Now that Season 6 of Orange Is The New Black has come out, all I see are people claiming that they the writers abandoned the timeline or that the timeline has jumped to 2018. I don't understand how people came to that conclusion because that's simply not the case. I think there's a misunderstanding here! Events and movements that are current in the year 2018 have been added to the show to get people talking about them. That doesn't mean that the show has suddenly jumped that far! It's fiction, after all! They just wanted to place current events into the show. There's no way the timeline could have jumped that far and the following is why! First, I'll start with the timeline from the beginning through Season 5 and explain how Season 6's timeline works.
The show started when Piper Chapman surrendered to Litchfield Minimum Security Prison in September of 2013 and lasted through to December of 2013 at Christmas time in Season 1. Season 2 began in January of 2014 when Piper was transferred to a prison in Chicago, along with Alex, to testify in Kubra's trial, in which Alex walked. The season lasts until April of 2014. We pick up in Season 3 in May of 2014 when Alex violates parole and ends up back at Litchfield, followed by Mother's Day. This lasts until August of 2014 with Lorna getting married to Vinnie, the inmates running to the river through a hole in the fence, and Judy King surrendering. Season 4 picks up later that same month when many inmates are transferred to Litchfield and Piscatella is brought up from Max to take care of things. It ends in September of 2014, now a full year that Piper has been there. Poussey is killed and soon after, a riot ensues, leading to Season 5, still in September, and takes place over a three day period. After the riot ends, many inmates are put on buses going to separate places while the CERT team storms the underground bunker for the remaining inmates.
Now we come to Season 6, which picks up a week after the riot and we are shown the consequences that the inmates are now faced with. Many have been brought over to Max, while we learn that the other buses took other inmates to a prison in Ohio and possibly another one as well. We found out in Season 5 that Lorna was officially pregnant and that she likely conceived shortly after her wedding day in August when she and Vinny were able to consummate the marriage. Season 6 ends in February of 2015, when we learn Lorna is now 7 months pregnant and is looked to go into premature labor. Meanwhile, Carol and Barb kill each other, Maria saves the kickball game from becoming an unnecessary massacre, Taystee is wrongfully convicted of Piscatella's murder, Sophia and Piper get out of prison, and Blanca is unfortunately handed over to ICE, to most likely get deported.
Taystee's trial brings in the Black Lives Matter movement while Blanca's story reflects deportations during the current administration. Yes, those things are more current and weren't as talked about back in February of 2015, but they are of important cultural significance, which the creator and writers of the show wanted to address. I believe that may be what people meant by the timeline jumping to 2018, which is does not literally do.
If we leave off with the end of Season 5's riot in September, 2014 and go from there, a lot of things wouldn't make sense if it was suddenly 2018. First of all, Lorna would long be over pregnancy, and should the child live, the child would be well over three years old by now. Not to mention, several inmates would be out of Litchfield by then and I doubt Taystee's trial would be that long. Again, there is no way the time has jumped to 2018. As for Season 7 when it comes out next year, I could see them going with a time jump to the current times as the season rolls on. I will say this one more time. The timeline did not jump to 2018, nor was it abandoned. They just wanted to tie current events into the show to make political statements. We left off in February of 2015 and that's the end of the story!
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