When we last left the ladies of ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ they were awaiting their fate as a prison riot led to them all being transferred.
In the first trailer for season six, we learn that they’ve been sent to maximum security — and things are very different.
via THR:
The fifth season, which was met with mixed reviews, charted a three-day riot that ended disastrously for the inmates. The trailer proves that the halcyon days of Litchfield are over, but it also confirms that all but one of the 10 characters whose fates were left up in the air after the explosion are indeed alive and made it to max.
Piper (Schilling), Taystee (Danielle Brooks), Red (Kate Mulgrew), Suzanne (Uzo Aduba), Nicky (Natasha Lyonne), Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore), Gloria (Selenis Leyva), Blanca (Laura Gomez) and Frieda (Dale Soules) all appear in the trailer, which also confirms that Daya (Dascha Polanco) — who exited the fifth season early — has also been shipped off to max for her inciting role in the riot, which left a guard dead. (Daya is also one of a few inmates featured in the season’s key art, below.)
Alex (Laura Prepon) is the only inmate of the 10 who doesn’t appear in the trailer. (Prepon had a baby around the time the season began production.) “Where is Alex?” Piper asks of her new fiancee while questioning where the familiar faces have gone. “Don’t you think it’s weird we’re the only people in here?”
The inmates viewers have come to know are splintered off into new groups in max — factions that, for the first time, do not appear to be defined by race. As Piper lays out to a pink-clad Suzanne, it’s the blue khakis v. the brown ones, with the pink ones remaining “safe” out there. “This isn’t home, this is not home,” says a worried Suzanne, aka Crazy Eyes; to which a guard replies, “It is now.”
In addition to facing new threats within the prison walls, the inmates are being hunted by a system that is looking to pin both blame and punishment on the women responsible for the riot. A closer look at the murder board shows Nicky, Blanca and Gloria under a header that reads “Riot Leaders”; while Daya, Cindy and Frieda fall under a card that reads, “Murder.” Also written on the board are charges that range from 10 years-plus to life. Piper, Red and Maria remain TBD in the middle of the board.
The season synopsis from Netflix says: Picking up one week after the emergency response team stormed Litchfield Penitentiary, the ladies of Litch have been torn apart, literally and figuratively, as they enter a new facility. Now ?newbies ?they ?must navigate new rules and power dynamics, starting at the bottom, and getting hazed by inmates and tortured by guards. Friendships will be tested and new allegiances formed — some by choice and others by circumstance — as the women face a slew of charges from the riot. Will they take plea deals and turn on each other or band together and keep their bonds intact?
Get into the trailer below.
Orange Is the New Black returns to Netflix July 27.
