All the Scoop About Orange Is the New Black's "Intense" Season 5 Straight From the Cast

Taylor Schilling, Laverne Cox, Uzo Aduba and more of the cast spilled the beans on what's to come

By Chris Harnick Jan 30, 2017 7:43 PMTags
Watch: Uzo and Taylor Tease "Orange Is the New Black" Season 5

Orange Is the New Black season four ended with quite a cliffhanger and the notoriously tight-lipped cast is finally spilling (some of) the beans on what's ahead in the upcoming fifth season.

In case you forgot, season four ended (spoiler alert) with the death of Poussey (Samira Wiley), followed by a prison riot. The show ended with Daya (Dascha Polanco) picking up a guard's gun and pointing it at him, with all factions of the prisoners converging on the moment.

Danielle Brooks started things off by revealing to E! News that the entire fifth season will take place over the course of three days.

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"I think the stakes are higher in this season than they have been in a while just by virtue of the compressed time and seeing people in compressed circumstance really raises the stakes. It's exciting to watch, I think for all of us," Taylor Schilling told E! News' Zuri Hall after the cast won the Comedy Ensemble award at the 2017 SAG Awards.

Laverne Cox, who is returning to OITNB as Sophia and starring opposite Katherine Heigl in the new CBS series Doubt, said she was just as excited as fans were to find out what happens next. Sophia was put into the SHU at the end of season three and struggled with the solitary confinement in season four, she went to drastic measures for attention and in an effort to get out. She eventually did, but was put through some emotional torment in the process.

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"It's really, really good," Cox told us about the new season. "What I can tell you is that I was just as excited as all the fans were to see what happens next. When I read it, it was incredible, when we shot it, it was…intense. It's really, really intense. It manages…as intense as it all is, it still manages to have an irreverence and a spin that is funny and thoughtful."

Uzo Aduba, Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren on the hit dramedy, said answers will be given.

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"You can expect Jenji [Kohan] will…she will answer a lot of unresolved questions that season four left you with," Aduba teased.

Is there any chance we'll see Wiley's Poussey Washington again? Maybe in flashbacks?

"You know what, from your mouth to god's ears," Wiley, who is now part of the cast of Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, said.

"In my mind, in Norma's mind, she will comfort Brook and say, ‘Remember when…," Annie Golden, Norma on the series, joked with Kimiko Glenn, who plays Poussey's girlfriend Brook Soso.

You're not going to have to wait to find out if Netflix will bring you more tales from inside Litchfield—the show was renewed through season seven already with creator Jenji Kohan on board for the ride.

No premiere date for Orange Is the New Black season five has been announced, but you can expect it during the summer of 2017.

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