Lorna's Ending On 'OITNB' Revealed A Lot About the Character's Heartbreaking Past

For a while, Lorna was a pretty mysterious character on Orange is the New Black. For the whole first season, the audience knew very little about her past; her most standout traits were that she wore red lipstick, had a strong accent, and was engaged to a man named Christopher. But all that changed in the second season, when the audience saw her earlier life in a flashback and learned her engagement was actually a delusion. After the truth about Lorna was revealed, the audience saw her mental health slowly decline more and more, and Lorna's ending on Orange is the New Black revealed a lot about her heartbreaking past. Warning: Spoilers for Season 7 of Orange is the New Black follow.

By the time Lorna reached Season 7, she finally made one of her delusions a reality: She had gotten married, and she had given birth to baby. At the beginning of Season 7, it seemed like the character could be headed for a happy ending, even after all the lies she'd told herself. However, that all broke down when Lorna's baby died, and she became unable to face that reality. She kept up an Instagram account for her late son using photos of other babies pulled from the Internet. Her husband, Vinnie, asked for a divorce after Lorna's delusions about their family continued. And it all proved to be too much for Lorna, who lost her grasp on reality.

Yael Stone, who played Lorna, talked to The Hollywood Reporter about her character's sad ending. She said:

There are some positive stories in this season but Lorna’s isn’t one of them. And, in some ways, Lorna was very unlikely to be one of them because she was never able to be honest with herself in a long-term way. She had a flicker, a little moment with Nicky mainly, where things felt real and good. But when you can’t face your truth and know yourself, it’s hard for good things to happen.

In the same Season 7 episode that showed Lorna breaking with reality, the audience also saw a flashback of Lorna in her time before prison. In that flashback, Lorna stood in the middle of the road and accidentally caused a couple to have a car accident and die. She was unable to face what she did and spent the rest of the night wandering and pushing the memory out of her brain. Stone said:

[Her flashback] was like dropping into a mineshaft of understanding just how deep and scary things had been, and how many layers she had built on top to become that person we met in season one. She had to build a lot of lies and fantasy to present the way she did.

By the very end of the series, Lorna was broken down by all her experiences. She'd lost a lot of personality and continued to live with the delusion that she still had a family. There was one glimmer of hope for Lorna, though: She still had Red (Kate Mulgrew) to comfort her. The last time audiences saw Lorna, she had her head in Red's lap as Red sang to her.

"They’re abandoned," Stone said. "They’re out there in the ether holding onto each other as they beam into space."

You can watch all of Season 7 of Orange is the New Black on Netflix now.