‘Orange Is The New Black’ Season 7 Episode 12 Recap: “The Big House”

The penultimate episode of the final season of Orange Is the New Black is haunted. Haunted by ghosts of the past and ghosts of the future; haunted by Sam Cooke crooning over scenes of utter despair; haunted by thoughts of death, and metaphorical death, and actual, mournful, tragic, regrettably real death.

They can’t all be happy endings, of course. But following Episode 11, the fear going into the finale is: can any of them?

Amidst all the turmoil, though, there’s a party going on at Litchfield—a party that much of the episode’s momentous happenings center around. Unfortunately, when CO Blake shows up at Taystee’s cell with a saying her “presence is requested” while Sam Cooke’s “(Somebody) Ease My Troublin’ Mind” plays over top…the formal invitation is for no such shindig.

Taystee’s lawyer from last season has finally looked over Suzanne’s notebook, and she doesn’t bring good news. While she believes the things inside the book to be true, there’s not enough evidentiary support for a new trial. Suzanne was having a psychotic episode when she gave her last testimony, and Cindy’s family says they’ve lost touch with her, so there’s little hope of a credible new witness testimony there. The lawyer says she’s sorry, but Taystee has had about enough sorrow: “You know I’m innocent, and you know I’mma spend the rest my life in here, and all you’ve got for me is ‘I’m sorry?'” Taystee tells the lawyer to get out of her face, and spends the rest of the episode fiddling with the drugs Daya gave her, and seemingly preparing for death.

But there’s something about Taystee and the character we’ve come to know—who’s made it through so many difficult spots, and who’s gotten others through so many difficult spots (as evidenced by her GED students calling out to “Professor T” all episode)—that’s made it hard to believe Taystee could really go through with this suicide she’s been considering. Even as she says her goodbyes to Caputo and Ward, and looks for—then avoids—Suzanne, and convinces Ward to bring Storky’s to the special programs party as an impromptu last meal…there’s always been something tethering Taystee to this realm.

And as she walks past a flickering light, certainly on her way to take the drugs this time, that something becomes clear: Poussey.

In a flashback, we see a storyline we watched play out in Season 1, but with a new scene: Taystee returning to her crowded living situation post-prison, walking by a flickering light in the hall, and into the apartment only to find out they’re being evicted, and the only place she can go comes with the caveat of selling drugs to earn her keep. That’s when Poussey calls, and just seeing Samira Wiley on our OITNB screens one more time is enough to start the water works, but there’s no stopping them once the coming conversation unfolds:

Poussey asks Taystee about her mansion, and Taystee tells her there are enough rooms for “Cindy, Suzanne, Janae—shoot, even Miss Claudette if she acts right.” But eventually, Taystee has to tell Poussey that she’s having a hard time; that she’s tired of struggling; that maybe she should just go back to prison, so at least they could be together.

So Poussey tells Taystee the truth about when her mother died: how it was a hurt she thought would never go away, and how tired she was. But it didn’t last forever, Poussey says: “Because I had these other feelings—because of all the good things I never expected.” Taystee reminds her that she’s, uh, currently in prison…

But Poussey is talking about Taystee: “What kind of life would it have been if I never met you?” She tells Taystee to just hold on a little longer than she thinks she can.

We know—and Taystee knows—what the future held for her after that conversation with the person she loved and trusted most in the world. So that must just mean that the good Poussey was talking about…it’s still coming for her. Taystee just has to hold on a little longer than she thinks she can.

And it seems like she will. Nicky, however, is receiving the opposite advice from the person she loves and trusts most in the world, though under very different circumstances. Nicky has managed to keep Lorna from getting transferred to Florida because she thinks the best thing for Lorna is to keep them together. But the more Nicky tries to bring Lorna back to reality, the deeper Lorna sinks into her delusion that her baby is still alive. Luckily, just when Nicky needs Red most, she stumbles upon her in a lucid moment.

Nicky asks Red how she was able to balance managing a kitchen, being a prison mom to “a bunch of degenerate knuckleheads,” plus getting “a big mouth junkie from the Upper East clean.” Red tells Nicky that before prison, she raised three boys, she ran a business, she just…did. 

