How Orange Is the New Blackness Said Bye to the Litchfield Inmates

Spoilers ahead for the entirety of the final season of Orange Is the New Black.

Orange Is the New Blackness may take sparked from Piper Kerman's 2010 memoir about the 13 months she spent in federal prison on money-laundering charges, but the Netflix serial thrived by looking beyond protagonist Piper Chapman's story and toward the large, diverse group of women incarcerated with her. No Goggle box serial had always featured such a sprawling group of women, each with her ain singular story, and in the final season, those women's stories class the foundation of thoughtful and empathetic explorations of empowerment and growth, mental illness, death, and the land'south polarizing immigration policies.

Creator and showrunner Jenji Kohan decided in the 5th flavour that she would cease the testify later on seven cycles, and the endgame planning began and so. But none of it came piece of cake, says executive producer Tara Hermann. "We are a room of debaters; for certain, there was a debate about how everybody ended upwards," she said. "Jenji oft has to make the final phone call. But by and large we fought and talked it out and got to a identify where nosotros all felt practiced nearly where they all landed."

Viewers go to find out where everyone lands in series finale "Here Is Where We Get Off," which also includes a montage of characters viewers oasis't seen since the fifth flavor, when the inmates were separated and assigned to different federal prisons. The surprise comes when Alex (Laura Prepon) is transferred to a prison in Ohio and is reunited with Carrie "Big Boo" Black (Lea DeLaria), Erica "Yoga" Jones (Constance Shulman), Angie Rice (Julie Lake), Leanne Taylor (Emma Myles), Norma Romano (Annie Aureate), Alison Abdullah (Amanda Stephen), Janae Watson (Vicky Jeudy), Beck Soso (Kimiko Glenn), Gina White potato (Abigail Vicious), and Anita DeMarco (Lin Tucci).

"It was intended so you could hold those people in your mind and imagine them, just like we promise that everybody can keep imagining all of the characters living in this perchance-parallel universe," said Hermann, who walked Vulture through the writers' thinking behind each of the bear witness's main story lines, broken down by character. "Their stories go on, and we wanted to place them for people so y'all felt satisfied for their ending, and then also you lot can mayhap visit them in your mind every once in a while."

Piper Chapman spends the last season as a conflicted costless woman, after being released early on from prison house in the sixth-season finale. Piper is torn about leaving her new wife Alex (they wednesday in a prison house ceremony officiated by Nicky) and beingness apart from her for ii to three years. As the flavor progresses, Alex suggests that Piper notice companionship elsewhere, while she herself gets involved with prison baby-sit CO McCollough (Emily Tarver), in a thorny human relationship that begins with blackmail and drug sales and progresses through jail cell-phone-charger sales, sex, and stalking, and, by flavor's end, Alex's transfer to an Ohio prison. Although Alex breaks up with Piper because of the move, Piper ends up moving and starting a new life in Ohio to be closer to Alex. The last epitome of the couple is them laughing together during a prison visitation.

The writers arrived at Piper'due south story arc early in the series, moved by Piper Kerman's life story. "Information technology was based on how inspiring the real Piper'due south story postal service-prison house has been, that she remains active in advocacy and criminal-justice reform," Hermann said. "So nosotros knew we wanted to get Piper to that place, but the Piper that nosotros created on the bear witness took a lot of turns and detours that the existent Piper hadn't, so nosotros definitely needed to make sense of all that through the graphic symbol. She had gone to some dark places, but in the end nosotros knew we didn't want her to terminate up taking the easy road."

Alex was given a darker story to show how she responds to feeling vulnerable. "She tries to bail," Hermann said. "She's foreseeing heartbreak or injure, so she tries to become out of it earlier it happens to her." But, in the end, the couple gets 1 of the few uplifting endings of the series. "Of all the stories, this is i where we could get away with a hopeful, happy ending," Hermann said. "With a lot of them, merely knowing where people's lives began and what's happening in the world, information technology would exist hard to get out of. I think that'south why people struggle with the character of Piper, considering she does come from privilege. But hopefully we were able to tell the story that she's decided to put her nose downward and exercise some of the hard work. I'grand happy that the two of them are giving it a shot and being adults, finally."

