Orange is the New Black: “We Can Be Heroes”/“Don’t Make Me Come Back There”
(Episode 3.11/3.12)

Daya finally had her baby!
I repeat: Daya finally had her baby. The longest gestational period in television history is officially over. For a moment there, I was worried that the show would actually have Daya’s labor span more than one episode. As it was, she labored at Litchfield for far too long. In flashbacks we see Aleida desperately wanting her daughter’s unconditional love and jealous of her daughter’s happy camp memories. Aleida wants to be a good mother but has no idea how to be one. The young Daya wants to make her mother happy. The present-day Daya has swallowed her mother’s “bullshit for the last fucking time.”
So what does Aleida do? She calls Delia (Pornstache’s mom) and tells her that the baby died during childbirth. I didn’t believe for one second that was true, did you? I have to think that Delia would at least call to confirm that the baby she was planning to adopt had died? Will Daya really let Cesar raise her baby? Won’t Daya wonder why Delia never shows up? This doesn’t seem like a sustainable plan on Aleida’s part. Elizabeth Rodriguez is turning in such a fantastic and nuanced performance. She’s brought such depth to Aleida, a character who could have easily been a one-note terror.
In a heartbreaking scene, Boo figures out that Tiffany has been raped, even though Tiffany doesn’t realize it herself. Boo comes up with a revenge plan that involves drugging Coates and raping him with a broom. “You got a big angry bull dyke on your side now,” she tells Tiffany. But when it comes time to abuse Coates, Tiffany can’t do it. She’s not angry, she tells Boo, she’s just sad. The Boo and Tiffany friendship is one of the best surprises of the season.
One of the great things OITNB does is delve below the surface of all these characters. In the first season, Tiffany was an angry, crazed religious zealot with horrific teeth. Now we understand what made her that way, how desperate she is to be loved, and how little support and guidance she has received throughout her life.
SoSo, a character I found beyond annoying last season, has truly struggled to make friends and to fit in as all her idealism has been stripped away. By the end of “Don’t Make Me Come Back There,” she’s swallowed pills and Poussey has found her unconscious on the floor. Again, the series took a character who was basically comic relief last season and made her fully realized individual.