On this chapter of The Queerest Things I Watched Last Week, I give my Orange is the New Black season six recap, and Wynonna Earp has a WynHaught-centric episode.
- Wynonna Earp– Season 3 Episode 7 “I Fall to Pieces” [Live]
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It’s the annual #WynHaught episode where our favorite Brotp are forced to work together, and it’s hilarious and entertaining.
The episode starts with Wynonna hooking up with Charlie in a firetruck when Nicole and Waverly make a political visit to the firehouse.
We learn Purgatory has a Pride!
The Unkillable Gay Squad needs to have a float at Pride.
Nedley gives Wynonna and Nicole the task of going through his secret closet of weird and maybe supernatural stuff. Wynonna’s not into it — she knows Nedley just wants them to learn to work together. Nicole is frustrated with her not helping and they wind up breaking a mirror while arguing. That broken mirror seems to have released a demon on the Earp homestead. Uh, oh!
Later, Nicole has a meeting with Bunny Loblaw, the town politician. Nicole needs her support in order to become Sheriff. Bunny comes over to Nicole’s house, and it’s not going well. Not only is Bunny allergic to Nicole’s cat, she’s also a homophobe.
Bunny tells Nicole she’s tired of the secrecy going on with the Sheriff’s department, and she thinks it’s bullshit. She knows there’s something going on. Nicole is unable to win her over even though she’s looking super cute in a tie.
Wynonna then busts in, and Bunny says she thinks she should be Sheriff instead because Wynonna comes from an original Purgatory family and tells it like it is.
While Nicole and Wynonna go off to argue about this, Bunny sees the demon thing in the window and passes out. They put in her Nicole’s police car to take her to the hospital, and while they’re preoccupied with arguing and not paying attention, two frat boys jump in her cruiser and drive off with Bunny still in the car.
They find the car at a biker bar and Bunny is locked inside. Nicole and Waverly go in the bar to find the frat boys so they can get the key from them, and discover the bikers have them tied up. Wynonna challenges the lead biker to a drinking contest in exchange for the boys.
This is, of course, an elaborate set up to get Nicole drunk, because drunk Nicole makes Wynhaught 100 times funnier.
Wynonna wins the contest, but the biker discovers she was cheating. Nicole was not, so I guess that makes her the true winner of the drinking game. Wynonna and Nicole evade the furious bikers and make it out of the bar, but they are now handcuffed to each other.
Running in the snow, they are ambushed by a group of lumberjack demons. They easily defeat them, but then are immediately captured by the leader biker from the bar.
It’s the demon thing that was resurrected by the broken mirror from Nedley’s secret closet, and now it looks like one of them has to marry him.
Meanwhile at the station, Waverly and Jeremy are trying to fix things by putting the mirror back together. That didn’t fix anything, because Wynonna and Nicole come running into the station with the demon thing on their heels. Waverly and Jeremy make cute tries to stop him, but it doesn’t work. However, they do figure out he’s an evil Gnome because they find a busted up Gnome statue with the other broken stuff from Nedley’s closet.
Monster Gnome still wants a wife as Waverly and Jeremy frantically try to put the Gnome statue back together.
Wynonna has no problem offering Nicole up as Gnome wife.
Waverly and Jeremy are finally able to assemble the broken Gnome just in time.
I love how Waverly and Jeremy put their hands up in the air after they completed the Gnome like they’re on Chopped.
Monster Gnome is reunited with Monique the lady Gnome statue, and the day is saved.
Later Bunny comes into the station and Wynonna is there cleaning up after the Gnome mess. Bunny tells Wynonna she will not be supporting Nicole for Sheriff because she’s “not our people.” Wynonna says Nicole is the right person to be Sheriff, because even though Bunny is a homophobic, xenophobic bitch, she saved her anyway. When reason didn’t work on Bunny, Wynonna threatened to send every monster in town to her house. That seemed to do the job.
Surprise, Nicole was listening the whole time and heard all the nice things Wynonna said about her. She comes in offering “hair of the dog” beers and a truce, all while looking super cute.
Wynonna and Nicole have a sweet chat, and Wynonna confesses to Nicole that she used to think she was an outsider, too.
After their talk, Wynonna gives Nicole a photo she found in Nedley’s closet of her right after Nedley rescued her from the Cult of Bulshar massacre when she was a kid.
Nicole goes into Nedley’s office and shows him the photo.
