There’s a lot happening in “Trust No Bitch”. Just about every plot line established this season gets at least a few minutes of screen time, and if you look at away for a moment, you’ll probably miss something. As if that wasn’t enough, the writers pile even more in this finale, making great use of filling up the episode’s 90-minute run-time. Fortunately, it all works, and this 3rd season closer is not only one the best episodes of this season, but one of the series’ best episodes overall.
As most of the episodes this season have been, “Trust No Bitch” is thematically rich. Themes of faith, spirituality, religion and miracles (which might have made a better title for the episode) are all present sevenfold. Almost every major character, both guards and inmates, goes through some sort of change. Some of it is a little forced, and doesn’t always have a point other than to directly serve the theme, but it’s forgivable. It also makes for a very tonally interesting, and emotional episode – many scenes are happy, many are sad, and some are a little bit of both. It’s been fun having a different theme every episode this season, and the ones prevalent here are a good fit for this magnum opus of a season finale.
As expected from this show, this episode is also filled with great, yet somehow unexpected performances from characters who otherwise wouldn’t get such expansions. There’s a beautiful scene towards the end of the episode where, after many failed attempts, Black Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore), is accepting by a rabbi into the jewish Temple. This trails all the way back to beginning of the season when inmates found out they can get kosher meals, which led to everyone claiming they were Jewish. What began as hilarity soon turned into meaning for Black Cindy, and in this scene of acceptance, Moore gives a performance unlike anything she’s done in the series previously. It’s beautiful, touching, and masterfully delivered.
There’s also several greats that take between Caputo (Nick Sandow) and Fig (Alysia Reiner). Even though Fig is no longer directly associated with the goings on at Litchfield, she still keeps with Caputo, and, apparently, they sometimes have hate sex (not altogether too different than the dynamic between Alex and Piper at the beginning of this season). The scenes the two share together could make an interesting acting study – multiple times, they have entire conversations without ever looking one another in the eyes. They hate each other, yet they’re so into each other. They have an intriguing connection, and it’s interesting to think where this could go in the next season.
Speaking of Caputo, his involvement in the episode evidently leads into the episode’s cliffhanger – the long-running ‘Caputo vs. The Guards’ arch. This seemed to have taken turn for the positive at the end of “We Can Be Heroes” does another 360 and Caputo rails against them once again, causing them to go on a strike, and walk out of the prison, leaving it mostly unmanned. In what might have been a little too convenient of timing, almost all the prisoners manage to escape Litchfield through an unattended hole in the perimeter gate which was being worked on by construction workers. Rather than running away, they all take a dip in the lake right outside the prison grounds. The writers do an interesting thing here: After all the withstanding plots from the rest of the season come to resolution (or lack of one), the final 20 minutes or so of the episode begin a new tail end, as if season 4 is Season 4 is started a little bit early.
Nevertheless, this sequence (let’s call it the “Lake Sequence”) is one of the most beautiful scenes the series has had, and for a long while, more than we have in the series previously, we feel nothing but sympathy for these caged women. True, these women are criminals – some of them have even been pure evil – but they are also human, and everyone deserves a little bit of freedom. Some of them even manage to find love through this little momentary break from the walls of Litchfield. Essentially, it’s happiness in its purest form.
Oddly, though, this sequence features no Piper (Taylor Schilling). After her back-to-back fallouts with both Alex (Laura Prepon) and Stella (Ruby Rose), she essentially has nothing left. The last we see of her in “Trust No Bitch” is of her sitting alone in the chapel, tattooing herself the tattoo she originally wanted, as opposed to the one Stella gave her (which is the episode’s title), and murmuring curses to herself.
The sequence also features no Alex, except her fate is much more ambiguous than the others – one of the looming plots this season was whether or not Kubra (Eyas Younis) has sent a rat into Litchfield to kill Alex. There was many suspects, the biggest of which was Lolly (Lori Petty), and without spoiling any of the details, in can be said that, after a short scene in the gardening shed, Alex’s future is definitely hanging by a thread.
To make things even crazier, the final scene of the episode of new mattresses finally being installed in the dorms, and a new influx in inmates arriving at Litchfield.
As was said in the beginning, there’s a lot happening here. And, in fact, there’s probably even more happening at the end of the episode then there is at the start. It does bring up some questions, too, about the way the finale is concluded: Is the series of insane events at the end too conveniently aligned? Is it all too contrived just for the sake of ambiguity? Is the cliffhanger forced? Is it too flashy? Maybe. But it doesn’t matter. What does matter is what’s on the screen, on the screen is brilliant.
The final moments of the the third season of Orange Is The New Black consists of images of happiness, peace, and ultimate liberation, followed by imminent illustrations of impending doom, and the storm that has yet to come. In a nutshell, it’s a powerful, magnificent, exceptionally well crafted ending to a great third season of a great television show.
It’s brilliant.
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