Beware of spoilers. Only spoilers from the current season (5) are whited out.
open/close all folders
Chapman's Family & Friends
The Chapmans
Bill & Carol Chapman
Played By: Deborah Rush & Bill Hoag
Piper's affluent, appearance-conscious parents.
- Alliterative Name: Apparently they call their children "Perfect Piper", "Danny The Doctor" and (lately) "Creative Cal".
- Upper-Class Twit: Both of them are living in their own affluent bubble.
- White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: They're stereotypical WASPs; upper-class and out-of-touch suburbanites.
Carol
Carol Chapman
Played By: Deborah Rush
Piper's mother. Carol, catty and seemingly humorless, doesn't seem as supportive as Piper thinks she should be, and their visitations are usually awkward. She is rather formal and conventional, treating Piper's prison stay as a shame upon the family (and herself).
- Alliterative Name: Carol Chapman
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: I Want My Daughter To Be Happy: When Piper tells her that she wants to be with Alex forever, her response can be summed up as this.
- Parents as People: She behaves like stereotypical critical, appearance-conscious and overbearing nightmare of a young woman's mother. However, as Nicky points out to a whining Piper, she still doesn't disown her daughter after the latter is imprisoned, visits her and tries (with limited success) adjust to that situation.
- Stepford Smiler: In a flashback, it is revealed that Piper once caught her father cheating with another woman while sneaking out to watch a movie. Upon learning this from Piper, Carol refuses to acknowledge the cheating and instead grounds Piper for seeing the movie.
- The Bus Came Back: In Season 5, Piper and her talk on the phone as Carol sits outside the prison, waiting for the riot to break.
Bill
Bill Chapman
Played By: Bill Hoag
Piper's father. Bill is outwardly supportive of his daughter but causes a rift with Piper when he refuses to visit her in prison, because "he doesn't want to see his daughter that way".
- Broken Pedestal: Twice. Bill cheats on Carol, which devastates young Piper, and then he refuses to come and see her because he doesn't want to see her like that.
- Daddy's Girl: Bill and Piper very much had this relationship before she went to prison.
- Good Parents: Bill's infidelity aside, he was generally a very good and supportive father to his kids. However, when Piper is placed in prison he refuses to see her and on the one occasion he does visit her (her birthday) he spends the entire time looking dour before criticizing her and abruptly leaving.
- Parents as People: Bill was unfaithful to Carol and didn't handle Piper's arrest well, refusing to see her while inside, but he realizes his mistake and helps her out upon her release, hiring her at his office and giving her relationship advice that shows he wants her to be happy.
Cal
Cal Chapman
Played By: Michael Chernus
Piper's younger brother. Their parents long favored the high-achieving Piper and let Cal become a sarcastic, underachieving slacker. Since Piper's incarceration, their parents have begun expecting more of him, much to his dismay. He is friends with Larry, who often visits him at his trailer in the middle of nowhere, which he eventually shares with his hippie girlfriend (and later fiancée) Neri.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Averted. Cal's seems like the type who would fit perfectly into this trope for someone like Piper, but is actually the least annoying member from the Chapman clan and he and Piper have a great sibling relationship.
- Big Fun: A rounder guy who is extremely friendly and funny.
- Black Comedy: No situation seems to be able to make Cal stop cracking jokes.
- Brutal Honesty: He tells it like it is to Piper, despite the fact that she's in prison and generally won't want to hear it.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Once as a child, he attempted to shoot his cat to the moon on a rocket. It ended up starting a fire in the house.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Had been dating his girlfriend for two months before proposing to her. And then marries her shortly afterwards. At his grandmother's funeral.
- Granola Guy: Cal lives in a trailer in the woods and is dedicated to 'authentic living', which includes hunting your food (though he cheats with store-bought chicken) and edging.
- Genre Savvy: To a point. In the third season he jokes about Piper becoming a trope (using that exact word) and points out that she isn't as badass as she thinks she's become, even making a rather humorous reference to Walter White from Breaking Bad, saying she's not quite up there with him yet in terms of being an intimidating Villain Protagonist.
