7 Orange Is the New Black Characters Who Got Flashbacks in Season 4

Brook Soso's season four flashback shows her early on in her activism career. Brook is one of many volunteers who are petitioning against the building of a Walmart. Among the volunteers is Brook's ex-boyfriend. The ex taunts Brook and bets that she won't be able to obtain the signature of a local pedophile. Brook accepts the challenge with gusto. She makes her way to his house she even goes inside. It turns out, the man is not a pedophile at all. His crime was that he had sex in public with his girlfriend. However, by law, he has to tell people he's a sex offender, which is why the pedophile rumors started. He eventually signs the petition.

Brook returns to the group triumphantly. When her ex pushes her on the details, instead of telling the truth, she lies and continues to perpetuate the pedophile rumors.

From relative obscurity, Maria Ruiz rises to prominence in season four. She quickly becomes the leader of the Dominican gang, and her backstory shows exactly why.

Maria's flashback shows her being part of the gang culture from a very young age. Her father, a gang leader himself, appears to be her primary caretaker. As she gets older, Maria becomes more disparaging of the Dominican gang activity and her father's involvement. She's frustrated with having to live with it every day. Maria confronts her father, which doesn't go well. She ends up leaving home and falling in love with a criminal outside of her father's organization.

This season, we learn that Maritza Ramos used to work as a waitress in a club. She used to scam customers by putting water in vodka bottles, tripping while delivering the bottle, guilting men into paying for it, then pocketing the cash. While running these little scams in the club, she meets a man who takes her scam game up a level. He takes her to a luxury car dealership where he tells her to find an older, wealthy man, take his ID, and steal the car in his name. Maritza quickly finds her mark — an older man named Edward Spencer. However, just as she's about to drive away, one of the sales guys joins her and Spencer. During the test drive, the salesman asks questions about their relationship, and it quickly becomes evident that Maritza is scamming Spencer. In a fit of desperation, Maritza feigns illness. Both men step out the car to check if she's alright and in that brief second, she runs back into the car and drives away.

Finally! A flashback for Blanca Flores. In her pre-Litchfield life, Blanca was an in-home caretaker for a wealthy, elderly woman named Millie. Millie is rude, disrespectful, and treats Blanca like a servant. Millie hires a new gardener, and Blanca falls for him. That gardener's name? Diablo. The same Diablo that Blanca had been calling on her secret cell phone in season one. As soon as Millie finds out that Blanca and Diablo are good friends, she fires Diablo, citing that he distracted Blanca from doing her job. To get revenge on Millie, Blanca and Diablo have sex in front of her and she can't do anything about it.

The next day, Millie is much nicer to Blanca.

Lolly Whitehill's story is a tragic one. Her psychosis started to emerge when she was working as a journalist in her 20s. Her mental illness worsened. She left her job. Her friend tried to put her in a home, but she ran away. Lolly eventually became homeless and was unable to control her psychosis. She was arrested for confronting a couple of police officers.

Season four finally reveals why Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren is in prison. Before Litchfield, Warren worked as a greeter at a large superstore. She has a heart of gold but, unfortunately, is unable to judge other people's emotions. When her sister leaves her alone for the weekend, Suzanne goes to the park and sees a young boy whose family comes into the superstore. She invites him to her apartment and they play video games and eat snacks. Everything is fine (except for the kidnapping part) until the boy wants to leave. Warren becomes upset and confused. She chases the boy around the apartment and out of the window, where he falls to his death.

We're still not over Poussey. Hers is not so much a flashback as it is a tribute. The last episode of season four follows Washington as she experiences one of the most memorable nights of her short life. From seeing an awful Roots cover band to making friends with drag queens to riding on bikes with fake monks, there's no sadness here. There's no crime, no troubled upbringing, nothing that's typical for a flashback. This is just Poussey, living life.