Orange Is The New Black is back: here's your season 5 recap

Make sure you're up to date with a quick refresh before getting stuck into the new episodes

(Courtesy of Netflix)

In the thrilling last episode of series five of Jenji Kohan's exquisite comedy-drama set in a women's prison, Alex – played by the excellent Laura prepon – lightens the mood. “The real tragedy is that we’re going to die before we get to fight over the wedding cake,” she quips to her fiancée Piper (Taylor Schilling).

We were left tantalisingly with 10 plucky inmates, including Piper, Alex, Red (Kate Mulgrew, former captain on Star Trek: Voyager) Taystee and Crazy Eyes (played by Uzo Aduba, who has bagged two Emmy awards for her role) standing tall in Frieda’s bunker, linking arms, waiting for the CERT officers to blow the doors off. It was a tense end to the season-long stand-off between inmates and staff, in which Danielle Brooks’s compelling Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson championed for justice for slain prison librarian Poussey.

Orange Is The New Black nimbly blends light-hearted slapstick comedy with poignant backstories and heavyweight topical and political concerns such as penal reform, the Black Lives Matter movement, guard brutality and the drugs trade. And for season six our heroines look to be particularly imperilled as they enter “a whole new world” — that is, they leave Litchfield Penitentiary for a maximum-security prison.

Courtesy of Netflix

Much has been made of Alex’s comparative absence in the OITNB trailers, but Piper’s fiancée is surely too big a character to be dispensed with — and shouldn’t her assault by the prison guard provide her with some sort of leeway or justice? And aren’t we owed a wedding to lighten the mood? Or will there be some Walking Dead-style death shocks?

Taystee, the chief negotiator during the riot who overplayed her hand, does look to be in particularly hot water. And will Crazy Eyes be charged with killing off evil Humphrey after she blew bubbles into his IV bag? The synopsis for series six suggests “new allegiances will be formed” and posits whether the inmates will “turn on each other or keep their bonds intact”. Is this the end for Alex and Piper, nominally the lead character in this beautifully acted, frequently absurd slice of drama? Superior TV.

Orange Is The New Black season six is on Netflix now

To see more Proper TV, click here