Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Litchfield’s inmates take control after Dayanara shoots Humphrey during the chaos that follows the previous season’s standoff. The uprising stretches across three days, with Taystee pushing for justice for Poussey and demanding that the governor’s office address the prison’s abuses. Negotiations produce a list of ten demands, but officials focus on containing the hostage crisis. Piper and Alex reconnect amid the disorder, while Piper helps organize a memorial for Poussey: Brook Soso’s living library, built from books gathered around the prison.
The riot splinters into rival plans and improvised authority. Judy King is paraded before cameras as a supposed hostage, then helps expose the difference between her privileged treatment and the other women’s conditions. Daya gives herself up after her mother identifies her as the shooter, but Judy’s disclosure has already ended the chance of amnesty. Humphrey later dies in the infirmary. Gloria tries to win a chance to see her son by freeing the guards, while Red searches for her missing friends and discovers that Piscatella has entered the prison in riot gear. He captures Red’s group and tortures her; Frieda’s hidden bunker gives the hostages a way to escape and subdue him.
As officers storm Litchfield, Taystee nearly shoots Piscatella when she confronts him over Poussey, but Red releases him from captivity. A CERT officer then mistakes the unarmed guard for a threatening inmate and shoots him dead. Most inmates are removed by bus. Piper and Alex have become engaged, but the season’s last moments leave ten women trapped in Frieda’s pool bunker as a smoke bomb goes off. They link arms and wait together as armed officers close in, unsure whether they will survive.