And let’s not forget that they appointed a lead negotiator who was almost recently a prisoner herself (for suspected embezzlement).

However, if we suspend disbelief and accept that the State does not have jurisdiction to bring charges for a crime committed at a Federal Prison, why would Taystee not also know this by now?

And trust me, if this was an issue in controversy during the negotiations, Taystee could have gotten the answer from any of the likely jailhouse lawyers at Litchfield about jurisdiction (and as they have mentioned many times, the library includes a legal section).

So, either Taystee is an idiot (which she most certainly is not) or this critical part of the plot makes next to no sense.

Why in the world would Taystee let the entire negotiations fall apart and sacrifice every other part of the agreement that was so carefully constructed in the interest of the inmates of Litchfield over an issue the State of New York has no jurisdiction to grant?

I guess what I am saying is that even if you suspend disbelief enough to accept this strained premise, it still makes no damn sense.

Look, I do love the show, and I am willing to play along to a certain extent. But parts of this season have made very little sense.

All of that said, it is totally heartbreaking to see Taystee end up standing on principle even at the cost of everything she could have accomplished.

The aftermath of this thing is likely to be brutal.

3. “A Fair Wage of Ten Dollars a Day”

The chief legislative aide to the Governor protests this $10 a day demand, suggesting that paying inmates $10 a day would convince “Whole Foods” and “Whispers” to outsource prison work to New Jersey.

Until 2016, Whole foods did indeed buy foods provided by prison labor but discontinued the practice after being called out. This issue is incredibly complex and to be 100% I am not even sure where I come down on it.

In Michigan, the prisons operate a company called Michigan Prison Industries, and if you get one of the few jobs available in those facilities you have better hours, make a better wage, and have a much better sense of prison stability.

At the same time, violence often accompanies these jobs (people who feel they deserved to get them fighting with those that get them) and at the end of the day, they still pay impossibly low wages for an honest hour of hard work.

For the vast majority of prisoners, you work in unnecessary jobs for only a few hours a week at an even smaller wage and all of this is only possible because of the 13th exception in the Constitution (people in prison can be treated as slaves).

In my opinion, one of the best solutions to this problem would be to create in-reach programs using companies willing to train prisoners while they are in prison and, barring problems, also willing to hire them upon release. By nurturing a meaningful relationship, including training, when released prisoners could finally have some real hope of financial security upon release.

Economic security is critical to reducing recidivism, and most inmates face real economic challenges upon release.

This is similar to the program I was suggesting to Jeff Bezos and that I asked for everyone to tweet him about (but sadly, never received any response to). Someday, I am going to find a way to make this happen.

Even if such a program resulted in a few years of terrible wages (and I would hope they could at least pay minimum wage in such a scenario) it would ultimately be worth the sacrifice if it provided real hope for a new and meaningful future for incarcerated people upon re-entry.

2. “Arsenic And Old Lace”

Piper wants to go upstairs and find “fresh” pain relievers for Alex (who is dealing with a broken arm) because she doesn’t trust Frieda’s “date-challenged” pain meds.

Frieda responds by suggesting that “Expiration dates are a marketing scheme.”

You might write this off as typical survivalist mumbo jumbo but it is actually true. Yes, millions of dollars of waste are manufactured by expiration dates on a yearly basis (which is transferred into the price of drugs) but only to guarantee you the most potent dose possible (or some other nonsense).

Crazy Frieda may not be so crazy after all.

1. A “Human Being”

Red tries to give Piscatella some beer so that he will stop coughing and he spits it out. The resulting dialog is one of the most powerful snippets of dialog of the season and really encapsulates the entire world view of the show.

After noting that her “human being skills” are returning Red says in response to Piscatella’s refusal to accept Red’s gesture:

“In addition to not being able to see yourself. You can’t see me”

Piscatella responds:

“You are a prisoner and I am free”

For prisoners, and formerly incarcerated people like myself, we see life as a continuum where most all of us have done many good and some terrible things. Many of us take full responsibility for our crimes and we paid a terrible price.

Orange Is the New Black is about trying to create a bridge between the people who have never been incarcerated and the people who have. It is a translator designed to allow non-prisoners to see incarcerated (and formerly incarcerated) people as human beings again.

For many opponents of criminal justice reform, what matters most is an adjudication, not the moral guilt of committing the act itself (or they reckon guilt as determined only by adjudication).

This is why judges who smoked dope in college have no problem throwing the book at personal drug users, for instance.

Piscatella literally cannot see his own criminality because he determines guilt and innocence only through the lens of adjudication and also because he refuses to see inmates as human beings.