OITNB S5 E8 “Tied To The Tracks” is about:

* Flashing back to all of the problems Aleida’s irresponsibility and terrible advice have caused Daya throughout her life. Daya ultimately decides to turn herself in after calling George Mendez’ Mother and asking her to take over the care of her daughter.

* Blanca and Red continuing to carry out the dumbest plan in the history of television. Also, Nicky sharing with them that they have been doing a ton of speed and commiserating with Red about addiction.

* Piscatella getting humiliated by the CERT team commander and later he apparently figures out Red and Blanca’s ruse and decides to break into the prison despite being ordered to stand down.

* Taystee, Piper, Cindy, Alison, SoSo, and Janae starting official negotiations with (drumroll please) Natalie “Fig” Figeroa. Taystee shows off her incredible talents for interpreting and figuring out complex data (see Season 2). The negotiations go great until the world finds out about Humps. The Humps news forces them to consider turning Daya in (Piper suggests they answer what she calls “the Train Problem” but which is more conventionally known as “the Trolley Problem” in philosophy).

* Judy King, getting angry that she has to share her interview with Meredith Viera with Aleida Diaz. When Aleida starts to call her out for her lies, Judy responds by letting the world know that Humps got shot by an inmate (and inartfully threatening Aleida with sharing that it was Daya who did the shooting).

* Gloria (and Vause) talking Daya into taking responsibility for shooting Humps (this despite Gloria’s promise to Aleida to look out for Daya). Gloria also sneaks behind the port-a-potties to talk to Caputo about how to earn a furlough to see her son in the ER.

* Maria working hard to build social capital since she now knows that Piscatella wasn’t able to put extra time on her sentence and doesn't want everyone to expose her role in the abuse of the CO’s after the riot.

* Suzanne continuing to “play” with the CO’s (until she pisses off Pidge and Ouija who take the CO’s away from her and zip-tie Suzanne to a bunk).

* The Nazis joining with the Meth-Heads to torment Doggett (not allowing her to shower or use the facilities). This doesn’t make much sense to me since Sankey announced Doggett’s punishment in the first place, but whatever. Ultimately, Doggett ends up locked in the port-a-potties.

"Tied to the Tracks" refers to Piper's sharing of the “Trolley Problem” which presents a scenario where you are forced to choose to either let a runaway train crush five people or choosing to divert the train down a different track at the expense of crushing one innocent person.

In terms of how this scenario plays out for the Litchfield inmates, they can sacrifice the whole prison to protect Daya (the five people) or tie Daya to the tracks (the one person).

5. “The Train Problem”

As I just mentioned, Piper raised what she calls “the Train problem” when the negotiation team is faced with either giving up on negotiations or turning Daya in (it is actually known as the “Trolley” or “Tram” problem in philosophy).

Anyway, a few things about “the Trolley Problem:”

* it has a long and storied history in philosophy.

* Many philosophers find this kind of scenarios unhelpful because they are situations that presume conditions that real people never actually face. In addition, ethicists themselves rarely live up to expectations which might suggest that playing such games aren’t particularly helpful.

* Despite this, the onset of algorithms, robots, and artificial intelligence are creating new applications for ethical scenario gaming.

Now all of that said, in the Litchfield situation, they are facing the dilemma of either sitting back doing nothing while allowing people to die or killing to save. In other words, it is either a zero sum game (the best way to win is not to play) or SoSo is right in that you have to redefine the terms of the scenario entirely in order to succeed.

Why?

Because the truth is that all of the inmates are likely screwed either way (as someone says earlier in the episode “This Yellow Brick Road Ain’t Leading Anywhere But Max” - a CO was shot and many other CO’s were abused, the prisoners rioted, there is no way that amnesty is coming) meaning that by sacrificing Daya, you are most likely saving nobody.

So, like I said, you either have to refuse to play (not accepting the terms of the scenario) or redefine the terms (SoSo’s suggestion is strangely like the Kobayashi Maru). Sadly, in almost all real protests of any kind, people rarely stay unified and often work against their own self-interest.

There is another layer to this, lifeboat ethics would seem an easy fit for prisoners, and in many possible scenarios I could see people selling each other out in secret or even as part of an internal battle among inmates, but a whole prison turning "rat" against another inmate? I just don’t see it.

Oh well, as everyone says in prison, “It is what it is”

4.”Suicide Sunday”

Nicky shares this classic addiction saying with Red once she realizes that Red has been doing pharmaceutical grade speed for two days. But, this overall scenario still makes no sense to me all the way around (Nicky, in fact, calls Red out on her insane plan to “get” Piscatella and on her dismemberment of Humps). But the problem isn’t just that the plan is stupid, the problem is that it is entirely out of character for Red.

Why in the world would two days of doing speed turn you into a total moron? Dependence doesn’t really work that quickly and neither does addiction. Yes, drugs can make you irrational and sometimes can lead to questionable decision-making (usually about the use of drugs) but this has to be the quickest degeneration in the history of dependency.

There is no way Red would lose all ability to make logical choices about anything in such a quick timeframe. And let me reiterate, this is the dumbest plan in the history of television.