Orange is the New Black producer reveals which character was hardest to kill off

Show's final season just released

A producer on Orange is the New Black has revealed which character death was the most painful of the show’s six-year run.

Tara Hermann, who is credited on 78 episodes of the Netflix drama as either a producer, a co-producer, or an executive producer, spoke to the Huffington Post in an interview marking the show’s seventh and final season.

The final instalment premiered on Friday on the streaming platform.

Asked if there is any character she and the rest of the team regret killing off, Hermann said she doesn’t think the term “regret” applies, though one character death sticks out in her mind as particularly painful.

The producer was referring to Tricia Miller, a young inmate seen in season one.

Raised in an abusive family, Tricia was homeless and got arrested – and subsequently incarcerated – for theft.

Her death occurs after she’s given a bag of drugs by corrections officer George Mendez. Tricia, a drug addict, ends up taking the whole bag, after which Mendez makes her death look like a suicide.

“Of course we were sad in season one, with the character of Tricia,” Hermann said.

“We had written that character, we knew what her end was going to be, and then when we cast [Madeleine Brewer] and worked with her and the character developed, we did have a hard time moving forward with what was her inevitable ending.”

The producer, however, insisted that she doesn’t regret any of the characters’ deaths, “because of the stories we were able to tell through them”.

Orange is the New Black‘s seventh and final season premiered on Neftlix on Sunday.

Several characters have died over the show’s seven instalments. Notably, Poussey Washington (played by Samira Wiley) died in season four after being asphyxiated by corrections officer Baxter Bailey.

Her death triggers a prison riot in season five.