"Bora Bora Bora" is the tenth episode of season one of Orange Is the New Black.
Piper tries to deal with her complicated relationship with Alex, while Alex perpetrates a long con on Pennsatucky. Nicky and Morello fight when Nicky's Deadpan Snarker collides head on with Morello's personality. Pornstache attempts to resume drug distribution through Tricia; meanwhile, a "Scared Straight" program visits Litchfield and Bennett learns of Daya's pregnancy. In flashback, we see Tricia's life on the street and how Larry and Piper became a couple.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- An Arm and a Leg: The backstory of how Bennett lost his leg is discussed. A subversion of the trope, however, because he didn't lose it in the service or in any heroic, plot-leaping way. He lost it to an infection from a hot tub in the States.
- Break Them by Talking: Piper does this to one of the delinquents in the Scare 'Em Straight program. It's delivered with genuine compassion, which makes it all the more effective.Chapman: You know, I could tell you a lot of things that would scare you, Dina. I could tell you that I'm going to make you my prison bitch. I could tell you that I'm going to make you my house mouse, that I will have sex with you even if we don't have an emotional connection; that I'm going to do to you what the spring does with cherry trees, but in a prison way. (Pablo Neruda.) But why bother? You're too tough, right. Yeah, I know how easy it is to convince yourself that you're something you're not. I mean, you could do that on the outside. You can just keep moving, keep yourself so busy you don't have to face who you really are. But you're weak.
Dina: Back the fuck off me.
Chapman: I'm like you, Dina. I'm weak too. I can't get through this without somebody to touch, without somebody to love. Is that because sex numbs the pain, or is it because I'm some evil fuck monster? I don't know. But I do know that I was somebody before I came in here. I was somebody with a life that I chose for myself, and now... now it's just about getting through the day without crying. And I'm scared. I'm still scared. I'm scared that I'm not myself in here and I'm scared that I am. Other people aren't the scariest part of prison, Dina. It's coming face-to-face with who you really are. because once you're behind these walls there's nowhere to run, even if you could run. The truth catches up with you in here, Dina... and it's the truth that's going to make you her bitch. - Calling Your Orgasms: Piper tells Alex "she's coming" over and over during their sexual encounter.
- Cassandra Truth: Played for Laughs, as no one takes Claudette having a visitor seriously until she insists it to be the case.
- The Con: Vause convinces people to act as though Pennsatucky's Healing Hands are real. Piper then suggests she give a shot at Dina, the wheelchair-bound kid in the Scare 'Em Straight program. This lands Pennsatucky in the psych ward.
- Cure Your Gays: Invoked when Big Boo asks Pennsatucky to cure her lesbianism as part of Alex's Batman Gambit to make Pennsatucky suffer.
- A Death in the Limelight: Tricia.
- Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Dina, until Piper's brutal honesty about life in prison and a "helpful" intervention by Pennsatucky.
- Driven to Suicide: Tricia, when pressured to sell drugs by Mendez.
- Healing Hands: Alex convinces Pennsatucky that she has this power, as part of a Batman Gambit that ends with Pennsatucky sent to the Psych ward.
- Honor Before Reason: Tricia's MO. She refuses to be in debt to anyone, no matter what.
- Insistent Terminology: Piper assuring to Nicky and Morello that she's "not gay" and that she and Alex are "just old friends who are affectionate". Nicky and Morello don't buy it.
- Meet Cute: Polly and Pete asked their next-door neighbor, Larry, to house-sit for them whilst they were vacationing. One day, Piper stumbled in, having just been bit by a dog. Larry provided what hospitality he could, and offered her dinner, sending off multiple signals that he could be the sort of person to settle down with.
- Mood Whiplash: Mendez discovering Tricia's dead body is immediately preceded by a gag-heavy scene with the inmates and the kids.
- Situational Sexuality: Piper has an affair with Alex in prison. She later lampshades this to inmate Dina on a need for touch.
- Spexico: Morello remarking how Christoper wants their honeymoon to be in Madrid but all those enchiladas make her gassy.
- Sticky Fingers: Tricia steals. In an odd twist, we see her at a store, trying to pay for an item she stole two years ago. She pockets a necklace while trying to pay for the headphones.
- Title Drop: Morello says she's thinking about "Bora Bora Bora" as a honeymoon destination.
- Work Off the Debt: Mendez tries to use this to get Tricia to distribute drugs for him. It backfires.
