‘Orange Is The New Black’ Season 7 Episode 11 Recap: “God Bless America”

There were plenty of light moments in Episode 11 of Orange Is The New Black Season 7, like Taystee’s inspiration to start a microloan non-profit for just-released ex-cons, or Piper’s parole officer asking her if the clarity of her urine can be attributed to alkaline water…

But for the most part, Episode 11 is dominated by the abominations taking place at the PolyCon immigrant detention center. OITNB took a big risk in handing a large chunk of time over to a new storyline in their final season, as opposed to reserving that time for all of the characters we’ve come to know and love over the last six years. But stories like Shani’s and Karla’s fit right in with Orange‘s central mission to shed light on difficult, and often topical, realities through the lens of women.

There were two moments in episode 11 where I wondered if I would ever stop crying again. The first was when Figueroa walked into the PolyCon detention center’s brand new court room (gleefully built by Linda so they could save money on bussing detainees to other court rooms and turn their beds over like a Jimmy Johns checkout counter), and found that it was being used for juvenile hearings.

To see a courtroom full of children without parents or lawyers to defend them, and without any understanding of what’s happening to them or why was devastating. Even more so for Fig who is now part of this industrial complex. “Illegals are illegals even if they’re mini,” ICE Agent Litvack smirks at Fig’s shock over the proceedings. “And a piece of shit is a piece of shit even if they’re grown,” Fig spits back. This feeling of helplessness is likely what pushes her to take the needs of Chaj, the detainee who speaks K’iche, into her own hands.

We see through flashback that Chaj was raped while trying to get into America, and is now nine weeks into a pregnancy she desperately wants to terminate. Litvack (of course) refuses to transport Chaj to a women’s clinic claiming there’s “no respect for human life around here,” notably while standing in a courtroom full of parentless children about to be deported. So Fig winds up telling her own IVF doctor that she’s miraculously become pregnant before her IVF appointment in a few days, and because of what she’s seen recently, she wants to terminate the pregnancy. Her doctor writes her the prescription, and Fig passes the pill along to Chaj.

The other storyline that nearly incapacitated me was Karla’s, who we get to see in flashback as the professional, loving mother she was before she was taken into ICE custody. Thanks to the new PolyCon courtroom, all of the detainee’s hearings have been pushed up, putting Karla and Blanca before a distinctly unforgiving judge before their cases are fully ready. Karla tries her best to explain the danger her boys would be in if they return to El Salvador, but the State tells the judge those children aren’t even in her custody anymore (because she’s was illegally kept from going to her custody hearing), and have already been placed in a home for pre-adoption. The judge determines that Karla will be deported to El Salvador.

Even in her utter despair, Karla comes up with a new tactic for Blanca that will at least give her some more time: Blanca explains to the judge that she was advised to plead guilty by her lawyer in her criminal case without ever being informed that it would affect her immigration status. The judge grants Blanca the time to reopen her criminal case, and Karla is happy for her—and it’s all the harder to stomach just how hard these women have to fight for each other because no one else will. 

Karla has previously asked Gloria to bring her phone to the kitchen so that she could call her boys before her trial, but Gloria refused, citing that she’s getting out in a few weeks and has to think about her own boys. But once Karla is sentenced to deportation, Gloria surprises her by revealing a phone in the back of the kitchen and a number where she can reach them at their foster home. The conversation that takes place between a loving mother who is being forced to leave her sons behind is just heart wrenching. She tells them that no matter what anyone tells them, they must believe that she won’t stop until they can be together again. 

Karla is deported at least having told her boys how much she loves them, but when the phone that provided her such comfort later vibrates while a CO is in the kitchen, Gloria, Flaca, and Maria are all put into jeopardy. Nicky isn’t in the kitchen that day because Vinny has clued her in on Lorna’s denial about the death of their baby, and now she’s taken it upon herself to get Lorna better. But while she’s away, Shani is sentenced to deportation. We see in flashback what Shani faces when she gets home: a father who has found out she’s gay and says he won’t hurt her, but he also won’t protect her from other family members who would seek to. 

Shani does manage to get a letter to Nicky by frantically banging on the kitchen window as the ICE agents try to take her away; the last time we see her, she’s sedated, being hauled onto a plane that will take her back to the uncertain future of her home country.

After such high and heavy stakes, the transition to Piper’s sparkly eyes taking in the glamorous gala that Zelda has invited her to feels a little tedious, but it is at least time for the lies Alex and Piper have been telling themselves and each other to come crashing down. Zelda finally admits to Piper that she wants to be more than friends with her, and Piper admits that she’d like that too but she has a wife. Alex has just used a similar line on McCullough who takes it much less gracefully than Zelda, and I don’t really blame her, given that Alex told her they had something “real” just one episode prior.

Though I can’t say I expected McCullough to then show up at Piper’s door telling Piper she needs to cut Alex loose so that she can move on: “With me.”

The episode ends with Piper running up to Zelda’s door and kissing her, Taystee being notified that her attorney is coming the next day to talk about her appeal, Karla on a bus full of women being deported, and a whole lot of uncertainty hanging in the air.

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 11 ("God Bless America") on Netflix