S02.E04: A Whole Other Hole

[Kel Varnsen]

I thought the twist with Morello was one of the better ones I have seen on TV in awhile. And it totally makes sense to me that the other prisoners wouldn't know the truth about him, since the only way they could find out was through her. And even with the stalking and the possible explosive device I could totally buy that she would get only 4 years. I mean it would be her first offense, and I can see the jury going easy on her (with what they convict her with) just because of how she looks and how she comes across.

 

I am really curious to see what Red has planned for that drain. It looked to small for her to do a Shawshank style escape. Plus she keeps talking about how you can only depend on yourself, and her family has kind of abandoned her so I am not sure she could use it to bring stuff into the prison. I am not sure if they have said how long Red's sentence is, but she has already been in long enough to remember last time Vee was there.

[sunfleck]

 

I thought the twist with Morello was one of the better ones I have seen on TV in awhile.

I totally agree. It could easily have been "gotcha" storytelling (which was my impression of that Audrey Tautou movie), but all the clues were there and to me the reveal felt as organic as it was surprising. It could also have seemed like character assassination, but Yael Stone sold her character so well for a full season that I still found her sympathetic despite the crazy. I even found myself mentally defending her. When the truth comes out, I really wonder how it will affect her friendships as well as her freedom.

 

The vagina discussions were awesome. I had that exact same conversation at a slumber party in middle school, and oh how I wish we'd had Sophia there to set us all straight!  (No pun intended.) Afterwards, she could have done our hair.

[Kel Varnsen]

I totally agree. It could easily have been "gotcha" storytelling (which was my impression of that Audrey Tautou movie), but all the clues were there and to me the reveal felt as organic as it was surprising. It could also have seemed like character assassination, but Yael Stone sold her character so well for a full season that I still found her sympathetic despite the crazy. I

 

Yea looking back it was good because her storyline made sense with or without the twist. It wasn't something that came out of now where and completely ruined everything that came before it. Plus all of her wedding planning scenes from season 1 and her guilt about cheating become a lot more interesting. And that scene in this episode where she talks about how Christopher is taking her away for the weekend, but she has no idea where they are staying became super creepy after the reveal.

[RadiantAerynSun]

 

ITA - she was shown calling the company she bought the shoes from (not the credit card company). She said they never arrived, which does actually happen all the time in real life. Sometimes there's a glitch in the system and the order doesn't go out. Even if there's a tracking number that says it's been delivered, it could have been delivered to the wrong address

 

Yep I recently ordered an item online and after a MONTH it hadn't arrived, I finally checked the tracking on it, and saw it was last reported by FedEx as being at their distribution center in like TN or something (not anywhere near me) 3 wks prior, but had not been scanned since, so was not en route anywhere, delivered, or ANYTHING. Just vanished. The online store I bought from just sent me another which arrived within a week.

[Skittl1321]

 

If the victim is big enough (say Amazon for example) I could see them never noticing or taking years to notice.  And how can they PROVE it is credit card fraud? Someone would have to catch her wearing the item in question. Also, she's defrauding the stores not the credit card company. She wasn't shown calling the CC to have the charge taken off because someone "stole" her card or anything.

 

I doubt she was in prison for credit card fraud. But if she was found out and investigated, it very well could be mail fraud (which is a federal offense).  And "running a mail scheme" is what Christopher quipped about, so that might have been on the writer's mind.

 

How she would be found, I don't know- unless she was careless and pulled it on the same store many many  times, and they informed authorities who started an investigation.

 

Because yeah, what she was doing, honest people do (without having the product in hand) ALL the time, and stores expect it. But when a pattern is established, it can be caught.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Skittl1321

[joanne3482]

And "running a mail scheme" is what Christopher quipped about, so that might have been on the writer's mind.

 

Could be because in their 'meet cute' she had quite a few keys for mailboxes (it seemed on that big key ring) and a number of package slips. 

[bravelittletoaster]

I love that they took a "meet cute" and then completely undermined it.

[Desperately Random]

I doubt she was in prison for credit card fraud. But if she was found out and investigated, it very well could be mail fraud (which is a federal offense).  And "running a mail scheme" is what Christopher quipped about, so that might have been on the writer's mind.

 

How she would be found, I don't know- unless she was careless and pulled it on the same store many many  times, and they informed authorities who started an investigation.

 

Because yeah, what she was doing, honest people do (without having the product in hand) ALL the time, and stores expect it. But when a pattern is established, it can be caught.

