Spoilers ahead for Season 3 of “Orange Is the New Black” for those among us who’ve had better things to do than watch Netflix this past month. We don’t envy you.
By the end of Season 3, we’re left with a few cliffhangers. Among them:
1. Officer Bennett is nowhere to be found, having left Daya’s childhood crib that was gifted to him on the side of the road. Caputo assumes he’s quit; the Diaz women assume he’s abandoned his fiancée and unborn child.
2. Cesar’s home is raided by the DEA sometime after Bennett visits to meet his beloved’s family — or, at least, her siblings and her mother’s boyfriend.
The most cynical among us will assume that Bennett left to start a new life, disenchanted with his vision of his and Daya’s future together after visiting Cesar, et al., and seeing firsthand what passed for parenting in that household. (Recall threats of gun violence at the family dinner table.) Daya’s daughter is destined to a childhood of broken foster homes and sadness. Daya is heartbroken; she may never truly love again.
Or.
Consider Season 1, Episode 11, when Bennett confronts Daya about what they’re to do about her pregnancy. His uncle knows the warden, he offers, and might be able to help them out. Of course, nothing comes of that, and several inmates eventually concoct a plan to pin a rape on Officer Pornstache. But if Bennett has connections, one Redditor suggested, he might not have completely skipped town after all.
Maybe Bennett tipped off the DEA, orchestrating the raid on Cesar’s apartment in order to remove his daughter from that traumatic home — and possibly secure Daya’s siblings a better living situation. Maybe he’s been working behind the scenes all along, trying to figure out how he can live a happy, normal life with the woman he loves through — who knows? — well-placed bribes and pulled strings.
Too good to be true? Probably. We’re not totally sure Bennett has the leverage and werewithal to enact that kind of elaborate plan. His backstory showed him to be a ridiculous, booty-dancing coward who didn’t try to help when someone threw a grenade into his camp in Afghanistan, letting another soldier die to protect the platoon. And he initially misled Daya with the story of how he got the prosthetic leg.
But maybe he’s crafty and desperate enough to negotiate some kind of deal. Even if he didn’t use his uncle’s supposed connection — to a now former warden of Litchfield Penitentiary — he might know people simply by virtue of working at the prison. Or perhaps through his military service.
Otherwise, he’s just a deadbeat dad who ran out on his family and we’ll never see him in the series ever, ever again because he’s the absolute worst. For his part, Matt McGorry (who plays Officer Bennett) thinks fans are too hard on his character.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
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