Orange Is The New Black - Season Three

Litchfield Prison is about to be closed at the beginning of "Orange is the New Black: Season Three," the ever-evolving, hilarious and heartbreaking series spotlighting how women's pasts dictate their presents.

But a private company takes over and starts fucking up fast. The CEO's nebbish son, played by Mike Birbiglia, "one small head on a many-headed hydra," is assigned the ambiguous and flaccid title of Director of Human Activity.

Chapman is growing hard, gaining "Godfather"-level cred, when she starts an illicit panty-sniffing web business called Felonious Spunk, raising "clams from clams" and bribing inmates into wearing them in exchange for ramen noodle spices to stomach the inedible new packaged slop food: "you had me at flavor packets."

Her lover/hater Alex Vause, the "Bettie Page" of Litchfield, is convinced she's being stalked.

Crazy Eyes calms down and becomes a sought-after in-house novelist with her pornographic "Time Hump Chronicles."

Former hippie sister wife Norma is elevated to revered healer and silent prophet, as featured in "Tongue Tied."

Black Cindy comes into her own and seeks another religion, spouting Jewish references underneath her Mickey Mouse ears Afro, in "Where My Dreidel At?" Leanne's Amish rumspringa is recounted as well.

"Mother's Day," explores the women's various parenting techniques as Daya enters her final trimester, where tells her mom Aleida that she "makes babies sound like drugs."

"The worst kind," mom answers. And Mary Steenburgen has a complex recurring role as Pornstache's mother.

"Bed Bugs and Beyond" brings vermin and Wiccans to the campus. Due to the infestation, all the library books have to be burned, including all the David Sedaris, and all the Jonathans: Swift, Franzen and Livingston Seagull.

"Empathy is a Boner Killer," a testimonial for hate sex, offers incisive writing references, including Nicky as "a bloodhound for oblivion" and a "heroin Robin Hood," Soso's mention that she took an improv class at UCB, and Big Boo's self-description as looking like "a thumb in a dress." "Finger in the Dyke" has her noting that her people, lesbians, are the stage managers, not performers.

Episode 6 focuses on "Ching Chong Chang," continuing the series' poignant juxtaposition of backstories with consequences. Aussie Stella, a tattooed and beautiful "Justin Bieber," shows up to seduce, complicate and remind the women to "Trust No Bitch."

The DVD cover spoofs religious icon poses, and special features include audio commentaries, a short gag reel (Kate Mulgrew cracks up when Red says "I'm back, bitch," calling herself "fucking Clint Eastwood in drag"), and "The Classified Files: Getting to Know the Cast," who are asked questions such as their hidden talents, their reincarnation animals, which character they would ask for love advice and which would they want to be friends with in real life (most said Poussey), and what one item would they take to the SHU (Uzo Adubo would take the complete works of William Shakespeare).

A takeaway from these 13 innovate episodes is that "love is just sex without the money shot."

"Orange is the New Black Season Three"
DVD set
$19.99
http://www.lionsgate.com/tv/orangeisthenewblack