* Caputo’s backstory including his lifetime of playing the hero only to have everything possible go wrong every time. Ultimately, the point seems to be that Caputo plays the hero in order to feed his own ego (and has really bad luck) regardless of how much he really wants to help anyone (he never really consults with them before committing to ‘helping’ them). This is all part of the setup for Caputo flipping on his original CO’s and siding with MCC. We already have seen some massive hints that Caputo, deep down, likes to play the hero more than he actually wants to be heroic (see how he took advantage of Fig when he had the upper hand).

Speaking of Fig, this was also the episode where we learn that Fig and Caputo are hooking up regularly for sex. EEEEK.

Oh, did I mention that the old school CO’s are attempting to unionize and Caputo agrees to lead the union (this is clearly going to end in tears)?

* Healy using Suzanne’s writing to get Birdie fired. Birdie does an excellent job of reading Healy’s true problem (he hates women who expose his inability to understand women - like his mother who was mentally ill).

* Piper turning full-on gangster, lying to Alex about her tryst with Stella, and union-busting her team of panty workers.

* The new CO’s making the error of sending Angie Rice home in place of Sarah Rice (I am sure Privatized Prisons are a total disaster, but this is pretty unlikely, the release process is tied to a bunk number, a prison id number, biometric information, and it has to be approved through a reentry plan arrived at with the unit counselor etc.

No matter how incompetent the staff might be, it would be really hard for anyone to mess up this many fail-safe levels.

* Boo discovering just how damaged Doggett is and trying to help her understand what has happened to her.

* The beginning of the fallout from Sophia pushing Gloria into the post during the last episode. The Latina’s start pushing the rest of the inmates to shun Sophia and spread sad transphobic rumors about her.

* Leanne and SoSo’s battle going nuclear. By the end of the episode, Leanne has cut SoSo’s hair while she slept. In real prison, you better do more damage than that, because SoSo would have to stand up for herself or literally be taken advantage of by everyone else. You can’t let anyone get away with taking advantage of your personal space.

Leanne would know this too, nobody would ever attack someone in their sleep without doing enough damage so that your target could not come back and attack you in retaliation. It would just be too risky. I know this sounds awful, but prison is awful.

“You Don’t Know These People”

Alex decides she has had enough of the new, uncaring, hardened criminal version of Piper. You know, the Piper who had become willing to be brutal to Flacca for trying to unionize her panty-business workers and is willing to do gang-style prison-to-prison payments to her prison “gang.”

Alex is totally right for calling Piper out for her indifference to the poverty that inspired Flacca’s hustle and it is really hard to like Piper very much when she abandoned Alex when Alex was really struggling with ‘paranoia’ and then cheated on her and lied about cheating on her right to Alex’s face.

But, right before she tells Piper goodbye she says something that is TOTALLY true in real prisons, she says “You don’t know them (the people who are working for her), you don’t know who they are connected to.”

I have seen this one actually play out in real life.