‘Orange Is The New Black’ Season 7 Episode 10 Recap: “The Thirteenth”

Episode 10 picks up right where 9 left off: with Lorna missing and Litchfield going on lockdown. Ward takes a firm but not overly dramatic handle on things, and soon Lorna is spotted in the chicken coop by CO Dixon. When Ward, Hellman, and Hopper join Dixon, he tells them he thinks he sees a lump on her and she could be armed. When he tazes her for no good reason, that lump turns out to be a chicken she was holding that dies once she falls on top of it unconscious. (This leads to an entire New Cluck City investigation by Suzanne and, briefly, the installation of a very tiny chicken-SHU.)

But the inmates don’t seem to know it was Lorna who was missing, because the ICE kitchen gang heads to work without too much worry for her absence. Nicky and Shani are still keeping the proverbial sock on the proverbial door of their kitchen hideaway as Nicky tries to figure out how she can pleasure Shani given the genital trauma in her past. It’s not going particularly well, but these two like each other sooo much, and the music that plays when they’re together is sooo romantic, it has me veeeery worried about their future. Indeed, later in the episode, Shani gets a foreboding “FINAL NOTICE TO APPEAR” letter from ICE.

But while she’s still in the kitchen with Nicky, Red slips and cuts her finger badly. Nicky rushes her to a nurse, but Red doesn’t want her there, especially when Nicky begins saying the Red needs to see a doctor because it’s more than just the hand, there’s been memory loss and mood swings. Red insists not to listen to her, but later, Nicky is called back to the hospital wing because when Red was asked for a person she trusted, she still said Nicky’s name. While Nicky weeps and Red looks despondent, the doctor gives Red’s official diagnosis: early onset dementia. 

It is extremely tough news to receive, especially with the way Nicky is beating herself up about all of this. When Lorna returns from the hospital, she’s fragile, and Nicky is eager to know what happened. Lorna says the last thing she can remember is Vinny telling her he was “taking the baby away,” and he wants a divorce. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you,” Nicky tells Lorna as she puts her into bed, staying back from kitchen duty and Shani in order to take care of her. “I just been failing everybody lately. I’m hoping it’s just a fucking-asshole-how-did-I-miss-that phase.”

I wish Nicky wouldn’t be so hard on herself, especially given that some people on this prison are even more distracted from the important relationships in their lives. The Alex/McCullough coupling rages on, and when McCullough has a triggered reaction to the prison going on lockdown, it becomes a little clearer why Alex was suddenly so willing to fall into bed (or closet, as it were) with her when she heard about McCullough’s money and job problems. In flashbacks, we see Alex’s relationship with Sylvie, the woman she was dating when she met Piper, play out. 

Sylvie was an alcoholic when they first began dating, but when around the time she was six months sober, the relationship started to fall apart. Alex says it’s because Sylvie has a whole new life now, but Sylvie says it’s because, “You need me to be broken so you feel needed.” The fact that Alex takes bumbling young Piper under her wing the very night Sylvie says this, isn’t great for Alex’s defense, nor is the fact that Alex has entered this relationship with vulnerable McCullough the moment Piper has begun doing better in the present.

Alex might be walking her own thin line with her new gorgeous, successful friend Zelda, but for now, she’s nothing but a good influence on Piper. They’re going to yoga and drinking kombucha and, weirdly, once Zelda hears about her former trials and tribulations with Larry and Polly, encourages Piper to get together with them. Zelda comes along for moral support, and so goes the return of Larry and Polly, which is…a little awkward, but mostly fine, and even a little fun. There’s shared history there, and by the time they leave, Piper is asking Zelda, “Do you think some relationships complete? Like, you reach the end of them, and you don’t need anything else?”

Zelda replies, suggestively: “Yes, and I also think some relationships never do, in a good way—they just continue to evolve and surprise you.” It seems like Zelda nearly asks Piper back in her apartment, and like Piper nearly would have said yes, but Zelda asks her to a gala instead, and Piper definitely says yes. 

The evolution of relationships inside Litchfield are decidedly less whimsical right now. Daya and Aleida are officially entering into a drug war inside a prison ripe with familial drug war history. Taystee is now tutoring the entire GED class since Luschek’s style of teaching was playing non-topical old videos (and saying yes to going corrupt for Daya’s drug trade basically before she even asked him to).

In Caputo’s Restorative Justice class, however, things are actually making a little progress. Maria and Beth sit in chairs across from each other, and Beth tells Maria that she doesn’t expect forgiveness, but she can’t even remember trying to drown Maria. Caputo tells Maria it’s up to her to decide what justice would mean then, and Maria says it would be keeping Beth locked up forever so she’d never be so violent against another person again. At this point, CO Dixon steps out of left field, very upset, demanding to know if Maria has a split personality then, or if she just doesn’t think of him as a person.

He’s been listening in to all of these classes; he sees Maria as his perpetrator from her actions during the riot and he wants his own confrontation. Maria asks him to sit down with her and Dixon tells her: “You imprisoned me, you tortured me, you humiliated me … I still can’t sleep, and even when I try to fall asleep, all I can see are the nightmares of you and your baton.”

Maria is horrified, and apologizes for what she put Dixon through. “I can’t take it back, I wish I could,” she tells him through tears. “But I hope it maybe helps you a little that I do know what I did to you, and I’m trying real hard to be a better person so no one ever has to feel the way you feel because of me again.” Dixon thanks her, and then he, Maria, and Beth share the weirdest hug ever.

Ward witnesses all of this in slightly nervous awe, and tells Caputo afterward that she hopes he’s proud of the work he’s doing there. But she’s not there when he finally has the breakthrough that he can’t be proud what he did to Susan Fischer, and in fact, some restorative justice would very much be in order.

While listening to two inmates who apparently worked together as pimp and sex worker before they came to Litchfield, Caputo has to step in because Jaunita (the pimp) isn’t listening to Kim (the sex worker) try to tell Jaunita what she put her through: “In the beginning, I thought you were my friend, but if I didn’t do what you wanted, you punished me—I never knew what to expect.” Caputo finally hears what Fischer’s experience must have been like with him, and especially hears her continued experience with him when Juanita responds that Kim “wasn’t even that good” at her job. 

“She’s trying to tell you what you did to her, and you will not LISTEN!” Caputo blows up before excusing himself from class.

And when he and Fig arrive at the dinner Ward has invited them to in her home to thank her for all they’ve done for her as warden, Caputo has another unexpected outburst mid-conversation: “I need to resign from Restorative Justice.” He tells Ward straight-forwardly, with no excuses, that he had a crush on a former CO and she’s come forward about it. He is not the victim of what happened like he’s been acting: “I created an atmosphere at work that was sexualized, and it made her uncomfortable, and I crossed lines I shouldn’t have when she rejected me—I fired her.”

Ward agrees: Caputo has to resign.

Jodi Walkerwrites about TV forEntertainment Weekly, Vulture, Texas Monthly,and in her pop culture newsletterThese Are The Best Things. She vacillates between New York, North Carolina, and every TJ Maxx in between.

Stream Orange Is The New Black Season 7 Episode 10 Recap ("The Thirteenth") on Netflix