- My Girl Is a Slut: When he finds out that Neri is lying about all of her wild erotic stories, he is heartbroken.
- Nice Guy: He's an honest, non-judgmental friendly fellow. By the start of Season 3, Cal is the only person in Piper's life outside of prison who still cares about her and hasn't distanced themselves from her.
- The Un-Favourite: In the backstory, Cal was the least successful of the three Chapman children; now that Piper's a convict, though, he mentions that his parents have suddenly taken an interest and use deceptively complimentary language when talking about him to their friends.
Neri
Neri Feldman
Played By: Tracee Chimo
A hyperbaric welder who is married to Cal Chapman.
- Genki Girl: She is cheerful, energetic and very up for the challenge for her family responsibilities, such as sending a flaming poo to her sister-in-law's disloyal friend.
Polly
Polly Harper
"Adventure is just hardship with an inflated sense of self."
Played By: Maria Dizzia
Piper's best friend of many years on the outside. Polly and Piper started a business together, which Polly runs while Piper is in prison.
- Deadpan Snarker: She's the Queen of snark."I like being the target of envy. It means I'm winning."
- Jerkass: Gets indignant at Piper for not putting her mundane personal problems as a higher concern than her prison horrors, and runs Piper's dreams of starting a company into the ground due to being too distracted by her pregnancy to deal with it.
- Jerkass Has a Point: A lot of her actions lean toward It's All About Me, but she does have a point in that she and Larry shouldn't be expected to constantly downplay and ignore their own day-to-day problems just because Piper is in prison.
- Put on a Bus: After she gets together with Larry, both of them are out of Piper's life.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Piper.
Pete
Pete Harper
Played By: Nick Stevenson
Polly's Australian husband and a friend of Larry and Piper. A running gag is that most characters dislike him to varying degrees and are confused about why Polly married him. He is seen to be somewhat annoying, selfish, and flighty, especially when he leaves on a trip of self-discovery shortly after his son was born.
- The Alcoholic: He tends to drink too much and is defensive about it, insisting "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm Australian".
- Awesome Aussie: Subverted. He does go on a lot of wild journeys, such as to Alaska, but this makes him an asshole because his wife has just given birth.
- Canon Foreigner: He's Australian.
- Disposable Fiancé: In Larry and Polly's romance their relationship to Piper is treated like an obstacle. The existence of Polly's husband is largely forgotten.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: A Running Gag from Season 1 is the fact that all of Polly's friends have at least one quality of Pete's that they find extremely annoying and unlikable.
- Jerkass: Shortly after Polly gives birth to their child, he decides to take a personal self-discovery voyage to Alaska, completing neglecting any of her needs.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While he is certainly not great husband or father material, his anger at being cheated on by his wife with his friend was still unwarranted. The punch to Larry's face was very much justified.
- It's All About Me: An even worse example than his wife. Shortly after Polly gives birth to their child, he decides to take a personal self-discovery voyage to Alaska, completing neglecting any of her needs.
- Manchild: Is completely unwilling to embrace his new fatherhood duties, instead taking a trip to Alaska to have fun.
- Romantic Runner-Up: To Larry.
Howard & Amy
Howard Bloom & Amy Kanter-Bloom
Played By: Todd Susman & Kathryn Kates
Larry's parents. Though he is her lawyer, Larry's dad dislikes Piper and feels that Larry is making a mistake by being with her. They own the home where Larry is living, and let him slide on the rent. Howard wants Larry to find a real job and encourages him to lie to Piper about who really named her in her criminal case.
- All Jews Are Cheap Skates: In Howard's view having a Groupon is enough of a reason to visit a gay sauna.
- Jewish Mother: Amy. "Larry, you have to come!"
- Mama Bear: They're both devoted to their son's well-being, although this means wanting to cut Piper out of the picture.
- Papa Wolf: They're both devoted to their son's well-being, although this means wanting to cut Piper out of the picture.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Howard, at least, is nice but stern when Piper lies under oath, having tried to help her get out of prison.
- The Stoic: Howard is unmovable.
Larry
Larry Bloom
"Why would I want a felonious, former lesbian, WASP, Shiksa, about to go to prison, to marry me?"
