S1 E6 "Wac Pack" deals with:

* The juxtaposition of Nicky (Natasha Lyonne) and Piper's real-world Moms (and perceptions of their Mom's) with Nicky's Mother/Daughter relationship with Red (Kate Mulgrew) and Piper's mothering from Alex. BTW, there is a nice bit in here when Nicky tells Red "I thought I was your Spock" (Kate Mulgrew played Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager).

* Counselor Healy's attempt to reduce tensions by re-creating the Women's Advisory Council (WAC). Mostly, this is used to highlight the politics of politics in prison. This is also used to demonstrate how Healy (Michael Harney) holds and judges all women by an unreachable standard. We also find out that Caputo (Nick Sandow) calls Sam Healy "Samantha."

* The deepening of the ongoing (and increasingly hard to believe) relationship between Daya (Dascha Polanco) and Officer Bennet (Matt McGorry). Also, there is more backstory about Daya and her Mom Aleida (Elizabeth Rodriguez).

* Larry dropping the news on Piper (Taylor Schilling) that he is planning on writing about having a fiance in prison.

5. "You Never Would've Ended Up Here If You Had Gone to Trial"

Piper's Mom Carol (Deborah Rush) tells Piper that she would "never have ended up" in prison if she had taken her case to trial instead of accepting a plea-bargain.

If you have never encountered the American Justice System up close (or watched the documentary feature 13th) you might not know that 97% of all cases are plea-bargained prior to going to trial. Or that there is a HUGE disparity between sentences for people of color and poor people when compared to middle-class or upper-class white people.

So, most likely, Piper's Mom could have been right.

You might be wondering why so many people choose to shun their Constitutionally protected day in court. Here are some of the main reasons:

* Overcharging

Most likely, if you committed armed robbery, for instance, you would not only be charged with armed robbery but also with threatening bodily harm, attempted murder, using a handgun in the commission of a crime, and a litany of other ways to charge the same exact crime multiple times.

In essence, every arrested person is "charged" with a large number of counts each carrying a hefty sentence. When you add all of the charges together you find you are facing what seems like 100's of potential years in prison.

And then, the prosecutor offers your attorney a deal.

Usually, they make it clear that if you accept the deal, many or most of your charges will disappear (as if by magic) but that if you turn down the deal the prosecutor will push to make sure that you serve every day of every charge from the charging document.

No matter how bad the deal is, it sounds amazing compared to the alternative.

This is even more true, in some cases, if you are not guilty or guilty of less than they are charging you with. If you read the economic and racial information that I included above the reasons why will become even more obvious.

I was guilty of some of what they charged me with but wanted to fight the rest and still, I agreed to the plea.

Why?

I felt that I did deserve to be punished, but did not want to risk spending 40 years in prison for a principle. It was just simple cost-benefit analysis.

* Poor Legal Representation

It is almost impossible to win a case charging your attorney as "ineffective counsel."

Especially since most people have court appointed attornies and many court-appointed attornies, regardless of competence, are overworked at best.

I remember standing outside in a hallway outside of the courtroom where I was due to enter a plea. I had about 30 minutes and nothing to do, so I started to look at the printed out schedule of cases stapled to the wall.

At first, I was just looking because I had nothing better to do, but eventually, I noticed something that has haunted me every since.

Some public defenders were working on up to 30 cases a week.

Not exactly the scene you see on Law & Order.

Piper may not have ended up in prison if she had gone to trial but it is no surprise to me that she accepted the plea.

4. Prisoner Representation

Most of the episode is about Healy's attempt to create a safety valve for prisoner discontent through the creation of a new "Women's Advisory Council."

This is kind of bizarre and might be another one of those State vs. Federal prisons things.

Every prison I was at had an advisory council and every unit elected representatives to that council.

As ridiculous as it was, the voting was split up by race. There really were black and white representatives. I was actually elected as the "white representative" for my unit when I was at the Saint Louis West level one prison but was moved before my term began.

What Claudette said about someone getting in serious trouble for replacing salt and vinegar chips with unsalted chips could certainly be true. Wardens and the companies change the store lists all of the time so prisoners are pretty used to changes, but if a prisoner in a bad mood finds out they can't get their favorite honey buns, they could come after the unit rep.

At the same time, prison is mostly very boring but often punctuated with bursts of terrible violence and drama. Taking a job like unit rep is a way to break up the boredom.

3. Cook-ups

Morello (Yael Stone) makes some "loaded" potato chips to build support for her election to the WAC (strange since Red was guaranteeing a victory).

You might be wondering how this works.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, official prison food sucks (I mean really sucks) so most people supplement their official diets with what are affectionately known in prison as "Cook-ups."

So, every few weeks you get a store list (full of grocery items and toiletries) and you can use the money in your prison account to purchase things. If you ever decide to learn more, you can learn the literally thousands of popular combinations people use to make culinary magic out of hot water, ramen noodles, and random ingredients.

I did a good deal of cooking up when I was inside and it was usually a very fun, delicious, and social experience with groups of people combining each other's store ingredients with a really good chef. And yes, quite often, smuggled goodies from the kitchen would make their way into Cook-ups as well.

Cooking is one of the few things that I look back fondly on about prison.