OITNB S5 E10 “The Reverse Midas Touch” is about:

* The backstory of how Desi Piscatella became a sadist and a psychotic (and the story of how he brutally murdered another inmate). Also, we get to see his torture of Red and her Family,

I won’t lie, watching this episode once upset me deeply (and now I have watched it three times). Ultimately, Piscatella partially scalps red and breaks Alex’s arm before the screaming alerts the women in the bunker that there is trouble right outside the entrance to the bunker.

* Linda finding a place to hide from the Nazi’s and Zirconia (In "the Poo" in the stall next to Doggett's).

* Frieda, Yoga, Gina, Norma, and DeMarco coming to grips with the boredom of privilege with food and things to do all alone together in the bunker. Frieda also reveals how the bunker got started (she had a relationship with a volunteer at the prison (his name was Skin and Bones).

* The Meth-Heads find Leanne’s fingertip and decide to try to get it reattached. When they are informed that is impossible, they want the nurse to cut another inmate's finger off and “transplant” it to Leanne. The less time spent on this idiocy the better (One of the dumbest subplots in the history of television).

* Suzanne descending further into madness after being left without her meds, bound, and mentally tortured. Another reason this is the saddest and most disturbing episode in the history of the show. Suzanne also becomes obsessed with trying to deal with Humps dead body.

* The ongoing sexual tension between Caputo and Fig is played out endlessly as the negotiations continue. Watching this makes me feel even more sorry for Taystee and all of the women in the prison.

* Gloria beginning her machinations necessary to free the CO’s so she can earn a trip to see her son in the emergency room. Mostly this involves her attempts to out maneuver Pidge and Ouija (which turns out not to be so easy for her to pull off - they are surprisingly dedicated to the cause).

Fig claims that Caputo has “The Reverse Midas Touch” because “everything he touches turns to shit.” Caputo’s response, “What does that make you, honey,?” is equally awesome.

5. “The Trojan Taco”

Gloria talks Pidge and Ouija into taking some time off to catch a nap. They decide to sleep in the television room and are woken up by Zirconia who loves to watch the 24-hour news. During the newscast, an academic prison “expert” mentions that inmates guarding hostages almost never survive riots.

Anyway, the academic tells a story about hostages in one standoff escaping by asking to use the bathroom which got the event named the “Trojan Taco.”

For some reason, this makes Pidge and Ouija decide to run right back and make sure the hostages are guarded. Upon their return they find Gloria trying to take all the hostages “out to pee.” They assume Gloria is just “soft” and take control and move them all back into the bubble.

I do wonder why anyone is willing to guard the hostages because absent an amnesty miracle being directly involved in crimes (like torturing and holding CO’s hostage) means at best that they will be moved to Max and at worst really serious new charges being added to their sentences.

I would totally get it if prisoners who had sentences of natural life were guarding the hostages but there are no people with “serious” sentences at Litchfield because Litchfield is a low-security Federal camp.

In essence, absent a grant of total amnesty, anyone who the surviving CO’s could identify as being involved in their capture and incarceration (and most certainly in their abuse) would be 100% SOL after the riot.

4. “Forgive Me For Trying”

There is a scene where DeMarco refuses to play another game of Scrabble because Frieda calls her out for using the abbreviation “Gyno” which is short for men with breast tissue in slang and short for a gynecologist in this instance (I think).

Scrabble is actually a HUGE thing in prison and I knew people who tried to memorize “The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary” just so that they could dominate Scrabble games in the unit or on the yard.

Chess is also surprisingly common.

I mostly played Chess (strangely enough I have never been very good at Scrabble and I had no urge to memorize the Scrabble dictionary).

One of the best things that ever happened to me in prison was that one of my friends on the outside paid to send me a subscription to the New York Times. What a blessing, I could spend hours reading it cover to cover and then spend another hour on the daily crossword puzzles.

Believe it or not, you can get the New York Times just about anywhere. We didn’t get mail on the weekends or on holidays but I would try to stay about a half-a-week behind so I had papers to read on the weekends.

Some might think inmates should just sit around doing nothing all day but that would be a recipe for total disaster 24/7. Remember, inmates are not sentenced to brutality, trust me losing our freedom is an unbelievable and constant burden.

Let’s just talk about my case, I lost:

* My job

* My career (and I worked my entire life to be very good at what I did for a living)

* Hundreds if not thousands of friends

* I had to tell my parents, singlings, co-workers, and close friends what I had done

* I lost almost all of my possessions

* I lost every dime that I had in either legal fees, court fees, and for the privilege of being incarcerated (including all of my savings and retirement)

* I lost my residence

* I lost my community (at one point I was actually led into the courthouse of the town I live in wearing an orange jumpsuit and cuffs and when I tried to go to my neighborhood hang out people asked me to leave).

* I face a lifetime of public shaming, lack of employment, and of being ostracized

* Oh, and I was locked in a pole barn with 160 other unfortunate souls 24/7 for three years of my life.

I am not feeling sorry for myself, I am surprisingly well-adjusted now but it always makes me both angry and frustrated that people seem so happy to wish for prisoners to experience things like prison rape or being beaten up or stabbed.

We have become a very cruel society and as a result, everything is failing. We used to aspire to be a city on a hill, now we are a city that cheers brutality.

Anyway, I read the New York Times every day and I had cable television.Believe it or not, despite that, my life in prison was still a neverending parade of stressors, terror, shame, and despair.

3. “Clowns Cannot Help It”

I know I talked about this last week, but I have to speak up again.

Putting Suzanne in "white face" is NOT okay unless you have a damn good dramatic reason to do so.