Orange is the New Black season 2 premiered in the early hours of Friday on Netflix. So, how’s the first episode of the season?

Spoiler warning! Our Orange is the New Black season 2 recap breaks down the events of the premiere episode.

Episode 1 takes us almost completely out of Litchfield for the entire episode. The premiere is titled “Thirsty Bird” and kicks off with Piper in solitary confinement where she appears to have gone a tad crazy. Actually, upon further inspection, this is the same old Piper we know and love. She gets whisked away by heartless but horny security guards who are sending her off to an unknown location via an airplane.

Piper can’t stop asking about where she’s going (hasn’t she learned anything about asking questions in prison?), and to make matters worse she has to pee really bad. Guards creepily watch her relieve herself and there’s a funny moment where Piper is told to pee faster.

Now that the physical pain is out of the way, the emotional pain begins when her plane seat mate Lolly asks what she did to get her on board this flight. Piper breaks down while retelling her attack on Pennsatucky, in part because she doesn’t know if her enemy lived or died.

A few hours later they arrive in Chicago where they’re booked at the Metropolitan Detention Center. One big difference between this prison and Litchfield is that there are male inmates here too.

Upon entering her new cell she accidentally steps on a roach named Yoda who the female inmates took very seriously. She has to find a new one or get them 400 stamps by the end of the week – or else. Piper spends the remainder of this episode skeptical of the seriousness of these inmates. She wonders if they really are that hung up over a creepy bug.

After leaving a voice mail for Larry in which she asks that his father help get her out of there, Piper spots Alex outside. She quickly pays off one of the male inmates to find out what cell Alex is in.

She quickly gets her answer and goes straight to it. Alex confirms to Piper that “Tucky” is still alive, but she screwed her up pretty good. Alex also reveals that they’re in Chicago for Kubra’s trial – beginning at any minute – because he’s been extradited. Alex says they have to lie about Kubra to protect themselves, but Piper isn’t thrilled about lying under oath. Alex pleads with her to be dishonest for their own good.

On the stand, after catching a glimpse of her former (?) flame looking distraught, Piper describes Alex as the love of her life in 2003. She decides to lie, and says to the prosecutor that she was never introduced to Kubra, Alex’s drug-ringer boss, because her girlfriend was the only person she paid attention to. “Everything else was background,” she explains when reminded she’s speaking under oath.

Then the ultimate backstab occurs: Alex decides to tell the truth on the stand and it seemingly gets her out of prison. As for why she got let go? We don’t find out this episode, but Piper is livid.

Elsewhere in the episode, one of Piper’s new inmates Mazall is eager to know more about Piper’s birth. She’s obsessed with astrological signs, and they’re both Gemini. At one point she climbs on top of Piper in the middle of her sleep and begs her to reveal exactly what time she was born. This girl is crazy.

In a flashback we’re introduced to Piper during grade school, and we learn that she struggled with hard issues at an early age. She catches her dad kissing a woman who’s not his wife outside a movie theater. She tells her mother, who doesn’t outwardly react and instead grounds young Piper for seeing an R-rated movie. Piper then tells her grandmother, who advises her that she should’ve stayed quiet about the cheating because sometimes life’s “about making a choice that will cause the least amount of pain to others,” and “living with your secrets.” That’s some wise advise that Piper remembered when contemplating what to do during the Kubra trial. Unfortunately, it backfired when applying it to Alex.

Your ‘OITNB’ season 2 recap: What did you think of the premiere?

And if you’ve already watched several episodes, how do you think the season is panning out on a whole?

We were pleasantly surprised that the premiere took us out of Litchfield and brought us to an entirely new location – it was a refreshing way to shake up the start of the new series while still keep the signature drama and dirty humor. Even though we saw only two of season 1’s regulars, you can bet that future episodes will bring back your favorites in full force.