Netflix's Orange is the New Black Season 2 Episode 7 Review

With her crew rolling ciggarettes in the custodial room, Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) smooth talks her members who question her leadership while she hides in the shadows the moment there's heat.

Meanwhile, the prison staff are chewed into by Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow) because Jimmy wandered her way out of the prison and into the bar Caputo's band was performing at on Valentine's Day.  To keep the inmates in line, Caputo demands the guards write a five-shot-minimum and for Jimmy to be watched constantly.  Cindy Hayes (Adrienne C. Moore) is the first to get caught in the shot treatment and is given a taste of her own medicine from when she was on the outside.

Cindy's background is explored and her pushy, tell-it-like-it-is attitude paid off in her career as a TSA agent.  From behind the badge, Cindy had a blast confiscating passenger items, stealing airport goods, and fondling the fit male flyers.  When she gifts a stolen item to her little sister for her birthday and returns her home smelling like weed, her mother lays into her for being a bad example.  Feeling defensive, Cindy lets out that she'll take her daughter back if her mother is going to keep criticizing her.

That's right.  Cindy's little sister is actually her daughter that she gave to her mother to raise.  Fortunately, Cindy recognizes that she is not her daughter's mother and allows her own mother to continue to raise her, which kind of shows that Cindy's learning to grow a little bit at a time.

On the front-lines of Vee's sales, Taystee (Danielle Brooks) , Cindy, and Janae Watson (Vicky Jeudy) get all the women of the prison smoking cigarettes.  Cindy relishes in having a little power over other inmates.  When Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne) hits up Poussey (Samira Wiley) thinking that she's also selling cigarettes, Poussey shutters at the thought of being another one of Vee's henchmen.  Nicky gives Poussey some advice: shut up, hang out with Vee, get to hang out with Taystee without conflict.

Conflict is a theme with the Latinas and CO John Bennett (Matt McGorry), as he is tired of their demands and blackmail.  When Maritza Ramos (Diane Guerrero) threatens to tell Caputo, he locks her in the solitary confinement.  Dayanara Diaz (Dascha Polanco) finds out and lectures Bennett about what it means to be part of her family and how his power shouldn't harm those in their family.  She's an inmate with nothing to lose, but she's starting to realize that her relationship is in for trouble because it's not a partnership.  It's a dictatorship.

Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) meets with the journalist who proposed the story of fraud on the prison budget to Piper's ex-fiance, Larry Bloom (Jason Biggs).  He asks her to help him to find out evidence, but she doesn't want to mess things up for herself any more than she already has.  Which is reasonable, when you think about it.

With journalism on the mind, Piper starts getting women on her prison newsletter and recruits Dayanara, Flaca Gonzalez (Jackie Cruz), and Lorna Morello (Yael Stone).  With Daya on the comic strips, Flaca writing an advice column, and Morello revealing beauty tips and tricks, the Big House Bugle shapes up into a viable distribution tool of prison news.  When he sees how great the newsletter is turning out, Caputo wants to have a spot on the newsletter to connect the guards with the prison inmates.  Piper uses the opportunity to try and stroke Caputo's ego, presumably to save his gratitude for a favor in the future.

With her grandma on her mind, Piper sees Jimmy struggling to eat on her own.  When Jimmy feels like she's being followed by the guards, she runs to Piper for help.  Piper can't help but feel guilty that she's not with her own grandmother in her time of need, so she projects her feelings onto Jimmy who is deliriously hallucinating her husband's presence throughout the prison.  Eventually, the prison puts Jimmy on "compassionate release" and ships her to the closest bus station.

Jimmy's screams for Piper's help can only push Piper to want to see her grandmother before it's too late.