They then have a really sweet scene where Nedley tells her about how she got away from the massacre and how he kept an eye on her as she was growing up. Nicole says, “Everything good that I have in my life is because I came back to the Ghost River Triangle.” And Nedley tells her she’s like a daughter to him. They cry and hug and it’s all really sweet.
The show ends with Mama Earp leaving town to find Julian, and Wynonna finding out Doc is a vampire.
I loved this episode, and I hope we get a WynHaught-centric one every year.
- Orange is the New Black– Season 6 [Streaming]
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Warning: Serious season six spoilers coming up. If you don’t want to be spoiled, click away now!
I gave up on Orange is the New Black a few seasons ago. If watching a ridiculous amount of TV was not my hobby, I would have abandoned the show after they killed Poussey. I don’t think endless torture porn is creative or edgy. I think it’s lazy, and in this case, misogynistic. I came into this season with the lowest of expectations, and during the first episode, my wife (who, for torture tolerance level reference, loves Game of Thrones) was ready to quit.
The first episode was surreal (much of it is told via Suzanne’s hallucinations) and not like the subsequent episodes. After the riot from last season, the guards were in revenge mode and taking it out on everyone who came from Litchfield minimum security. The scene that almost broke us is when the guards forced Gloria and Maria (two straight women) to kiss. I mean, wtf? Why do we have to be subjected to this violently forced, male gaze, bullshit? We stopped the episode and took a break.
After a day we started up again and honestly it got better. They reduced the usual cast of inmates and guards by half and sent them down the hill to the maximum security prison. There we were introduced to a new set of inmates and guards with new rivalries and personalities. The combination of new setting and new characters breathed life into the show and made it interesting again.
Some of the new characters from D Block The Bad
The show still had plenty of torture. The guards at max were extra mean and out for revenge. Also, they had a game going the entire season called “Fantasy Inmate.” I imagine it’s like Fantasy Football (I’m not a sports person) where they picked inmates and got points for things they either did or had done to them — sex, violence, fights, etc. The winner got the pot of money at $100 a player. This caused the guards to put the inmates in situations to promote altercations.
I thought this was so fucked up. Some of the guards were crueler than others in order to score points. Occasionally a guard would question the ethical implications of the game, but for the most part they sadistically played it out the entire season.
Another story line that lasted throughout the season was Taystee being accused of and on trial for the murder of Piscatella after the riot last season. Piscatella was actually shot dead by a SWAT team member. The officers made a plan to blame it on the inmates, and after they were all interrogated, Taystee was the one who wound up accused.
Tasha gets support from the media and Black Lives Matter, but in the end she’s found guilty and it’s heartbreaking.
Tasha on trial. The Interesting
My favorite part of Orange is the New Black season six was Carol and Barb and the over 30 year long feud between C Block and D Block. Barb and Carol are sisters who were arrested for brutally killing their youngest sister and are generally horrible and manipulative people. In the present day Carol (played by Henny Russell) runs C Block, and Barb (played by Mackenzie Phillip) runs D Block.
Young Barb and Carol in a flashback. We learn via flashback that Frieda used to be in max. She was in D Block and Carol sold drugs out of Frieda’s hiding place in the library. Barb was in C Block where she also sold drugs, but they had an agreement to only sell certain types of drugs respectively. Barb gets angry when Carol starts violating that pact and invading her territory.
I think they did a great job choosing the actors to play young Frieda, Carol and Barb.
Barb tells Carol to stop selling heroin and weed and stop stealing her customers.
Later Carol and Frieda arrive at the hiding spot to find it ransacked and all of the drugs (and Carol’s beloved Burt Reynolds poster) stolen. Carol is sure it was Barb, and she makes plans to retaliate at the kickball game.
Carol tackles Barb at the kickball game and confronts her over the stolen stash.
At that moment, Carol realizes it was Frieda who took the drugs.
Now that Frieda is back in Max (and Carol spotted her while she was getting transferred), she is in big trouble. Carol is out to get her. Frieda manages to get herself assigned to B Block, otherwise knows as “Florida,” where all the older and mentally ill inmates reside.
Carol and Barb’s gangs affect everyone on the cast, and it’s a running theme throughout the entire season.
The Queer
So, what’s up with the queer characters this season?
Boo is only in one episode for a few minutes. Nicky is back, but mostly occupied with trying to keep Barb from waging a full-on war with Carol. Sophia makes a deal with the corporation that owns the prison and gets early release and a cash payout in return for never suing or telling the press how she was treated.