Played By: Jason Biggs
A Jewish freelance writer trying to establish a journalism career, and Piper's insecure, somewhat selfish fiancé. He is blindsided at the beginning of the series when his then girlfriend Piper reveals to him her former life as a lesbian who smuggled cash for a drug cartel 10 years ago. Larry is initially very supportive of Piper, and proposes marriage to her before she goes inside. As the series progresses, he begins to cool toward her, becoming upset when he learns that Piper's former lover is in the same prison and that she didn't tell him about it.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Similarly to Alex. The real life Larry was a rather averagely-looking guy, while the TV Larry is slim, muscular and, well, looks like Jason Biggs.
- Betty and Veronica: The 'marriage and kids and normalcy' Betty to Alex's Veronica.
- Disposable Fiancé: During the first season.
- Insecure Love Interest: He doesn't think very highly of himself.
- It's All About Me:
- Like Polly, he was understandable at first in realizing that his problems don't stop mattering just because he's not the one in prison. He gets more like this as time goes on and he realizes that he can benefit from Piper's struggles.
- Even if he makes some legitimate points during his break-up with Piper in late Season 1, the fact that he decides to start bitching about his problems with the relationship immediately after Piper told him someone was trying to kill her really doesn't reflect well on his character.
- Jerkass: Pretty early on starts to break little promises he made to Piper, such as not watching Mad Men without her. Though he takes a firm step into this direction once he started writing articles and radio interviews about Piper's experience without her consent or awareness, profiting off of her own misery.
- Jerkass Has a Point: He knows Piper has it worse than him, but he's aware that he doesn't live in a vacuum in Piper's absence. He confesses that he feels lonely and frustrated without her, needing just as much of their missed affection as she does and that he shouldn't be considered an asshole for having issues just because he's not the one in prison. He also calls Piper out for cheating on him while in prison.
- Nice Guy: Drops everything to help Piper when they first meet after she'd been bit by a dog. In the earliest episodes, it's clear how much he loves his girlfriend.
- Nice Jewish Boy: At first but then the nice starts to slip when his relationship with Piper becomes more strained.
- Does the same with Polly.
- Put on a Bus: After getting together with Polly, he's no longer part of Piper's life, and as a result he's completely absent from Season 3, being mentioned only once.
- Ridiculously Average Guy: He knows that Piper's incarceration is the most interesting thing about him. He's not happy about it. Polly also describes him as 'boring in the right way'.
- Romantic Runner-Up: To Alex, with Piper. Then inverts it with Polly.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He fits that type physically. Which leads to a funny scene when he meets Alex for the first time and realizes she surpasses him in those fields despite being a woman. Apparently Piper Has a Type after all.
Sophia's Family
Crystal
Crystal Burset
Played By: Tanya Wright
Sophia's wife Crystal was supportive of Sophia's transition into a woman, but encouraged her not to have sex reassignment surgery. In any case, Crystal felt it was better that her son have a father who was there for him, even if it was in a dress. She sometimes visits Sophia in prison and updates her on their son.
- Disappeared Dad: Her father was never around, which is part of the reason she supported Sophia's transition; she saw it better that their son have two moms than a dead dad.
- Good Parents: She goes out of her way to let Michael have a full family after Sophia's transition and tries to raise him well. When Michael goes astray she recognizes — in contrast to Sophia — that it can't be blamed on Gloria's son influence but on their son difficult family situation and some shitty parental advices he's gotten from a desperate Sophia.
- Understanding Boyfriend: Rather, Understanding Wife. She supported Sophia during her transition and even after she had gone to prison for fraud.
- What the Hell, Hero?: She is the one to deliver it occasionally to Sophia, be it for endangering family's well-being with her crime, being selfish and not letting Crystal find happiness, or teaching Michael not to respect women and using people.
Michael
Michael Burset
Played By: Michael Rainey Jr
Sophia and Crystal's son. He has difficulty with accepting Sophia's transitioning and eventually is the one to turn her in and cuts her from his life for a time, though later he resumes the contact. In the third season he starts displaying delinquent behavior.
