'Orange Is The New Black' Episode 2.05 Recap: "Low Self Esteem City"

While the war between the Spanish women and the black women and the contest between Nicky (Natasha Lyonne) and Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) heat up, flashbacks show how Gloria Mendoza (Selenis Leyva) ended up in prison in “Low Self Esteem City.”

The Spanish women storm into the B-dorm bathroom, which belongs to the black women, because their bathroom no longer works. Big Boo and Nicky continue their contest to see who can have sex with the most women. Nicky hysterically refers to the prison as “low self esteem city” and tries to get Fischer (Lauren Lapkus) to have sex with her in order to receive more points in the game. Fischer does not show any interest and is now on a mission to get more security in the prison.

Healy (Michael Harney) is still, unsuccessfully, trying to get his Russian wife to spend time with him or to even speak English around him. He eventually gives in to Piper’s (Taylor Schilling) request to be allowed to leave prison to see her dying grandmother for a couple days. After telling Healy that she’d be staying with her fiancé, Piper calls Larry (Jason Biggs) and they have their first conversation since before Piper went to SHU for hitting Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning).

Vee’s (Lorraine Toussaint) skills at manipulating people are at an all-time high when she pretends to cry to Gloria when confronted about the problems going on between the Latinas and the black inmates. Gloria promises Vee to try to get two of the girls in Vee’s group into a new job, but the reasoning behind this is not yet shown. Red (Kate Mulgrew) approaches Gloria to tell her she is being used by Vee in another one of her schemes.

Gloria’s sad, unfortunate story shows viewers a completely different side of her. The Gloria who’s in charge of the kitchen and controls her group (the Spanish women) is a completely different Gloria than the one in the flashbacks. Gloria’s former self is afraid of her abusive boyfriend, fearful for her life and for her children’s lives. She used to own a convenience store where she would illegally use food stamps to get money; this may sound bad, but Gloria did so in order to obtain enough money to take her children to Florida, away from the abusive boyfriend. As Gloria tells to her mother, “I buy food stamps and then charge the government for s— I never sold.”

Gloria’s mother begs her to go to the police about the abuse, but Gloria believed her boyfriend would kill her and the children if she did so. Just as her boyfriend thinks Gloria called the police on him, Gloria is arrested for fraud. One night, the boyfriend goes into the store to take all the money Gloria told her mother to use to bring the children to Florida. As he is leaving, he knocks over one of the candles and is trapped in a closet as the flames grow around him. Ironically, the candles Gloria and her mother use to pray engulf this horribly abusive man in flames as the episode ends.

– Jennifer Hogan