That doesn't mean it lasts forever, though. "I think we all want to believe that they beat the odds, but the by can really map out the future," Hermann said. "I recall Piper's really stiff and feeling fully convicted in what she wants to do in the earth, but we'll see if they survive. In my caput, I wonder."

One of the show's most multilayered tragedies has been the painful dissolution of the tight-knit and often fun-loving Black Girls coiffure. No story is more devastating than that of funny, sweetness Taystee, who is crushed by the prison murder of her best friend Poussey in the quaternary season, instigating a prison riot that gets anybody transferred to maximum security, and finds herself wrongfully accused, and eventually convicted, of murdering a prison house guard who was shot by friendly fire. Sentenced to life in prison, Taystee is betrayed by one of her closest friends, Cindy, who is tricked into testifying confronting her in exchange for immunity.

The 7th flavor introduces shadowy sides to each grapheme, with Taystee overwhelmed by grief and hopelessness and Cindy racked with guilt and sorrow. Although Cindy is released early and begins to rebuild her life with her mother and girl, everything falls autonomously over again when Taystee anonymously sends Cindy'south daughter a letter of the alphabet revealing that Cindy is her biological female parent (the girl was raised to believe they were sisters). After a confrontation, Cindy leaves her family and winds up homeless, merely by the end of the flavor she's taken steps to mend her cleaved relationships.

When the producers called Moore to discuss Cindy's arc, the actress requested Cindy'due south end non exist as bleak as what the writers originally had planned. "Nosotros had planned something darker," Hermann said. "We felt Cindy had burned some bridges and she would endeavor to go it solo. Adrienne'due south a professional and she would have done whatsoever we asked her to do, but she was hoping for a trivial scrap more than light and hope for Cindy. She was hoping Cindy would have reconciliation with her daughter. We heard her and decided to make a few changes."

Back at Litchfield, Taystee, who is suicidal for about of the season as her appeals are denied, finds her vocalization again past tutoring other inmates for their GEDs, teaching financial literacy, and starting a fund in Poussey'due south name to give loans to inmates when they are released.

Function of Taystee'due south story arc was inspired by Curtis Carroll, a San Quentin inmate skilled at picking and trading stocks who founded the prison'southward financial-literacy program. "We thought it would be cute that she can remain hopeful, given her life sentence, so it was heady to come up on that story for Taystee," Hermann said. Information technology does come as a relief, subsequently many episodes of Taystee contemplating suicide, going and so far as trying to hang herself and purchasing poison. "Sadly, that happens far too oft in prison, that you go stuck in the system and it just beats you downwardly," Hermann said.

This close trio, part of Red's family from the beginning of the series, begins the season in different states of mental health. Nicky is sober, confident, and trying to stay out of trouble. Later on delivering her son Sterling prematurely, Lorna obsesses about his delicate country through photographs her husband sends her. And despite the all-time efforts of her neighbour Gloria (Selenis Leyva) to stimulate and motivate her, Cherry-red is struggling in isolation, where she was sent later on trying to strangle Frieda (Dale Soules). Things only get drearier for all three of them later on Blood-red moves back to general population and it becomes obvious she is suffering from dementia. She and Nicky are office of a grouping assigned to cook and serve meals at the immigration detention eye on campus, where Nicky falls for an Egyptian detainee who is later deported. Later learning from her hubby that their son died, Lorna detaches from reality and opens Instagram accounts with fake infant photos, never sharing with anyone that she lost her son. Somewhen, Nicky learns about Sterling'southward death from Lorna's hubby and tries to help her friend, but realizes it's too tardily. The series ends with Lorna and Carmine both in the "Florida" psychiatric ward of the prison house, and Nicky taking Carmine's place in the kitchen and becoming a new "prison house mom."

