Orange Is The New Black season 3: Recap season 2 drama at Litchfield Penitentiary

We've made it! After a year of being without it, tomorrow marks the day that hit show Orange Is The New Black returns to Netflix for its third season when it is uploaded in its entirety on 12 June.

Ahead of season three's premiere, IBTimes UK presents an in-depth season two episode guide, for those fans who need their memories jogged...

Episode 1 - Thirsty Bird

Piper Chapman is in solitary confinement following her attack on fellow inmate Pennsatucky, but is soon forced onto a bus, and then a plane, and arrives at the conclusion that she must have killed Pennsatucky and is being transferred to a higher security prison.

However, Chapman soon discovers that Alex is in the same facility and having spoken to her, realises they are both in Chicago temporarily, to testify in the trial of Alex's old drug boss Kubra.

Before the trial, Alex urges Piper to say that they never knew Kubra, suggesting she will lie as well, in fear that if they try to take him down and it backfires, he will exact revenge on them when they are finally released.

Reluctantly, she gives in and she lies at the trial. Afterwards, Alex admits to Piper that even though she intended not to, she told the truth and in return, is being released, which complicates matters for Piper who now faces perjury charges and additional jail time.

Episode 2 - Looks Blue, Tastes Red

A flashback depicts a young Taystee – known then as Tasha – at an Adoption Festival as she tries to find a permanent home. At the fair, she meets Vee, a local drug dealer who takes Taystee under her wing and encourages her to start working in the drug trade for her.

Meanwhile, Pennsatucky is revealed to have survived the fight with Piper and striking up a deal with Officer Healy, says that she'll keep quiet about his involvement in the attack if he arranges for her to have her teeth fixed.

Red struggles with the idea of no longer running the kitchen as the rest of Litchfield
Penitentiary take part in a mock job fair. Towards the end of the episode, Taystee's old associate Vee shows up as the newest prisoner of Litchfield.

Episode 3 - Hugs Can Be Deceiving

As Piper is returned to Litchfield, she is joined by new inmate Brook Soso whom she initially comforts but soon becomes irritated with due to her naïve ways. Simultaneously, Vee reunites with Taystee with a sense of disapproval and it is made clear that Vee and Red have some unfinished business left over from Vee's last stint in prison.

A series of flashbacks shows that Suzanne (Crazy Eyes) has been regarded as different ever since she was young and because of this, was pressured by her mother to show her value in every life situation. It depicts Suzanne at her high-school graduation, when struck by stage-fright, she starts hitting herself on the head as a punishment for her awkwardness, which links forward to her breakdown at the prison Christmas pageant.

Later, it is realised that following the pageant, Suzanne became worked-up and ended up punching Piper during her attack on Pennsatucky, thereby preventing Piper from committing a murder.

Vee realises she can use Suzanne's instability to manipulate her to be used in her bid to gain power over the other inmates.

Episode 4 - A Whole Other Hole

Nicky and Big Boo start up a competition as to who can sleep with the most women in the facility, whilst Vee tries to convince Poussey to let her help sell her hooch to the other inmates – an offer which Poussey declines.

In an attempt to start shifting contraband again, Red uses the cover of a therapeutic greenhouse run by the elderly inmates to move product in and out of the prison.

Outside of prison, Larry and Polly's relationship starts to progress whilst Polly's husband is out of the country. Lorna finds out that her love, Christopher, is marrying another woman.

Whilst doing her normal duty of driving the van so that Rosa can go to her cancer treatments, Lorna breaks into Christopher's home. Simultaneous flashbacks show Lorna as a scam artist and reveals that she and Christopher were never an item but a man she threateningly stalked when she was younger.

Episode 5 - Low Self Esteem City

When their bathroom starts having plumbing problems, Mendoza and her fellow Latinas move into the Ghetto bathroom, much to the annoyance of Vee and her followers. In order to avoid the tensions rising even higher between the two groups, Vee and Mendoza make a deal to calm things down.

Flashbacks in the episode reveal that Mendoza was a domestic violence victim and was put in prison for her fraudulent use of food stamps which she traded at the store she ran on the outside.

Meanwhile, Piper is visited by her brother Cal and her mother – to inform her that her grandmother is dying. Shocked, she goes to Healy for temporary leave in order to visit her elderly relative.

Episode 6 - You Also Have A Pizza

As the other inmates busy themselves preparing for a Valentine's Day party, Red starts shifting contraband through the sewer line running underneath the greenhouse with the help of her son. Larry asks Piper to be his insider so that he can write an article about the misuse of finances going on at Litchfield. Agreeing, she begins questioning the prisoners and guards so she can uncover where the prison's budget is being spent.

Poussey's history is revealed and details her relationship with a young woman when she was based at an army base in Germany, with her strict father. When their romance is discovered, the girl's father uses his authority within the forces to send Poussey and her family back to America - which devastates her.

Outside, Larry visits Polly to drop off all of Piper's things and the two end up kissing right before her husband returns home.

