up in the psych ward.
Relationship Prognosis: Soso rubs everyone the wrong way, so, comedic possibilities aside — Soso is someone Taystee and Poussey would have mocked as their alter egos Amanda and Mackenzie, right? — it’s tough to see how Poussey’s group will embrace (heck, even tolerate) Soso long-term. So, their chances of permanent coupling? Well, so-so.
Caputo (Nick Sandow) & Figueroa (Alysia Reiner)
Didn’t See This One Coming: She desperately got all up in Caputo’s junk in Season 2 to try to save her job and keep the embezzlement she and her husband plotted a secret, but lost her job anyway. So, there’s no reason she and Caputo would ever speak to each other again, right?
Why It Makes Sense: She’s obviously unhappy to learn the husband whose political campaign she helped fund with her embezzlement scheme is cheating on her with men, and we suppose there are some people who might not be skeeved that a certain part of Caputo’s anatomy earned him the nickname “Beer Can,” so… no, we can’t go there. They hate each other, and sexual attraction or not, the Caputo/Fig fling just doesn’t make sense.
Relationship Prognosis: What relationship? They meet once a week for an insult-sprinkled quickie at Casa de Caputo. Relationship… enemies with benefits?
Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) & Coates (James McMenamin)
Didn’t See This One Coming: Pennsatucky hasn’t shown herself to be one of the randier inmates at Litchfield, which is understandable after Season 3 backstories revealed how shoddily she’s been treated by most of the males in her life pre-incarceration.
Why It Makes Sense: Donut shop employee Charlie Coates seemed like an endearingly goofy, non-threatening guy whose quirkiness and sense of humor made him a nice friend, and potential love match, for Pennsatucky, as the two forged a fast friendship during their time together as guard and prison van driver. But you knew when he ordered her to act like a dog and crawl into mud in “Where My Dreidel At” there was something off about Charlie Donuts, thought that still didn’t prepare for his soul-crushing rape of ‘Tucky in “A Tittin’ and a Hairin’.”
Relationship Prognosis: Negative. But since it’s unlikely Pennsatucky was his first victim, or that she will be his last, we do expect Pennsatucky, and BFF Boo, will continue to keep an eye on Coates and act as his own set of karma dole-r outers should he try to prey on other Litchfieldians.
Sophia (Laverne Cox) & Gloria (Selenis Leyva)
Didn’t See This One Coming: Though not close, Sophia and Gloria got along well enough, with Gloria as one of the many who count on Sophia’s serious salon skills when she needs to get her hair did. And then Gloria asked for a simple favor — that her son be able to catch a ride with Sophia’s wife and son for visiting day at Litchfield — and it spiraled into a messy drama filled with misunderstandings, ugly accusations and assumptions, violence versus Sophia, guilt for Gloria, and Sophia still locked in the SHU at the end of Season 3.
Why It Makes Sense: Both women are dealing with serious guilt, frustration, and fear about what will become of their sons while they’re locked away, with precious little time or opportunity to influence their childrens’ lives. So when Sophia (falsely, as it turned out) accused Gloria’s son of leading Sophia’s Michael into trouble and disrespectful behavior, Gloria feared Sophia was right and lashed out at her.
Relationship Prognosis: Gloria spent some time in the prison church trying to wrap her head around her role in the new enemy status of her relationship with Sophia, and both of them are usually rational people who know they made some angry, snap decisions. But Sophia was on the receiving end of Gloria-motivated violence, and their continuing hurt and frustration over being apart from their children could prevent them from ever forgiving or forgetting what they did to each other this season.
Crazy Eyes (Uzo Aduba) & Maureen (Emily Althaus)
Didn’t See This One Coming: We didn’t even know Maureen existed until Season 3.
Why It Makes Sense: Maureen was wooed by Crazy Eyes’s tales of alien love, and wrote her a poem and asked her on a supply closet date to woo her. Suzanne freaked out — as aggressive as she might have seemed in her pursuit of Piper, she reveals herself to be inexperienced relationship-wise (the many explicit details of The Time Hump Chronicles notwithstanding) — but a sweet flirtation between the two at the lake in the Season 3 finale suggests…
Relationship Prognosis: … Suzanne may have finally found her dandelion, the missing component of her chocolate and vanilla swirl.
Norma (Annie Golden) & Leanne (Emma Myles)
Didn’t See This One Coming: Norma doesn’t speak, but it turns out assumption, and the need for those incarcerated to have faith in something, are all that’s necessary to accidentally spark a religion… and, in Norma, a religious figurehead.
Why It Makes Sense: Series creator Jenji Kohan had teased “faith” would be a central theme of Season 3. For some inmates, it was easiest to find that in “magic mute” — as Poussey called her — Norma, a genuinely kind woman whose angelic-like demeanor is enhanced by the fact that she never says anything mean. OK, she never says anything at all, but still. Inmates like Poussey and Leanne were comforted by Norma’s alleged powers and calm demeanor, and for a while, Norma inspired a calmness in Leanne, too.
Relationship Prognosis: Not good. Norma may not be the spiritual guru her followers believe her to be, but she is a nice woman who did not condone Leanne’s mean girl treatment of Brook Soso. And as Norma’s (dead) false guru husband learned, Norma might not be especially big on forgiveness.
Orange Is the New Black Season 3 is available on Netflix.