"Nosotros were introduced through Nicky to the idea of a prison family, and Carmine being her mom," Hermann said. "And then a lot of Nicky'south flashbacks and past stories showed she definitely had some mom bug in her life, and then continued to have them with Carmine in prison house. And then we loved bringing her full circumvolve and seeing her in the finish footstep upward and become that maternal figure for the new girls." And as for the chef jacket, manicured nails, and cat-eyed eyeliner Nicky's sporting at the terminate of the flavour? That was Lyonne's idea. "I admittedly love that," Hermann said. "Information technology was a little nod to Cerise."

In the ninth episode of the season, "The Hidey Hole," viewers learned how Lorna suffered her beginning psychiatric break later she throws a rock at the windshield of an oncoming car, assuming the driver is a man she rejected at a bar, and causes a collision that kills a newly engaged couple. "Oh Lorna, she'south such a crazy-pants!" Hermann said. "Nosotros were and so happy to write the direct origin story of her split, and Natasha Lyonne directed that episode, which I just retrieve was stellar. Lorna's a heartbreaker, but early on we tried to effigy out, given Cerise's story of dementia, how the 2 of them could stop upwardly living their days together. So it'southward happy and sad."

When the writers spoke to Mulgrew about her story line, they were surprised to acquire her female parent had suffered from dementia. "That story was inspired by a lot of research and the fact that there's sadly no elder care in prison," Hermann said. "Her condition is exaggerated past the fact that she was in isolation for and so long. We were excited to dramatize that story because it's happening in prisons with that age and generation. Kate'south mother's status was neurologically unlike and little more nuanced, but she was one to really dig in and brand sure that we were telling it in an accurate, representative way."

Suzanne and Pennsatucky embark on an unusually touching friendship this season when they become cellmates in the "Florida" ward. As Suzanne spends much of the season fighting to reconcile her estranged friends Taystee and Cindy, and taking care of the chickens at the prison house's New Cluck Urban center, Pennsatucky takes a gamble on herself by taking advantage of the prison house'due south new educational programs and studying for her GED. When she discovers she is dyslexic — and not stupid, the way her father made her believe — she lands Taystee as a tutor. Only her story of empowerment takes one of the most heartbreaking turns of the flavour. When a guard fails to give her the actress fourth dimension for the test she is legally entitled to because of her condition, Pennsatucky assumes she failed, takes drugs to cope with her despair, and ends up dying of an overdose. Viewers acquire later that she actually passed the test.

The finale opens with a shut-up of Pennsatucky's corpse. "Nosotros never like to kill whatever of our characters, and it doesn't happen without a lot of thought," Hermann said. "Sadly, she is one of those cases where the prison did her no favors, and while she managed to find people within the system to help her abound and educate her and enlighten her, she still had a lot of trauma that she was dealing with that hadn't been therapized plenty. The all-time ear that she could turn to, sadly, was drugs. We were obviously all sad to have to practise it. Only when nosotros had the conversation, Taryn was able to split herself and sympathise the greater skillful and the bigger story that we were after."

Pennsatucky's death besides serves to highlight how much Suzanne has grown during the course of the show. Instead of losing control equally she might have in earlier seasons, she organizes a memorial service for her friend and sings the Mountain Dew jingle in her accolade.

"I don't know if Suzanne has changed so much, because I call up still somewhere deep downwardly, if she is challenged, she will take an burst," Hermann said. "But I just think we dug into her grapheme and let her abound upwardly. This was supposed to be the year of her coming into her adolescence and working through the teenage years, and I think that she has grown up. She'south seen the world differently and, like Taystee says to her, I hope she continues on that path."