“I think sometimes you get so busy, you don’t have time to wonder how you’re doing it all—you just do it,” Red says. “And then sometimes you hit a wall and you say, ‘Okay, that’s all I can handle,’ and you back off and try not to hit a wall again.” Even though she doesn’t want to, and even though it hurts her, Nicky has hit a wall with her ability to help Lorna. “There’s strength in admitting what you can’t do,” Red tells her, and oof, that one hit close. The next time Lorna starts to unravel because someone said something nasty about Sterling, Nicky kisses her on the forehead, tells Lorna she loves her, and goes to grab a CO to take Lorna away as she spins out of control.

If only Piper and Alex could hear Red’s advice, who really seem like they’re holding onto something well after it’s hit the wall. Piper wakes up in Zelda’s bed the morning after McCullough showed up at her door saying she and Alex have been carrying on a relationship. With the acknowledgement that they’ve both been lying to each other, Piper comes to Litchfield so she and Alex can talk about how this relationship can possibly progress forward. And basically, they come to the same conclusions they always do: Alex acts out in order to protect herself, Piper’s commitments are fleeting, but they still can’t stop loving each other.

They can, however, be forced apart. See, McCullough is very clearly not in a good place. She’s furious that Alex won’t leave Piper for her, and once Daya sets up CO Hopper to be caught having sex with Aleida, McCullough has some leverage. Ward fires Hopper and she can’t lose another guard; so when McCullough comes to her saying that she’s in love with an inmate, and the only way to keep it from turning into a Hopper literally-caught-with-his-pants-down situation is to transfer said inmate…Ward begrudgingly agrees to transfer Alex to Columbus, Ohio.

And while it is sad to watch Alex and Piper spin ’round and ’round in circles, never quite able to successfully move forward, it is much, much worse to watch someone who has grown so tremendously over the course of seven seasons return back to her lowest point.

It’s wild to look back at season 1 of OITNB and think of how far Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett has come. It’s been a complex journey through the effect that insecurity, self-worth, and opioids can have on one tiny person—but be described just as simply as a character transitioning from wholly intolerable to wholly beloved. In later seasons, the endearing relationship between Doggett and Suzanne has had a lot to do with that, but it’s also a pairing that makes sense: these are two people whose minds work differently, as they like to say. Who, because they sometimes need a little extra help, are most often willing to give a little extra help.

The difference is, Suzanne grew up constantly being reminded of all the good things about herself, while Doggett grew up hearing all the bad. For as much as Doggett keeps Suzanne’s more bizarre impulses in check, Suzanne keeps Doggett’s worst insecurities at bay. The GED test is finally here, and Doggett is sure she’s going to fail, recalling back to a boy named Travis Kimball who used to tell her she was “dumb as a Doggett.” Suzanne bristles at that: “You’re not dumb, you’ve just got a special brain like me!”

Suzanne tells Doggett how her mother used to tell her, you can’t listen to the people who know the least about you, you have to listen to those who know the most. And given that Suzanne is “the world’s Tiffany Doggett expert”…

It’s such a sweet, encouraging moment—which makes it so much worse when yet another unsupportive presence in Doggett’s life drags her back down from what she’s been trying so hard to achieve. When she arrives to take the GED test, Doggett is informed that Luschek never filed the paperwork for her extra testing time due to her learning disability. Doggett takes the test, but becomes more and more defeated as the clock ticks down and she’s not nearly finished. As she screams at Luschek later when she storms into the special programs party, angrier than we’ve seen her in years: “I’ve known some real fucking pieces of shit in my life, but you? You’re fucking garbage. Pure fucking shit!”

Luschek at least has the decency to look ashamed for his perpetual laziness, but shame doesn’t change what comes next: when Daya and her crew leave to go snort drugs in celebration of bring Aleida down, Doggett follows them out. She’s tried and she’s tried, but the world around her just keeps insisting that no matter how much she tries, it doesn’t matter. She manages to get some drugs off one of Daya’s crew and the next time we see Doggett, Taystee is finding her in the laundry room, overdosed on whatever she took—no longer able to hold out just a little longer for the “good stuff” to come.

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 12 ("The Big House") on Netflix