- Everyone Has Standards: Bratty as he is, he is (at least initially) disturbed by Sophia's fatherly advice to use an insecure girl as a practice target to gain experience in dating, and asks Sophia if she really wants to be a woman in a world like that.
- Freudian Excuse: For all his callous behavior, it's not hard to see from where his anger issues are coming from.
- Jerkass: He is not acting very pleasant from the very beginning, culminating in the third season when he beats other kids for "looking at him funny" and feeds his mother lovely requests like "stop riding his dick".
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: By Sophia's words. He doesn't show any sweetness in any of his appearances, so it must have been before her transition.
Alex's Family & Friends
Diane Vause
Diane Vause
Diane Vause
Played By: Kim Director
Alex's mother.- Mama Bear: She disliked whenever her daughter was getting picked on at school for being underprivileged and tells Alex to forget the bullies and reminds her daughter she's special.
Lee Burley
Lee Burley
Lee Burley
Played By: Lawton Paseka
Alex's biological rock-star father.
- Luke, You Are My Father: How he and Alex meet.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lee tries to express his new fatherly love of Alex on their first meeting, but he really shouldn't have said such sexual things about his own daughter whom he just met to his bandmates in front of her.
- Pervert Dad: He goes on to make unintentional but inappropriate comments about Alex; that she has a "serious rack", and that he could have "accidentally fucked her", to Alex's embarrassment.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: He and Alex's mother weren't married, but he is unattractive in comparison to both his daughter Alex and her mother Diane.
Kubra
Kubra Balik
Played By: Eyas Younis
- Affably Evil: He might be the most dangerous character in the entire show, but he's also very personable and charismatic.
- Bad Boss: Both this and Benevolent Boss. While he's fine with killing his employees for repeated failures, he's surprisingly understanding toward Alex. Whereas he killed Fahri, he recognizes that Alex has a drug problem, forgives her for her error and even sends her to a top-notch rehab facility on his own dime.
- Bald of Evil: A shiny-headed drug kingpin.
- The Dreaded: Absolutely everyone is straight-up terrified of this guy, and with good reason: he's smart, ruthless, vengeful, connected and has a long reach.
- Greater-Scope Villain: His presence drives most of Alex's storyline in Season 2 and 3, when she had testified against him. Other than that, he doesn't have any effect on the other characters.
- I Love the Dead: Downplayed. When he texts his hitman to confirm that Alex has indeed died, he asks for two photos. One of the body, then one of her tits.
- You Have Failed Me: He has Fahri killed for failing him.
Aydin
Aydin Bayat
Played By: Juri Henley Cohn
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Is literally curbstomped by Lolly.
- Small Role, Big Impact: After threatening Alex in the Season 3 finale, he's killed in the Season 4 premiere by Loli and Alex. He's then buried in the garden. His body, which is found during the digging in construction, creates a lot of problems in the end of Season 4.
Fahri
Fahri
Played By: Sebastian Le Cause
- Affably Evil: He's a drug dealer/smuggler, sure, but he's a fun guy and one of Alex's closest friends.
- Boom, Headshot!: By one of Kubra's assassins.
- Properly Paranoid: He was terrified that Kubra was going to kill him; he was right.
Jessica Wedge
Jessica Wedge
Played By: Sabrina Carpenter
A childhood bully of Alex Vause.
- Jerkass: She enjoys tormenting Alex simply because her shoes aren't actual Nike shoes.
- Rich Bitch: She and her friends grew up privileged and take great joy in mocking Alex for being poor.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: She isn't seen or mentioned again after her appearance in a childhood flashback of Alex's.
Other Outside Characters
Cesar
Cesar
Played By: Berto Colon
Aleida's boyfriend, who ran a drug-cutting operation in her kitchen.
- Abusive Parents: He pulls a gun on one of the kids when he won't eat his food (which comes from the dumpsters of fast food chains).
- Bald of Evil: He's a bald drug dealer.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He may be an abusive, adulterous criminal, but even he thinks that abandoning one's pregnant girlfriend is deplorable. Of course, he thinks it's less awful after the child has been born ("even your loser father stuck around until you was two"), and believes it's okay to cheat in the meantime, but it's better than nothing.
