Orange is the New Black returns for a fourth season this Friday. The much-anticipated season will mark the return of familiar faces, while introducing new characters. In anticipation of June 17 -- the date Netflix will debut the fourth season -- below is a roundup of every spoiler you need to know.
1. Season 3 ended with a cliffhanger, leaving fans speculating about Alex Vause’s (Laura Prepon) fate. Alex is alive and well, but what transpired in the greenhouse with Kubra’s henchmen is still up in the air. Alex can be heard asking in a Season 4 promo: “Can you keep a secret?”
2. While Alex is alive, she will be fighting to remain alive in Season 4. In order to do so, the character will make unlikely alliances with several inmates, who will do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
3. In a recent interview with the U.K.'s Daily Express, actress Kate Mulgrew advised fans to “buckle their seatbelts” for Season 4. "There's a lot of laughs, but you must buckle your seatbelts, because she takes some very interesting turns,” said Mulgrew, who plays Red in the series. “It gets darker. It gets very dark. I think you will be very surprised, I think you will be wholeheartedly engaged, you will be riveted."
4. Actress Selenis Leyva, who plays Gloria Mendoza in the series, discussed what fans can expect from the new season with The Huffington Post. “I think [Season 4] is going to be one of the most talked about seasons,” Leyva said. “There’s a lot more conflict, there’s division amongst the groups more than ever. This is the season of the rise of the Latinas and there’s a lot of conflict within that.”
5. Things could become a bit dangerous at Litchfield, according to some hints from Leyva’s Huffington Post interview. “There’s a lot of danger lurking around the corner this season,” said Leyva. “My heart was beating fast for the six months we were shooting.”
6. Prison overcrowding will be a major theme in Season 4. In a trailer, one of the inmates is heard saying they, the inmates, are being packed in like “sardines.” "This season really drops in a totally different way," said Danielle Brooks, who plays Taystee, to Vogue. "The prison is becoming overpopulated. All the new inmates really add more tension, and believe me, it is tense."
7. With more prisoners come more guards. The teaser shows tons of new faces playing inexperienced guards. "They hate me, I hate them, our relationship is simple," says one of the male guards, who is getting stared down by Red, in a promo.
8. Red has always been a maternal figure in the drama-comedy and Season 4 will further explore that. TV Guide reports that Red’s devotion to her prison children will be tested when they make bad decisions.
9. The fourth season will feature less of Piper, according to show creator Jenji Kohan, and several new themes will be introduced, from politics to prison overcrowding. "We start with political agendas, the corporatization of the prison, the stratification of people into their little mosaic groups,” said Kohan at the 2016 Winter TCA Press Tour. “We want it to be a surprise, but [you can expect] all the fun stuff like race and hate and some things from current events that we wanted to filter through our lens."
10. Fans last saw Piper (Taylor Schilling) being a successful panty entrepreneur. "I've been in Litchfield for a while now, and I've started to feel unsafe lately,” says Piper in a promo, while being confronted by Maria Ruiz (Jessica Pimentel) elsewhere in the trailer.
11. Prepon has hinted that there is no shortage of stories to tell about Alex and Piper. "The Alex and Piper relationship is so awesome,” said Prepon to E! Online. “It's so tumultuous…they love each other a lot. It's this crazy relationship, there's never a dull moment. I don't know if two people like that could ever ride off into the sunset, but we'll see what happens in Season Four. There's no shortage of stories to tell."
12. Season 3 saw a budding relationship between Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren (Uzo Aduba) and Maureen Kukudio (Emily Althaus). According to TV Guide, the duo’s relationship “quickly takes a turn for the worse.”
13. Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) was raped by C.O. Coates (James McMenamin) while on van duty. Season 4 will explore her healing process as she copes with the trauma.
14. In Season 3, Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) had Pennsatucky’s back while she dealt with her rape. One for revenge, Big Boo encouraged her to get revenge by sodomizing Coates but Pennsatucky opted against it. The two friends will have their friendship tested, as they won’t see eye to eye on how to deal with what has happened.