Where to begin with this female parent and daughter? When the season opens, Aleida and prison guard Hopper (Hunter Emery) are withal living together and smuggling drugs into the prison, with Daya as their seller. Daya, who has been sentenced to life for killing a guard during the riot, has become her block's ruthless boss. But when Aleida's younger girl becomes involved with an older drug dealer, Aleida beats him upwards and smashes his automobile, landing the mother of five back behind confined. Daya sets up Hopper to become fired and recruits her younger sister Eva as her new external drug pipeline. When Aleida learns this in the finale, she confronts Daya and things rapidly escalate in one of the show's well-nigh shocking climaxes. After Aleida calls her eldest child an "evil junkie," Daya asks her, "Practice y'all know what it's like to kill somebody?" Aleida punches her in the pharynx and climbs on top of her on the floor and starts strangling her. "Possibly now I'll know what information technology'due south like," the female parent says to her girl. It's the concluding time viewers see them.

"Daya shot a guard and she was not feeling bad about it, so we only wanted to follow that story and show a different side of how prison house tin can affect you lot," Hermann said. "Y'all can come up in as the doe-eyed innocent and get a hardened, hardened criminal."

But is Daya expressionless? "That's some other cryptic one," Hermann said with a express joy. "People take some theories. Does Daya survive that punch in the end? It's difficult to say. Did Aleida feel like she had to take out ane kid to save the other? I don't know."

These 2 seemingly spend the unabridged flavor nursing their post-riot grudges, which stemmed from each mother wanting to do right by her children. During the riots, Gloria had asked to be furloughed and so she could visit her son, who was having emergency surgery. A prison house official agreed, provided that she free the guards beingness held hostage by the inmates. Just Maria overheard the programme and freed the hostages herself, thinking information technology might earn her brownie points so she could be with her baby daughter. Gloria and so got revenge on Maria by telling special agents that she coaxed Daya to pull the trigger and started the riots, resulting in more than fourth dimension beingness added to Maria's judgement.

This flavour, after Gloria is released from isolation, she joins the kitchen team that cooks for the clearing detainees and, together with Flaca (Jackie Cruz), helps them accomplish family members and contact lawyers in the exterior earth. Maria, meanwhile, struggles inside prison after learning her boyfriend is dating a "new Maria" who is spending a lot of time with her daughter.

"Gloria and Maria went through some real shit," Hermann said. "The stories most moms in prison proceed to actually destroy me on a personal level — the real-life stories — and we definitely wanted to brand sure that we told some of those. You lot can defend both of them for their deportment. I don't think either one of them is necessarily right or incorrect in the way they proceeded."

At least these two managed to notice a little common ground in the end. Afterwards Gloria is released from prison, viewers see her at home, where she finds a children's book called Mi Burro, Mi Burro. In the next scene, Maria and "new Maria" take turns reading from the volume to her daughter while Maria sits backside the prison's glass partition.

"I dearest where Maria went, trying to make apology and do right by her daughter," said Hermann. "Gloria sends her that book in the finish, then at that place is a little bit of an olive branch, I think, or at least just a peace treaty."

Like Piper and Blanca (Laura Gomez), Sophia was released from prison at the end of the 6th season, afterwards she threatened to sue the prison and was offered $300,000 and early on release to stay out of courtroom. Sophia makes cursory flavour-vii appearances in the 11th episode, "God Bless America," beginning running into Piper in the parole office, where she gives Piper the business carte to her salon, Vanity Hair by Sophia. Afterwards, Piper goes to the salon and Sophia advises her to move on from her human relationship with Alex while doing her hair.

"We would have loved to take told bigger, more lengthy stories for Sophia, but sometimes information technology but comes down to schedule availability, sadly," explained Hermann. "So we had to tighten her story line. But we did desire to do a story where we saw Piper dealing with what her life is gonna be, and Sophia dealing with hers. I think nosotros did a pretty proficient job of distilling information technology to that one scene in the hair salon, where she tells her she doesn't have to continue the title of 'inmate' anymore. And that was fine for Sophia. That worked for her."

How OITNB Said Goodbye to the Litchfield Inmates