- Faux Affably Evil: Cesar seems like a fun guy, save for the fact that he's a deeply messed up individual who can turn on you on a dime.
- Manipulative Bastard: He essentially uses Aleida to further his drug-cutting operation, dropping her once she gets caught while he remains a free man.
- Moral Luck:He had one leg! I mean, going around losing body parts? That's some pretty irresponsible shit!
- Papa Wolf: After learning Daya is pregnant, he immediately heads up to Litchfield to make sure Bennett is on the level (though Bennett had no idea that she is pregnant). Also happens in "Trust No Bitch" when he's willing to fight off DEA agents to keep them from taking not just his children as well as Aleida's, but also Daya's baby as well.
- Pet the Dog: Cesar has strong, if twisted sense of loyalty to Aleida and their family. He's made clear he's not going to leave her, considers her children his own (though maybe one of them biologically is), cares about Daya and is willing to take care of her child and goes on a full Papa Wolf action when the DEA agents bust his family.
- After Benett leaves and Daya blames herself, he assures her that it's not her fault, she did nothing to deserve it, and that leaving is on him, not on her.
- Put on a Bus to Hell: After he gets arrested in the Season 3 finale, Aleida claims that he'll get little-to-no punishment thanks to his expensive lawyer. It turns out that he's committed so many crimes that his lawyer can't fight them all off, leading to him being convicted for conspiracy and assaulting police officers, and given a prison sentence that's implied to be at least a couple of decades long. Presumably either Aleida was exaggerating, or Cesar's lawyer came through for him in the end, as he's out of prison by Season 7.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Cesar sees women as tools instead of people; they're there to have sex with or use in your criminal enterprise.
- Stay in the Kitchen: His justification for living with another woman while Aleida is in prison is not even I'm a Man; I Can't Help It. It's because he has kids, so obviously he "can't" take care of them alone and "that's what women are made for."
Yadriel
Yadriel
Played By: Ian Paola
Maria's boyfriend, who takes custody of their baby after she's born.
- Face of a Thug: He's rather handsome, but tattoos and a perpetually stony expression on his face give that impression. The information that he's once stolen flowers from a funeral in an attempt to be romantic, doesn't help.
- Hidden Depths: Despite his stoicism and generally cool demeanor, he is unbelievably sweet with his daughter, especially when he finds out Maria is not being transferred.
- Kick the Dog: He believes he has legitimate reasons, but he still commits the shockingly callous act of taking Maria's baby away from her, refusing anymore visits and essentially cutting the mother of his child out of her life.
- Not So Stoic: Yadriel largely just sits across from Maria in the visiting room with all the expressiveness of a tombstone that hasn't had a name etched into it yet. It turns out he just has 'resting bitch face'. When he finds out Maria won't be leaving, his stoical façade breaks in the most adorable way. He's overjoyed.
- The Quiet One: He just does not talk, which makes it more powerful when he breaks out of that habit to talk to his daughter on Maria's request.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Despite separating Maria from their daughter and unofficially dumping her, Yadriel is fully devoted to Maria.
Jean Baptiste
Jean Baptiste
Played By: James McDaniel
Jean originally brought Miss Claudette to the US and set her up at the cleaning company. He later broke her heart by marrying another woman but briefly reconnected with Miss Claudette after his wife's death.
- Karma Houdini: He essentially sold girls into slavery, but the narrative treats him as an unambiguous good guy.
- The One That Got Away: To Miss Claudette, twice.
Delia
Delia Mendez-Powell
Played By: Mary Steenburgen
The mother of George Mendez.
- Meal Ticket: Aleida immediately sizes the wealthy Delia up as ripe for exploitation.
- Morality Pet: To Pornstache. Awful as he is, he absolutely adores his mother.
- Nice Girl: She wants nothing but to help Daya, her family and the baby and is not judgmental about the whole "birth mother and the other grandmother are in prison" situation, but rather ashamed of her son's alleged actions.
Christopher
Christopher MacLaren
Played By: Stephen O Reilly
The groom of the wedding Morello is planning. Despite the fact that Lorna's life even in prison revolves about getting married to him, he never seems to visit her in there.
