“The only way out is for us to come together,” says Gloria (Selenis Levya) in a newly released trailer for Season 5 of “Orange Is the New Black.” The action-packed spot returns to this message time and time again — the inmates of Litchfield are more powerful as a united front than they are as individuals.
The last season of the Emmy-winning Netflix drama saw racial tensions, conflicts with sadistic, inexperienced new guards, and overcrowding lead to a peaceful protest by the inmates. It quickly turned chaotic and ended in Poussey’s (Samira Wiley) death at the hands of a C.O. The season finale ended on a cliffhanger: a riot broke out in response to Poussey’s treatment and the final scene featured Daya (Dascha Polanco) pointing a gun at another C.O.’s face.
The trailer doesn’t show — or even hint at — Daya or the C.O.’s fate, but it does reveal that the new season of the Jenhi Kohan-created series will center on the prisoners working together to demand better conditions.
“We’re all angry. You done our girl wrong,” Taystee (Danielle Brooke) tells Warden Caputo (Nick Sandow). “And we want justice.” Taystee also details some of the injustices the women suffer: “We get beat for no reason, we’re stuffed four in a bunk like we factory chickens, [and] we’re denied basic humanity,” she says.
And of course, part of what makes “Orange Is the New Black” so great is how it balances serious subject matter with moments of levity. The trailer includes hilarious bits about smizing and how one prisoner thinks Litchfield could be improved by adding an anti-gravity chamber so that inmates will have the opportunity to do “flips and stuff.”
“Orange Is the New Black” returns for its fifth season June 9.
