We're still a few months out from third season of Orange Is the New Black, but apprehension for the next chapter in the Netflix prison dramedy is stirring. After a Season 1 that focused chiefly on a select few characters — Piper, Alex, Red, Nicky, Burset and a couple others — Season 2 expanded reach just a bit to highlight the backstory of a few more fan favorites. Lucky ones included Poussey, Morello, and Miss Rosa.
But there are still plenty other characters the show can explore in upcoming seasons. These beloved supporting players have rich backstories yet unseen, and the promise thereof is the most exciting prospect imaginable about another year in Litchfield.
Here are the top picks for untapped exploration in Season 3, and the questions we most want answered about them.
Image: Netflix
Boo
What we know about her: She’s caustic and abrasive, though fancies herself a bit of a romantic. She’s a dog lover.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in prison. Where the nickname came from.
Image: Netflix
Anita
What we know about her: She’s been a fixture of the “welcoming committee” for years now. She has had at least one heart attack.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in prison.
Image: Jessica Miglio for Netflix
Flaca
What we know about her: She likes The Smiths and Depeche Mode. Prison seems to be taking an especially big toll on her emotional state.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in prison. How she got that teardrop tattoo.
Image: Jessica Miglio for Netflix
Yoga Jones
What we know about her: She’s a sweet-natured hippie who teaches yoga and suggests a history of a drinking, and possibly drug, problems. She was arrested after the intoxicated accidental manslaughter of a young boy.
What we want to know about her: The demons she may have battled on the outside that contributed to her substance abuse.
Image: Netflix
Chang
What we know about her: Almost nothing, except that she’s got a vivid compassion that extends to almost all of her cellmates.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in prison. Her first name. Everything.
Image: Netflix
Maritza
What we know about her: She has a baby. She appears particularly hungry for affection and camaraderie, as proven by her jealousy of Daya’s relationship with Maritza’s adoptive mother Aleida and her friendship and physical experimentation with Flaca.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in prison. The circumstances behind her having a child.
Image: Netflix
Leanne
What we know about her: She’s a drug addict, and one who maintains her practical substance abuse while in prison. She’s naive and easily manipulated, but began coming into her own in Season 2. She likes to rap.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in prison. How she got into the world of drugs. If she grew up with religion or came to it as a means of recovery. How she, as an apparent non-New Yorker, wound up in Litchfield specifically.
Image: Netflix
Angie
What we know about her: Like Leanne, she’s a drug addict who has overcome her timid ways to gain a bit more agency. She, at one point, claimed to be Edward Pizzahands.
What we want to know about her: Pretty much everything we said about Leanne. At present, the two characters are nearly indistinguishable.
Image: Netflix
Soso
What we know about her: She’s an activist. She grew up rich. She never shuts up.
What we want to know about her: Just how much of what she says is rooted in objective reality. Whether or not she has a definitive psychological malady, or is just eccentric.
Image: Netflix
Gina
What we know about her: She’s in jail due to counts of embezzlement, and has a cloudy reputation for involvement with a man’s death. She is a devoted friend of Red and all those in Red’s circle.
What we want to know about her: Why she stole the money that landed her in jail. How much she really had to do with “the man who killed himself” (another, possibly related, incident that contributed to her incarceration). The beginnings of her friendship with Red.
Image: Jessica Miglio for Netflix
Flores
What we know about her: She puts on a “crazy” act to throw people off when she is chatting with her boyfriend on a secret cell phone.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in prison. Who she is in general, and what her (sustained) relationship with her boyfriend Diablo is like.
Image: Netflix
Norma
What we know about her: She has been in prison longer even than Red. She knows how to create arsenic. She doesn’t speak.
What we want to know about her: How she wound up in jail, sure, yeah, but mainly why she doesn’t speak!
Image: Netflix