Later that night, Caputo sees an elderly inmate suffering from dementia at a bar he is performing at and realises that she must have escaped.

Episode 7 - Comic Sans

Because of the incident the night before, Caputo urges the officers and guards to monitor the prisoners more closely. Flashbacks reveal that Black Cindy used to work as an airport security guard before she was arrested. As she is checking a bag, she notices an iPad and later steals it to give to her daughter, who is being raised by her grandmother, for her birthday.

Taystee gives Nicky a cigarette in exchange for some postage stamps for Vee and the rest of Vee's girls continue to make similar exchanges for contraband and other favours from various other inmates. Nicky encourages Poussey not to get on Vee's bad side after she refuses to be a part of her group. Meanwhile, Polly and Larry have sex.

Episode 8 - Appropriately Sized Pots

Piper faces backlash when inmates start to believe she's receiving special privileges. Caputo starts feeling the need to toughen up at the facility, so hires Mendez (Pornstache) once again as a guard, knowing he will be a stern disciplinarian with the prisoners.

The flashbacks delve into Rosa's backstory, revealing that she used to stage small-scale bank robberies with her friends when she was younger.

Episode 9 - 40 OZ Of Furlough

Piper is released from prison for two days after her grandmother dies to attend her funeral and her relationship with Larry finally comes to a concrete end when he tells her that he slept with someone else.

Red's efforts to redeem herself by once again providing everyone with banned goods works and Red's and Vee's history is revealed in a series of flashbacks. One reveals that Vee took control of the black inmates whilst doing time, in order to take over Red's kitchen smuggling enterprise. After Red discovered this, Vee's posse beat her severely.

Officer Mendez finally returns to Litchfield as Officer Bennett reveals that Daya is pregnant and suggests that Mendez must be the father.

Episode 10 - Little Mustachioed S***

The guards begin to get tougher as they realise that contraband is moving through the prison, whilst Mendez gets fired yet again after Daya's pregnancy is revealed.

Alex and Piper's history is depicted in a series of flashbacks, when in the present she discovers that the woman Larry slept with was her best friend, Polly.

Vee propositions Red about her joining her greenhouse business. Meanwhile, Poussey gets drunk on Hooch and mouths off to Vee, resulting in a manipulated Suzanne assaulting her. Nicky finally decides to turn in the heroin that Taystee gave her to Red so she won't use it, and Healy sets up a therapy/counselling group.

Episode 11 - Take A Break From Your Values

Piper eventually feels guilty about not responding to even one of Alex's many letters so gets in contact with her, only to find that Kubra wasn't convicted back at the trial and Alex may be in danger. Piper is then told that she is being transferred to a facility in Virginia that is known to be much harsher than Litchfield.

Soso's hunger strike begins to attract support from religious communities on the outside after Sister Ingalls joins the campaign. Flashbacks show that Ingalls has a history of being involved with controversial protests and rallies, which eventually lead to her excommunication from the Church.

Red's friends hatch a plan to kill Vee unbeknownst to her. But the plan backfires when they stab the wrong inmate.

Episode 12 - It Was The Change

As a storm forces all of the prisoners together in the mess hall, Vee and Red's rivalry continues with increasingly threatening confrontations between the pair regarding their business ventures inside Litchfield.

Their animosity leads to Red attacking Vee while they are alone outside, attempting to strangle her with a piece of plastic wrap, but she doesn't go through with the action. The two agree that they've changed since they last served in prison together and they shake hands on a truce.

Meanwhile, Piper sneaks into Figueroa's office and stumbles upon evidence of her embezzling within the system. But when the power in the prison comes back on, she is found by Caputo disrupting her detective work.

Meanwhile, Figueroa uncovers that her politician husband is cheating on her with another man.

Episode 13 - We Have Manners. We're Polite

Vee's crew turns on her after Nicky's theft of her stash of heroin causes Vee to become paranoid and after Vee tries to get Suzanne to take the fall for Red's assault.

Piper reveals Figueroa's secret to Caputo, who reports it to the warden and confronts her. Cornered, Figueroa resigns and is escorted out of the facility.

Now Caputo is in charge, Bennett finally plucks up the courage to admit that it was he that impregnated Daya only to be told by Caputo that he should keep this information under wraps to avoid anymore public scandal surrounding Litchfield.

Piper, frightened for Alex's safety on the outside, contacts her probation officer and confesses that Alex told her she is planning on fleeing the country. When they go to investigate at Alex's apartment she is found with a gun in her possession - something that violates her parole.

Healy gets Luschek to sign a fake work order to exonerate Suzanne and turn the focus of the investigation back on Vee, but assuming she will soon be found out, Vee has already escaped through the tunnel underneath Red's greenhouse.

On learning that Rosa only has a few more weeks left to live at her latest hospital appointment, Morello consciously leaves the vans keys in the ignition so that Rosa can escape and spend her last days away from Litchfield. Driving away, Rosa spots Vee by the side of the road and intentionally runs her down claiming she never liked her anyway.