1.8 Moscow Mule

'That was my life'

The Michael Jackson bit. Accomplished, but too wacky. It's like they thought 'The chicken bit worked, let's amp it up a bit.'

On the other hand, the surreal conversation with Alex in the drier didn't seem forced, it worked.

Did I see the future Mrs Healy browsing the shelves at Red's place?

Is Polly's partner supposed to be from London or Australia?

'That was my life.' Yes it was. I must stop thinking of Piper as an innocent fallen angel. She is not me.

1.7 Blood Donut

'Just take the doughnuts'

The 'road less travelled' scene. I like it, but it feels like a scene. 'Let's re-emphasise the cultural distance between Piper and the others.'

As a longstanding Prisoner Cell Block H fan I enjoyed the laundry scene, which also had Alex being addressed as 'Lurch' just like Alice in Pris. I'm sure she shouldn't have threatened Pensatucky, even in that elegant way. There'll be trouble. She's too bold, just like she was when she tried to break the food blockade. And to think I was calling Piper's urge to apologise to her in the previous episode 'misguided'.

Larry chooses a margarita in the bar scene, just like Piper was drinking in the flashback to when she met Alex in 1.3.

Maybe the screwdriver episode has institutionalised me, but I was filled with terror every time Piper handled the hidden mobile phone. I was telling her 'No! no! put it back!' This show really is pushing my buttons. And I try not to watch things that will do that. Of course I have to carry on now.

1.6 WAC Pack

'Oh my'

A lot of lines in this ep that sound like lines. Piper's 'I am no different' speech, the bath metaphor, 'Pretend it's the 1950s. It makes it easier to understand.'

But I did enjoy Piper's mother's delivery of 'Oh my'.

And I really liked 'Our experience?' That scene could have been made more of.

1.5 The Chickening

'Please don't get dragged into the prison drama.'

Polly and Larry aren't just bored with Piper's big news from her small world, they can't stop her seeing that they are. Imagine how discouraging that would be.

Piper and Larry mutually withholding information about Alex. But what is the right thing to tell her? I'm inclined to agree with Larry's dad. Then again, what if they did keep it from her till she got released, and then told her? She's so full of resentment she might go after Alex then.

'They're not like you and me.' Imagine how that would feel: the people trying to cosy up to you are the climate change deniers. Mark Steel tells a story about being arrested after the Brixton riots, and getting released with a friendly caution while the police are beating up the black arrestees. 'The bonhomie was worse than the violence.'

Piper is beginning to fight back in this ep, with her request for masks, and rejecting Red's criticism of her behaviour. But from the spoilers I've read, this feistier attitude is going to get her in trouble later on.

The abrupt change of tone when the alarm goes off during the chicken hunt. What we thought would be a jolly diversion is stamped on by the passionless cruelty of the incarceration machine. It sends cold shivers through me.

I read some hope into the final scene. Piper may be behind multiple fences, but we pull back to see her under the big sky, and she loves to be outside.

1.4 Imaginary Enemies

'In the morning when I wake up, there are these few seconds before I realise where I am.'

This episode only increased my sadness at the human condition. The dehumanising alarm, at the sound of which all the inmates have to lie face down on the ground. The coerced 'volunteering' to be felt up by Pornstache.

The whole screwdriver thread is absolutely nerve-racking - so much so that bathos is the only way for it to end. Double bathos in fact.

There were compensations - the moment shared by Alex and Nicky, Piper telling Miss Claudette what's what, the resolution of the 'Mercy leaving' thread against expectations, and Miss Claudette and Piper's reactions to Mercy's departure.

I was surprised to find that this episode made me cry real tears, and that hasn't happened since I was living through my own version of Sophia's back story. It seems my soul wasn't pickled in vinegar after all.

1.3 Lesbian Request Denied

Piper's rueful nod at the question 'Does that really happen?'

Of course I followed Sophia's past and present story with interest. Even in British prisons it's a full-time job getting your prescriptions.

The flashback to Piper and Alex's first meeting reminded me strangely of the flashback in Buffy to Spike and Drusilla's first meeting.

It's true though isn't it. 'You carried that bag. No-one put a gun to your head.'

A gradual widening of perspective so that we have more and more non-Piper threads.

I have to say, my friends, this show is compelling, but it's filling me with a vast sadness for man and woman's inhumanity to woman. What is it Jack Kerouac says about 'jails and iron sorrows'?

1.2 Tit Punch

'He called you "inmate".'

I didn't find this one quite so distressing as 1.1. The naked malice of the starvation campaign is upsetting at first, until Red explains she couldn't accept an apology even if she wanted to. She's as much a victim of the oppression machine as Piper is.

Piper goes along with the code of omerta by refusing to take the food offered by Alex. In one sense she's collaborating in her own oppression - in another, she's avoiding a worse moral compromise.

The broad Rrrrussian flashback comedy a little too broad for me.

I suppose Healy's prurient interest in lesbian sex is holding a mirror up for the prurient audience to look into.

The Mad Men binge-watch references both amusing in relation to my own undertaking here, and as a metaphor for infidelity.

'Everyone saw how hard you worked.' That crystallised an uneasy 'practice level' feeling I had. It reminded me of that video game where you have to trap the rat to put in the stew to get the cook sacked to get his job to get paid the pieces of eight. But on the other hand I really wanted Piper's plan to work.