She wouldn't have been in for credit card fraud, you're right about that because she wasn't defrauding the credit card company but the stores she bought the merchandise from and then requested refunds. Could it have been the credit company who reported her anyway because they saw the large number of refunds she was getting from these stores? Considering all the packages she had at the post office that day she ran into Christopher she was probably getting multiple refunds a week for who knows how long. I know credit card companies keep track of their customer purchases to help prevent identity theft so maybe this is something that they watch for also.

[questionfear]

I also assumed it was mail fraud-she left quite the paper trail if she was maintaining boxes at the post office. If anything, that makes it even easier to catch her, because the post office can prove they notified her of a package and they can match the package to ones she claimed went "missing". 

[DrSpaceman]

I too found it unbelievable that they would allow a prisoner to be unsupervised in a van for 3 hours. 

 

And I think the trial was for her stalking and threats, not for mail fraud.  Otherwise I don't know why they have Christopher on the stand, I don't see how that would be relevant to a mail fraud case even if she was a stalker.  He was probably one of several she stalked, given her behavior. 

 

This is one of my few problems with the shows backstories, though.  Some of them are kind of murky so far on how they end up in jail.  Maybe they will come back and explain more later, but I can't figure out if they are being purposely vague or if its just bad writing. 

 

Anyway I pity her a bit really, she needs serious psychiatric help given her obsession with Christopher.  Thats a fixed delusion, goes way beyond the norm obvioulsy.  I am curious now if she had a history of this as a child and did her family recognize it and try to help her?  No indication of that from the story

[mad_typist]

Finally catching up and am just as shocked as many of you about the Morello twist. It was good drama, but also made me sad, since I assumed Morello was one of the more normal run-of-the-mill criminals in the cast, versus a raging nutcase. It makes her even more sad in my eyes.

 

Vee is a modern day Fagin, and it pains me to see how calculatingly she pulls Poussey and Taystee apart. I did sort of see that rift coming, given Taystee's discomfort when Poussey mentioned her splunking trips to other women's netherparts, but still... that was hard to sit through.

[DrSpaceman]

Also I think this was the episode with Larry on the date with the pediatric neurologist.  She was a bit blunt, and came on way too strong, but I thought her line about other men telling her they write a blog, or are turning in blog into a book, or a book into a blog and trying to pass it off as work was hilarious. 

[bravelittletoaster]

No, that was ep 3 [just re-watched that one yesterday at the gym].

 

I never actually thought the point of the backstories was supposed to be some pat "and this is how they landed in prison" thing until I came here and saw other people express confusion about that.  I think the point is just to give us more insight into what makes these people tick? In some cases it has involved their crime but actually in most it has not.  It's not like season 1 established that as a precedent.  Trisha did not end up in a federal pen because she shoplifted a necklace.  But then that also wasn't the point of her flashbacks...

Edited June 12, 2014 by bravelittletoaster

[DrSpaceman]

I never though the backstories werent meant as straightforward stories of :"how they ended up in prison" either, but at times in the storytelling, not just with the backstories but other times, I can't tell if they are being purposely vague OR if I am just misinterpreting what I see. I can think of a number of instances now where what I thought was pretty clear was not viewed the same way as others, and not just with subtle things but what I would think should be obvious. This story and the question now of if she is in jail for mail fraud OR for stalking and potentially threatening Christopher and his fiancee now is one of them. I do think it makes a difference and I am not sure why it wasn't made more clear by the writers.

[FozzyBear]

I thought Lorna's backstory was great. It reminded me of Suzann'a in a way (although I still don't know why Crazy Eyes went to prison.) I thought it was a great example of how we sometimes use prison as a place to keep people we don't know what else to do with. Lorna clearly had an abnormal amount of trouble accepting reality (both the stalking and the mail fraud seemed to come from the same need to live out her fantasy life), but may have come just short of being legally insane. Both her and Suzanne have some pretty clear mental issues and I think in both cases they may have avoided criminal activity if they had received proper treatment in time. But at this point both of them are crazy and prone to violence if pushed too far. We feel bad for them, but we also don't want them wandering the streets...

[Kristen]

All last season I had this theory that Morello was in jail for something that had to do with Christopher, as in, he was a criminal too, and she took the fall for him or something, like we're supposed to assume with Daya and her mother being in for Cesar running his drug stuff out of their apartment. They played her up to be this sweet little pixie (and despite everything, I actually still feel fond of her character), and I assumed that it was going to end up being some heartbreaking situation where he moved on and dumped her while she was locked up, especially when Nicky mentioned that he never came to see her. I didn't expect her to be in for next-level stalking, and that they'd never had a real relationship. 

