OITNB S4 E2 “Power Suit” is about:

* The backstory of Maria who grew up with a father who was involved in a political movement built around American’s proud of being from the Dominican Republic but who was also, using that political movement to create a drug empire. His movement and his ideological purity both failed and Maria ended up connecting with a Mexican rival drug dealer (named Yadriel) causing her to turn her back on her Dominican heritage.

This becomes relevant to the OITNB storyline because with all the new arrivals (which were prompted by the fact, as we find out later in 4.2, that MCC gets 30k per head per year for every prisoner that they house) the Dominicans have become a majority in Litchfield.

One of the new arrivals is a woman named Sankey who is a racist, she gets mad that Blanca wouldn’t change the channel on the television in the common room so she throws Blanca down a flight of stairs. Maria unites the Dominicans and they attack Sankey en masse (in true prison fashion).

* Cindy beefing with her new cube mate Allison Abdullah. Allison basically refuses to follow any and all of the time-honored rules of Litchfield and insults Cindy’s Jewish heritage.

* Red dealing with her new bunkie who snores and giving Piper some good advice that Piper, as usual, entirely misunderstands and misapplies.

* Piper dealing with her new bunkie who is incredibly annoying, ultimately, because she has decided she is now a gangster, she hires her bunkie to pretend to be her muscle (after her bunky leg presses her bunk over and over with Piper still in it). I really hate irrationally “tough” Piper.

* Caputo starting his often corrupting and always depressing relationship with Linda from accounting. Caputo also tries to convince everyone that he is still a nice guy and that everything is MCC’s fault, not his fault. all while enjoying the benefits from his new life as Director of Human Services.

Caputo also comes up with a scheme to hire veterans at CO”s to increase his available security force by including the abandoned houses behind the facility as a free housing benefit for new CO’s.

* Daya and Aleida coming to grips with the arrest and likely sentencing of Caesar on drug charges and assaulting officers (Caesar was watching both of their kids).

* Judy King being given the royal treatment by MCC including a private room, a single roommate (Yoga Jones), and special privileges. When asked who she wants for a roommate, King says she doesn’t want any fatties, Nebraskan’s, or anyone with too much hair.

* The beginnings of the fight to free Sophia from “protective custody.” Sister Ingalls asks Caputo, during a full-prison town hall-style meeting, why Burset is gone, Gloria calls home and tells her son to inform Sophia’s ex-wife that she is in the SHU, and Crystal (Sophia's ex-wife) confronts Caputo in the parking lot.

Towel Etiquette

There were a whole bunch of etiquette questions raised as the new inmates arrived at Litchfield (remember they used to make all new inmates spend time in segregated rooms until they learn the rules and adjust

This “quarantining” of new inmates to acculturate them was common practice in all of the jails and prisons in which I was incarcerated. In the jails I was in, you spent a week in a separate block until you had acculturated and a bunk opened for you in one of the normal blocks and in the Michigan prison system every inmate spends, at least, their first month in a separate facility called the RGC (known affectionately as “quarantine”).

Apparently, because of the sheer volume of new inmates, they were all immediately introduced into the general population with very little attention to placement or security (pretty obviously a recipe for disaster).