June 6, 2015
Netflix Drops Season 3 of 'Orange is the New Black'
Winnie McCroy READ TIME: 3 MIN.
Be prepared to put your television on lockdown, ladies! You've only got one week until Netflix drops the highly-anticipated Season 3 of its hit series, "Orange is the New Black" in its entirety on June 12. That means 14 new episodes, all at once. It's time to binge, bitches!
Popsugar is serving up the hottest new photos plus a teaser trailer of the new season, with just enough details to prime the pump. They also revealed that Netflix has already renewed the prison dramedy for a fourth season.
The series follows bougie white girl Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) as she serves time for trafficking drug money once, a decade ago, for her smoking-hot international drug smuggler girlfriend Alex Vause (Laura Prepon). Although Vause got out of Litchfield at the end of Season Two, a phone call from shady lady Chapman gets her thrown back in the clink.
The series is groundbreaking in its frank treatment of racism, classism and sexuality within the deeply flawed criminal justice system. And at a panel discussion at the Television Academy, creator Jenji Kohan confided that the Season Three themes are faith and motherhood, saying, "It's a little lighter than Season Two."
Newcomers to Season 3 include hottie Ruby Rose as a tattooed inmate, and Lori Petty of "A League of Their Own" and "Tank Girl" fame as Lolly, who has returned to Litchfield with Piper, and looks to be sticking around for a while.
For those who need a quick catch-up, the end of Season 2 left Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) receiving a makeover, and Red (Kate Mulgrew) continues to heal from her brutal beatdown. Poonhound druggie Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne) looks to be free, but her storyline remains in Season 3.
Dorky Larry (Jason Biggs), Pipers ex-fiance, is gone after running off with Piper's ex-bestie, Polly. Prison guard George "Pornstache" Mendez is out, wrongly busted for knocking up Daya (the real father is prison guard Bennett). Mary Steenburgen shows up as his vindictive mother. And prison administrator "Fig" is also gone, after being disgraced at the end of Season 2.
Prison baddie Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) was run down while on the lamb by fellow escapee, terminally ill cancer patient Rosa (Barbara Rosenblatt). The girls all say she's dead, but her last surviving henchwoman, Crazy Eyes, Emmy-Award Winning Uzo Aduba, doesn't want to believe it. Watch her lose her shit in the video below.
But her fate remains a mystery... for now. As Toussaint told WhatCulture.com, "Let's put it this way, at the end of last season I took a very big hit. Is Vee dead? Can she really be dead? The devil don't die so fast."
Winnie McCroy is the Women on the EDGE Editor, HIV/Health Editor, and Assistant Entertainment Editor for EDGE Media Network, handling all women's news, HIV health stories and theater reviews throughout the U.S. She has contributed to other publications, including The Village Voice, Gay City News, Chelsea Now and The Advocate, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.