Orange Is The New Black Season 3 Episode 7 Recap: ‘Tongue-Tied’

Orange Is The New Black episode “Tongue-Tied” was one of the Netflix original series quieter episodes, as it centered around Litchfield’s beloved mute Norma Romano (Annie Golden)

Orange Is The New Black Recap

A growing group of inmates is hitting up Norma for some of her soul-soothing mysticism, which, as it turns out, she learned from a guru named Guru Mack as a young woman. In Norma’s pre-prison life, she got wrapped up in Guru Mack’s cult, and eventually became but one of his many wives. Decades later, she’s the only wife left, still ardently believing that he’s some kind of god. Frustrated with Norma’s constant presence – and his lack of a flock – Guru Mack rants at her about how she’s waisted her life as a slave, and demands that she speak. Unable to stand the verbal abuse, Norma pushes him off a cliff, which is more than likely how she ended up behind bars.

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In the present day at Litchfield, Caputo (Nick Sandow) and Pearson (Mike Birbiglia) are readying the new guards for their first day on the job. After a sexual harassment seminal in which Caputo calls out one of the new guards, who happens to be just 21, for being immature, he tries to lead a subjugation training exercise. Pearson quickly pulls Caputo out of the exercise, and sneers that they’re not paying the new hires to do P.E. Caputo argues that the newbies need training, but Pearson says it can just be like an apprenticeship, and that they can read the manual. It’s not long before Caputo finally realizes that Pearson is essentially both the warden and his boss.

Caputo, after getting an appeal from Healy, allowed Red to return to the kitchen with the understanding that she’s working under Mendoza (Selenis Leyva), who orders her to go help Norma peel potatoes. Mendoza has to skip out of prep early because her son is coming to visit, but the visit is cut short when Maritza (Diane Guerrero) cuts her finger. At a boiling point after missing out on time with her son, Maritza’s clumsiness and Sophia (Laverne Cox) questioning her parenting, Mendoza quits the kitchen. Red is all too happy to take over – until she learns from Caputo that the kitchen is switching to pre-packaged boil-in-bag meals.

Daya (Dascha Polanco), witnessing how hard it is to be a mother behind bars, is conflicted about what to do with her baby. While playing M.A.S.H. with Morello (Yael Stone) and Piper (Taylor Schilling), she jokes about how she always gets the shack, as in life, and says that Piper most likely lived in a mansion. After acknowledging that she grew up with five bathrooms, a playroom and a housekeeper, Piper adds, “I was very lonely as a child,” to which Morello replies, “Do you hear yourself sometimes, like when you speak?” Later on, Daya asks Piper if it was better growing up poor, and Piper points out that they both ended up in prison.

Piper, settling into her prison life, gets an enterprising idea after Flaca (Jackie Cruz), Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore), Janae (Vicky Jeudy) and Stella (Ruby Rose) start talking about “panty-sniffers,” and how much men will pay for worn underwear. She goes to Alex (Laura Prepon) and explains how she’s been making panties out of the extra fabric and how they could sell them on the Internet after they’ve been work by inmates. Alex is all in and gets to work on recruiting their panty mule – the 21-year-old guard.

Piper and Alex also need a man on the outside, which leads Piper to recruit her perpetually unemployed brother. She asks him if he can set up a website to sell the panties online, and he, like Alex, is all in. Piper is surprised to find out how learned and well-versed her brother is in the online used-panty bazaar. His explanation? “I’m a generalist.” Later on, Piper manages to recruit Stella to be one of their wearers.

While Piper was getting her business off the ground, Norma was debating her own future in the prison. Should she go back to being Red’s right-hand woman, or should she be the prison guru?  After Red tells her what to do one too many times, Norma decides to be the savior that Gina (Abigail Savage), Soso (Kimiko Glenn), Leanne (Emma Myles) and the others so desperately want. After storming out of Red’s kitchen, she heads straight to the chapel, where her devotees await.

Season 3, Episode 7 Odds & Ends

Crazy Eyes promises to be the E.L. James of Litchfield with her erotic story-telling.

Alex thinks that Kubra may have sent Lolly to the prison to kill her.

Cindy, Taystee, Janae and Poussey are now all on the Kosher plan.

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