Orange Is The New Black is known for its dark humor, incredible poignance, and storylines full of meaning and depth across all seven of its seasons. We’ve seen them deal with just about every issue we can think of with surprising accuracy and a long, overarching storyline that (pretty much) makes perfect sense.
However, there are a few moments that don’t quite add up lurking around the show's many corners. From major plot holes to minor filming mistakes, here are ten continuity errors you might have missed in Orange Is The New Black.
Linda’s Entire Time In Lichfield
At the start of the riot, Linda Ferguson accidentally got caught up in it and became an ‘inmate’ of sorts, forging a relationship with Big Boo and eventually giving up on trying to convince everyone otherwise.
Firstly, surely someone would have realized that they didn’t recognize her as an inmate they live in such close proximity to? Then there’s the inmate count. Despite counting the number of people who are supposed to be in the prison, they count ten and include Linda as an actual inmate. However, while ten people were in the pool, Pennsatucky and Chang weren’t there either. Doesn’t really add up, does it?
Bayley’s Name Seems To Change
We aren’t big fans of CO Bayley, seeing as he is the one who ends up killing the beloved Poussey. In season 3, his uniform seems to label him as C. Bayley. Surely you’d assume that means his name begins with C. Maybe Charles? He looks like a Charles. But we already know his first name is Baxter.
Did the costume department forget or just not get told he’d been given a name yet? By the time his role expanded, it seems they found the time to correct it, as it says B. Bayley in season 4.
And So Does McCullough’s
This is basically the exact same mistake as above. Back in season 5, McCullough reveals that her name is Artesian. It’s a pretty uncommon name by anyone’s standards, but apparently not notable enough for the wardrobe department to keep it in mind when putting together her outfit.
In season 6, it says B. McCullough on her uniform. Unless she’s so embarrassed by her unique name that she hides it from as many people as possible, it doesn’t really make much sense why her uniform is trying to imply something different than what she has said herself.
Pennsatucky’s Repeating Alarms
Pennsatucky wasn’t known for being the cleverest of OITNB characters, even if she did end up finally passing her GED exam at the end of season 7. However, this continuity error sees her set the same 10-minute phone timer twice, back to back, during season 6.
Like a few on this list, it doesn’t exactly have a major impact on the story, but having enough care to see that the timer was set in the previous shot and therefore doesn’t need to be done again in the next could have helped everything remain a little more believable. It’s not exactly a subtle, well-hidden moment either.
No More Glasses
Caputo is seen throughout the show, both with and without glasses. Typically, he’ll have a lot of time between each scene, during which he could definitely have taken them on or put them off. Interestingly, during the press conference in ‘Toast Can Never Be Bread Again’ (arguably the best episode in the entire series), he is wearing his glasses.
The camera changes angle, and they’re gone. Did they fall off with some seriously impressive, gravity-defying speed? Probably not. This is another example of the producers not keeping a close enough eye on the continuity between scenes.
There Are Quite A Few Jumbled Timelines
It isn’t particularly clear when Orange Is The New Black is actually set. While the events of the book come from 2003, the show begins in 2013. There are a fair few things that support that, but then a couple that makes everything pretty unclear.
For example, at the start of season 5, one of the guards directly references a 2015 shooting that happened in real life. Piper’s entire time locked up totals just 13 months, so even if it was January 1st when Piper first entered Lichfield, the absolute latest it could be is February 1st 2014 that she was finally released. Can this man see the future? Is OITNB secretly a crazily subtle time-travel sci-fi?
Piper’s Early Morning Double Goof
In season 7’s ‘The Big House,’ Piper is lying in bed with messy hair and without earrings after a big night out. We're treated to a quick flashback, and when the scene returns to Piper, her hair is neater, and she has huge earrings on. Technically she could have had a moment to get ready during the flashback, but the earrings are a bit much.
Either way, it turns out she is actually just wearing one earring that keeps switching sides. Why didn’t she just leave it on when filming rather than changing it when they changed scene? Strange.
Can Piper Pay With Check?
Early in season 7, we find out that Piper isn’t allowed to use a check to pay and can only rely on cash or card. She is out on probation after all, so that all seems pretty fair. Who uses checks these days anyway?
A few episodes later, however, Piper is preparing for her fancy night out in her new rehabilitated life and makes a payment with a check. She’s still on parole, so we can assume none of her rules have changed yet, so the writers should have definitely make sure to have kept an eye on the rules they had implemented themselves.
Frieda's Supplies
One of the biggest mysteries in the entire show is where on earth Frieda Berlin is getting all of her supplies. We all know she is a massive hoarder, and her bunk shows everything she has collected over the years. However, it is also revealed that she has a huge bunker full of food and supplies that no one has ever found.
We have a lot of questions about it. Where is she getting so much stuff? How has no guard ever accidentally stumbled upon this area of the prison? How is she getting there so frequently without a guard ever questioning where she’s going?
Cindy’s Birthday
Cindy is played by the lovely Adrienne C Moore, who is (at the time of writing) not even 40. Late in season 7, we end up seeing a card that states her date of birth to be 1970. That would make her almost 50. This makes absolutely no sense because Cindy neither looks nor sounds nor acts anywhere near that old.
Plus, if the rest of the show is anything to go by, she is in her mid-30s anyway. They should have kept an eye on their own lore a bit more when designing this particular prop.