 

Anyway, that whole b story about the holes? There was a point where everybody had said "hole" or "holes" so many times that I just couldn't stop giggling. It kinda reminded me of "The Chickening", which tickles me just thinking about it.

[charming]

I thought all along that Morello's man was avoiding visiting her because he dumped her. I found the reveal to be creepy as hell. It made me want to go back and watch all her scenes again to see if I could spot more clues. I always dismissed the character as ditzy with a nails on chalkboard voice but now she seems quite menacing. Miss Rosa envies Morello because she's still young and will be released in a few years. Meanwhile Morello is trapped inside her own delusional fantasy.

 

Poussey and Taystee's fracturing friendship is heartbreaking to watch. Wow, Vee is horrible! She sees Taystee bonding with someone and is determined to ruin it.  I can't stand to see how Susanne loves her and is so grateful to finally being accepted knowing that Vee is just using her.  I just want them to be okay.  

 

Piper is finally tolerable for me. Her  selfishness regarding Boo & her blanket using Soso as bait was my comedy relief.

Edited June 15, 2014 by charming

[kieyra]

I lost track of which episode thread we were discussing Rosa's accent in, but I was saying I wanted to do an experiment with listening to her voice with my eyes closed (because she looks so strange in chemo mode, with no ethnicity cues). I just listened to the initial scene in this episode with the other chemo patient kid at about 00:29:00 this way, and she sounds hispanic to me, specifically like a Puerto Rican co-worker of mine. She even lays it on a bit thick at times: "I'm not gonna e'splain it to you". She just sounds very husky/gravelly, which I think adds to the disorientation a lot of people have with the accent (along with her otherworldly look).  

[DrLar]

Brook is just an Asian Lindsey Lohan the way she talks, and she just can't shut up!

Loved that they paired Chapman with Red, this is going to be interesting.

How come Morello's hair was all dry when she arrived at the hospital, it seems she left in a hurry, maybe just have time to put her clothes on and that's it..

With that cold weather I doubt she was driving with her head out to dry it, she'll get sick or something.

[ganesh]

She might have cranked the heat up in the van too. And she did have the towel, so that might have helped.

[Veruca Assault]

Was Vee also trying to hurt Poussey for not agreeing to her alcohol sale deal? I thought maybe she was accomplishing two things there: punish Poussey and control Tastee.

[KarateKate]

I appreciate how the backstories flesh out storylines that are hinted at much earlier, and really have such 3D characters overall. Morello's mail fraud was mentioned/alluded to in season one (Boo taunting her about how ironic it would be if she bought a wedding dress online, prompting a physical reaction from Lorna being the primary one I'm thinking of), but she's just got all sorts of levels of crazy.

[lucindabelle]

I was also shocked at the reveal. I thought the sadness about her fiancé dumping her to marry someone else was sincere. I didn't even figure out what was going on until the hearing. I wonder what that first date was like that he never wanted to see her again.

[Hanahope]

Well Piper has definitely learned to not take shit or show weakness.  Love her reclaiming her stuff.  And now pimping.  Going to the dark side.

 

So Morello is about as crazy as Suzanne.  I wonder if she will get found out for her little excursion.

 

And Brook just can't shut up, hahahah.  Finally Nicki found a way.

 

What is Red's plan? Escape?

 

Do we really need to keep Larry in the story?  His plot is dragging and adding Polly do it doesn't help.

 

Love Sophia teaching the girls female anatomy.

 

I feel bad that Vee is turning Taystee against Poussay.

[MelsW]

Claudette wasn't in prison for killing that man. The other girls were talking and saying they heard she had done that but that's not what got her in prison. That  cleaning service she ran was smuggling illegals to work there. I can't remember which country the girls came from but it was a french speaking one I think. That is what got her federal time.

 

Yes, she was trafficking children from Haiti (hence the speaking French). I think her meticulous clean-up job after killing that guy means she was never implicated or charged in that crime.

[Miss Bones]

Piper says Inspector Gadget had Penny and “The Brain” to help him.  It’s actually Penny and Brain...just Brain.  I think she was confused and thinking “Pinky and the Brain”.  I’m probably just being very critical because I find “Pipes” to be annoying and easily one of my Least favorite characters on the show.  I read her memoir years ago—like 2010 before it was a show—and I’m finally getting around to watching the show, and find it difficult because  I didn’t like Piper Kerman when reading, so I find it difficult to separate Chapman and Kerman.  After binging over a season, this past week, I’m learning to separate the two, and enjoying the show, especially because there  are many other characters of interest.  That’s all I have for now.