In the first few episodes you don’t know where Alex is and neither does Piper. Piper thinks she’s dead and she’s really depressed until Alex finally shows up. Alex was injured so badly in the riot that she needed to be taken to a real hospital and not prison hospital.
#OITNB, I was so ready to quit you, but we stuck it out a few episodes and now I’m warming up to this season. -T #vauseman pic.twitter.com/h7fCveWNJJ
— LezWatch.TV 📺 🏳️🌈 (@lezwatchtv) August 23, 2018They spend the rest of the season being nice to each other, which is a welcome change. I stopped caring about them as a couple because: one, I find Piper to be an uninteresting character in general, and two, Alex and Piper are just not nice to each other. This season they had almost no physical scenes with each other, just kissing here and there, but at least they were romantically kind to each other.
We met a new queer character in Max, Dominga “Daddy” Duarte. She is Barb’s right-hand woman in D Block and manages her drug running. Daddy wound up in Litchfield Max for pimping and possibly helping cover up the murder of one of her girls — they don’t make that explicitly clear.
When Dayanara Diaz arrives in Max from up the hill, she is repeatedly beaten by guards and Daddy gives her some Oxy for the pain. Daddy also makes it known that she is into Daya. Daya gets hooked on the drugs, and eventually begins a relationship with Daddy. Later on she helps import drugs into the prison with the help of her mother Aleida and CO Hopper.
Towards the end of the season Gloria is transferred from C Block to D Block and reunited with Daya. When Gloria sees what’s going on with her and Daddy, she brings it up with her and Daya tells her she’s “gay for the stay.”
I don’t like Daddy, I lost any empathy for her after she served up one of the girls who seemed to really like her up to the guy pimps. Plus she got Daya hooked on Oxy which only gets worse as the season progresses.
However, after adding her to our database, I learned not only is Vicci Martinez, the actor who plays Daddy, a lesbian in real life (and came in third place on The Voice debut season), she is also dating Emily Tarver, who plays officer CO McCullough on the show. Vicci describes their relationship as “We are super in love,” and they are the literal cutest.
Okay, so I don’t like Daddy as a character, but I love they’re the second famous real life queer couple to come out of Orange is the New Black.
The Ending
Orange is the New Back season six ended on a mostly positive note, which is remarkable, because the last few seasons have ended horribly.
Alex and Piper got gay prison married right before Piper left on early release.
It was ceremonial not legal, and we’ll see how much the commitment sticks while Piper is out and Alex is serving her remaining four years at Litchfield.
Piper discovered the kickball field and the fact that there were organized kickball games back in the 80s. The games were shut down since Barb and Carol had the Great Kickball War between C and D Block. Piper started a successful campaign to get kickball started up again.
Once again, Barb and Carol planned a battle for the final game, but Maria wasn’t up for a gang war. She approached CO McCullough before the game and asked her to make the captains re-pick teams. This allowed Maria to make the teams with a mixture of C and D Block members.
When it actually got to the moment when everyone had their their shivs out to start fighting, they got distracted by the game itself and kept playing. Everyone had regular kickball fun and there was no fight.
Kickball saved the day.
One reveal in the finale was the corporation that owns Litchfield is getting into the immigration detention center business. And as Blanca was released from prison, instead of being greeted by her sweet boyfriend who is there to pick her up, she goes right into the hands of ICE. This part was so heartbreaking. We got to know Blanca and her boyfriend better throughout the season, and I was so happy for her getting early release.
The actor who plays Blanca’s boyfriend posted this on Twitter and I thought it was sweet.
Waiting for Season 7 of @OITNB like….#netflix #OITNB #OITNB6 pic.twitter.com/h9jFTdG39b
— Miguel Izaguirre (@The1NOnlyMiguel) August 24, 2018So, what happened to Barb and Carol? They were suspiciously absent from the kickball game. If you’ve made it this far and you haven’t watched Orange is the New Black season six yet, I’m not going to spoil this part for you, because it’s pretty epic.
I was pleasantly surprised by the season — it was good. My wife and I found ourselves wanting to watch it and unable to stop even when it was getting late. It was like the early seasons of the show. The unfortunate reality is you have to get through a few terrible seasons to get here, but I hope the writers keep up this momentum because I’m back on board.
This week: Cable Girls, Shameless and The Deuce all come back. Who will have the most queer content? I will let you all know next week. My money’s on Cable Girls.