15. Pennsatucky faked a seizure and got off van duty in Season 3 and her replacement is Maritza (Diane Guerrero). This leaves the character at risk, as she will be under direct supervision of C.O. Coates.
16. Viewers will get a look into the backstory of Martiza and Blanca (Laura Gomez). According to TVGuide, Blanca’s past will reveal exactly how strong she is.
17. Don’t hold your breath for a reconciliation between Daya (Dascha Polanco) and C.O. Bennett (Matt McGorry). “I would love to see that, but you have to be realistic,” said Polanco to Entertainment Weekly. “He walked out of her life and her main priority right now is figuring out how she can take care of her child.”
18. Bennett was not seen in any trailers, sneak peeks or promotional images. During the 2015 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour, McGorry addressed his character's departure with Extra, confirming that he could be back. “I think it’s always possible. He’s not dead – as far as I know,” said McGorry.
19. Daya’s situation gets complicated, as her daughter is being raised by her mother’s on-again-off-again boyfriend. By the end of Season 3, unbeknownst to Daya, her daughter’s guardian is arrested, suggesting her daughter’s fate is to end up in child services. “When you’re in jail, you have no control over your situation,” said Polanco. “It just gets more and more difficult for her.”
20. A promo shows Taystee behind a desk, where she is apparently the assistant for Caputo (Nick Sandow) and seems to struggle with the steep learning curve. According to TV Guide, this new position will give Taystee more privileges than Caputo anticipated.
21. Taystee will evolve this season, according to Brooks’ interview with Vogue last November. "We left off with Taystee being the mom, taking over this role that Vee was in," said Brooks in the interview. "We’re going to see how she deals with that."
22. Taystee’s prison family will welcome Abdullah, a Muslim inmate who will not see eye-to-eye with Cindy. Fans can recall Cindy converting to Judaism in Season 3 and changing her name to Tova.
23. Caputo will struggle to balance his life after being promoted to warden. The character will reportedly do something in Season 4 that will make viewers question his morality and how well they think they know him.
24. Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne) was nowhere to be found in the promo, but a previously released teaser showed Nichols, suggesting that her character will no longer be confined in Maximum Security and will finally return.
25. Luschek (Matt Peters) may have something to do with Nicky’s return, as his character will reportedly do everything in his ability to make up for throwing Nicky, metaphorically, under the bus when their heroin transaction went sour.
26. In Season 3, Morello (Yael Stone) gets married to Vinnie in a prison ceremony. The fourth season will show her trying to keep her marriage alive, says TV Guide, while keeping her bad habits at bay.
27. Fans watched Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox) get sent to SHU after a feud with Gloria (Selenis Leyva) over their sons and the fourth season starts off with her there. Cox previously divulged the fourth season sheds light onto how transgender inmates are treated in prisons. As for a reconciliation between the two characters, fans shouldn’t hold their breath. “I can’t imagine,” Cox told TV Guide. “As a viewer watching, seeing how much remorse Gloria has, I always like to believe there's a potential for forgiveness, but this is pretty bad. This is really, really bad.”
28. One of the new faces at Litchfield is that of cooking show host Judy King (Blair Brown). "I think a lot of people think, 'Oh, she cooks, so she's like Martha Stewart.' 'Oh, she Southern. She's like Paula Deen.' She's actually Judy King, a creation of Jenji [Kohan] and the writers," Brown told TV Guide. "She's a very interesting character, constantly surprising to me. Sometimes I get a script and I'm like 'I'm going to say that?'"
29. As for her character, King will have a cheery disposition and be morally ambiguous. "She's slightly appalling and very good, and very cheerful, and probably fairly amoral," said Brown. "And it's interesting to watch because she's so other than anybody else in prison.”
30. King’s biggest ally at Litchfield will be Poussey. But TV Guide notes that “Judy proves to be far more cunning than initially meets the eye.”
31. In other Poussey news, her relationship with Soso will “flourish” in Season 4.
Orange is the New Black Season 4 releases on Netflix on June 17.