- Butt-Monkey: Christopher's life took something of a downturn when he met Lorna; she became obsessed with him, stalked him, planted a bomb under his car, broke into his home and ruined his fiancée's wedding dress and had her new boyfriend Vince beat him to a pulp.
- The Ghost: In Season 1. The Lichfield inmates even doubt whether he exists and the fact that he never visits his supposed fiancé suggests he's essentially abandoned her. In Season 2, it's revealed that he does exist, but he's not Lorna's fiancé; he's some poor bastard she was stalking.
- Hunk: He resembles the model seen on a poster in Lorna's room. It's the reason she becomes so enamored with him so quickly.
- I'll Kill You!: Says that in no uncertain terms to Morello if she ever comes anywhere near him or his family.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As aggressive and borderline violent as he is towards her, his anger at Lorna for her behavior is entirely justified.
- Meet Cute: He and Morello literally Crashed Into Hello.
Vinnie
Vince "Vinnie" Muccio
Played By: John Magaro
Lorna's penpal and husband.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: When Lorna announces that she is pregnant, Vinnie panics and runs away but when in the season 5 finale she is taken out of the prison, he jumps over police lines to reach her and excitedly announces that she's pregnant and that he will wait for her.
- Basement-Dweller: Still lives at home. Lorna is crushed when she finds out, though she pretends everything is OK.
- Beard of Sorrow: Vinnie shows up to a visitation with Lorna sporting an unkempt beard, which she immediately comments on. He's in mourning for their child, who has recently died.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Gets married to Lorna not long after first meeting her. It really shows that neither one of them really knows anything about the other, or about the realities of marriage.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Believes Lorna's lie that Christopher had been sending her creepy letters, and gets some friends together to go to his house and beat him up.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Divorcing your mentally ill wife just after you've lost your child might seem cruel but Vinnie is absolutely right that Lorna is completely incapable of accepting what happened and he can't deal with her denial on top of grieving his son.
- Long-Distance Relationship: Due to Lorna being in federal prison.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Consummates his marriage to Lorna in the visitation room, while the guards look the other way. Later, they have phone sex pretty regularly, and
even have verbal sex during a visitation. - Mistaken for Cheating: After not getting to chat on the phone, Lorna believes he's been cheating on her, and enlists her sister to "check up on him." Then she believes that he's been cheating on her with her sister, and screams at him the next time they do get to talk on the phone. At this point, Vinnie realizes that his wife is nucking futz.
- No Accounting for Taste: Is married to a woman who's seriously delusional and in prison for attempting to kill Christopher's real girlfriend.
- Outliving One's Offspring: His newborn son with Lorna dies a few months after being born, devastating both of them. Even worse is that Lorna has a complete breakdown at the news and insists he is still alive, meaning Vinnie can't even turn to her for mutual support.
Sylvia
Sylvia
Played By: Ashleigh Sumner
- The Alcoholic: Season 7 flashbacks reveal she was a bad alcoholic during her relationship with Alex and struggled to stay sober.
- Butch Lesbian: She is more masculine in appearance and style than her former girlfriend Alex, having a shorter haircut and wearing baggy sweats.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: She is this around her then girlfriend Alex and was not happy when she found out about Piper.
- Establishing Character Moment: Her first appearance shows her as a hooded figure who enters the room seconds after Alex leaves, and launches herself at Piper, attacking her.
- Psycho Lesbian: Her first appearance shows her attacking her then-girlfriend Alex's love interest Piper Chapman.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Her first appearance shows her jumping on her bed and beating up Piper.
Wyndolyn
Wyndolyn Capers
Played By: Alysia Joy Powell
Piper and Sophia’s parole officer after their early release.
- Beleaguered Bureaucrat: She has a massive caseload.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She’s often short with Piper, but only because she’s frustrated to see Piper, who is better off than most of her supervisees, engaging in self-defeating behavior. When Piper straightens herself out, Wyndolyn seems genuinely happy for her.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: When Piper gets high and then tampers with her drug test, Wyndolyn is exasperated but chooses to look the other way rather than send Piper back to prison for a single lapse in judgment.
