Refresh Your Memory On What Really Went Down With Piscatella In 'OITNB' Season 5
The upcoming sixth season of Orange Is the New Black is going to look a whole lot different from the first five seasons. Season 5 ended in all of the Litchfield inmates being loaded onto buses headed to a maximum security prison after the prisoners staged a days-long riot. In the end, an armed Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) team breaks up the prison riot, but Corrections Officer Desi Piscatella is killed in the process. That death is going to be a big deal in Season 6, so let's refresh your memory on who killed Piscatella on Orange Is the New Black before you jump into the new season.
Throughout the fifth season of Orange Is the New Black, CO Piscatella and Red engage in a heated, cat-and-mouse game. After Red inadvertently gets high on pills, she researches Piscatella's past and goads him into breaking into the inmate-controlled Litchfield Penitentiary by pretending to be a fellow CO on the phone. Red discovers that Piscatella was transferred to Litchfield after killing an inmate at an all-male maximum security prison, who had discovered that he was having a secret sexual relationship with another inmate. Piscatella and Red already had a contentious relationship in the previous season, and in Season 5, that reaches a fever pitch. Red continually tries to lure Piscatella into Litchfield in order to fight him, but Piscatella is unable to get clearance due to the higher-ups not allowing guards to enter the prison during the riot.
Finally, Piscatella stages a stealthy break-in by himself, and begins to kidnap the inmates closest to Red one by one, keeping them bound and gagged in a closet. At last, he captures Red as well, and attempts to humiliate her in front of her "family" by violently chopping off her hair at the scalp. What Piscatella did not know, though, is that the closet he was keeping Red's girls in connects to the secret underground pool that survivalist Frieda had turned into her hidden bunker when the riot broke out. Frieda heard Piscatella's torture and covertly fired a poisoned dart at him to knock him out.
Red, Frieda, and the rest of the inmates then tie Piscatella to a chair in Frieda's bunker and try to decide what to do with him. Obviously, Red wants to exact her revenge on him, but the other women are able to talk her down. However, when Taystee finds the bunker, she immediately grabs Frieda's gun and points it at Piscatella, enraged that he was responsible for Poussey's death. But Taystee becomes overcome with grief and drops the gun, and the inmates agree to let Piscatella go after he promises to leave Litchfield without interacting with anyone.
By the time that the inmates let Piscatella go, the CERT team has just begun their infiltration of the prison. The armed team of novice officers begins rounding up all of the prisoners and taking them outside, where they are ushered onto buses headed for different maximum security prisons. Piscatella runs into a group of these CERT officers in the hallway, but one of the officers (named Natoli) quickly fires his gun at the sight of Piscatella, instantly killing him.
And that is the last we see of Piscatella... which does not exactly leave things on a great note for Season 6. Though he is gone now, Piscatella's shadow is going to loom large over the new season, as the news of his murder during the end of the prison riot comes to light. Only the few CERT officers in the hallway saw Natoli kill Piscatella, so they can easily cover up the murder or pass the blame onto one of the inmates if they choose to. We will find out what becomes of the murder when Orange Is the New Black Season 6 premieres on Netflix on July 27.
