‘Orange Is The New Black’ Season 4, Episode 1 Recap: ‘Work That Body For Me’

Orange Is The New Black‘s fourth season premiere “Work That Body For Me” picks up right where the third-season finale left things – with Alex fighting for her life against one of Kubra’s hitmen.

Orange Is The New Black Premiere Recap

Alex’s (Laura Prepon) fate looks sealed. She’s pinned to the floor in the greenhouse while her fellow inmates are rushing to the lake beyond the prison grounds and the guards are going on strike. But then, who else but Lolly (Lori Petty) comes in and saves the day. Seeing Alex in peril, Lolly runs at the attacker and stomps on his head until he’s out cold.

Lolly, realizing what she did, starts to freak out, leading Alex to reassure her that she had no choice – and that the NSA had nothing to do with the attack. Now they have to figure out what to do with the body while convincing Kubra – with some staged photos of Alex sprawled out on the greenhouse floor – that his former drug runner is dead.

Caputo (Nick Sandow) is, as always, under an immense amount of stress. This time around, the problem is 100 new inmates and a dwindling number of COs to keep track of them. Bailey (Alan Aisenberg) tries to inform him that things are even worse than he imagines. When he finally succeeds, Caputo calls in backup and has the guards don riot gear to get everything back under control.

Completely oblivious to both Alex’s situation and the exodus to the lake, Piper (Taylor Schilling) believes that everyone thinks she’s a “gangsta” for sending Stella to max. Chang (Lori Tan Chinn) is the one that informs her that no one got the memo. Meanwhile, Suzanne (Uzo Aduba) is making out in the woods with her new girlfriend, who, when the siren blasts, doesn’t want to head back to prison. While Suzanne plays along with the fantasy of living in the cabin in the woods for awhile, she reaches a breaking point and sprints back to camp.

Once the prisoners make their way back inside the building, the guards keep them crammed in the cafeteria. Making things worse for the inmates is the arrival of a tactical force led by the stern Piscatella (Brad William Henke), who won’t even let Red (Kate Mulgrew) in the kitchen to whip up some food to feed the starving inmates. At the mess hall tables, Morello (Yael Stone) is upset that people would rather talk about the day at the lake than her wedding, Soso (Kimiko Glenn) struggles to gain acceptance from Poussey’s friends, particularly Watson, and Lolly tries to get Alex to tell Piper about the dead body in the greenhouse.

Luschek (Matt Peters) has been hanging all day in the mailroom, where Judy King (Blair Brown) is waiting to get processed and join the prison population. Caputo, trying to get an accurate count of the prisoners, hasn’t realized that the lifestyle mogul has arrived. However, she’s already getting comfortable and making fast friends with Luschek, who shares a few of her vices. Once it’s time for her to get settled in her bunk, she’s almost placed with her biggest fangirl in the prison, Poussey, before it’s arranged that she gets a separate room.

As for Piper, she gets a new bunkmate, who she won’t be able to push around, crushing her over-inflated opinion of her toughness. Red’s bunkmate, while scared of her, is a chronic snorer. Elsewhere in the dorm, Alex runs over to Lolly and tells her it’s time to get rid of the body, but Lolly is still half asleep. When Alex gets to the greenhouse, she realizes her would-be killer is actually still alive and that she’s going to have to kill him. Grabbing a roll of toilet paper, she suffocates him to death. The next day, Frieda (Dale Soules) helps Alex and Lolly dispose of the body, chopping it up and burying the pieces in the garden.