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Kentucky State Women's Prison
Penny
Penny Cole
Played By: Danielle Panabaker
A prisoner at the Kentucky State Women's Prison that Ava Crowder is transferred to.
- Character Death: She's shanked on Gretchen Swift's orders.
- Extreme Doormat: Seems to just roll over for whoever is scariest at the moment.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted. Penny became pregnant after Judith compelled her to have sex with prison guards in exchange for drugs. Judith later forced her to abort the pregnancy.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Her role in Judith's gang is to have sex with prison guards in exchange for drug shipments.
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Alternative Character Interpretation: Except that she sets up Ava to be the new "hooker" without telling her.
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- Revenge: Why she helps Ava to kill Judith.
- Sacrificial Lion: While Penny isn't exactly a good character, her trials and tribulations make her sympathetic. When one of Gretchen's followers murders her in "Starvation", it indicates that Gretchen is playing for keeps in her prison rivalry with Ava.
Judith
Judith
Played By: Dale Dickey
A prisoner who controls the flow of drugs into the prison. She offers protection to Ava in exchange for help with the drug trade.
- Badass Preacher: She preaches a strange subset of Christianity that seems specific to her own beliefs.
- Bad Boss: She compels Penny to have sex with prison guards in exchange for drugs, and forces her to abort the resulting pregnancies.
- Character Death: Ava is ordered to kill her by Rowena, but relents and confesses to Judith...who then tries to kill her. Ava ends up shanking her to death in the ensuing struggle.
- Cult: Runs a "mother goddess" cult.
- Evil Old Folks: Judith is a tough old lady.
- Evil Redhead: Despite being in her old age, she still has bright red hair. Her status as 'evil' is hardly up for debate considering she's a drug-smuggler and makes veiled threats toward Ava.
- Hypocrite: She preaches against drug use, but controls the flow of drugs into the prison. She preaches against crime and promiscuity, but runs the prison drug trade and recruits women to have sex with guards in exchange for smuggled drugs.
- I Did What I Had to Do: She secures drugs for the prison population in order to keep other prisoners from harming her and her gang. She's angry when she suspects that Ava endangered her drug pipeline, and by extension the lives of her women.
- Klingon Promotion: After Ava kills Judith, Judith's followers elect Ava as their new leader.
- Must Have Nicotine: Judith is a pretty heavy smoker.
- Never Mess with Granny: She has survived numerous attacks in prison. Being a lifelong criminal, she's survived to old age by virtue of being a tough old bird. She puts cigarettes out in her palms and shows Ava her collection of scars.
- Preacher Woman: She's first seen standing above her 'followers' preaching about God.
- Straw Feminist: Subverted. Judith worships a goddess and frowns on dependence on men, but she's not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. She has no qualms about exploiting other women, pimping Penny out to prison guards, then forcing Penny to terminate a pregnancy.
Gretchen
Gretchen Swift
Played By: Casey McCarthy
The leader of a neo-Nazi prison gang. Gunnar Swift's sister.
- Alpha Bitch: A particularly vicious example of this trope.
- The Bully: To Ava.
- The Family That Slays Together: It seems that all Swifts are violent, racist criminals.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Boyd threatens to brutalize her brother Gunnar if she allows any further harm to come to Ava in prison. It has the opposite effect, however. In "Starvation", Gretchen retaliates against Ava's gang to avenge her brother.
- Jerkass: You don't become the leader of a Neo-Nazi gang through your ability to make friends.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: She leads a Neo-Nazi gang in prison, and holds a special hatred for 'race traitors'.
- Tattooed Crook: Like her brother, she has plenty of Neo-Nazi tattoos.
- Those Wacky Nazis: She leads a Neo-Nazi prison gang.
- Woman Child: She acts like a catty high school girl.
Nikki
Nikki
Played By: Heather Olt
A prisoner at the Kentucky State Women's Prison that Ava Crowder is transferred to.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She comes across as pretty tough when Ava first meets her, but within a few seconds it's clear that her golden rule is 'don't mess with her, she won't mess with you'. Out of all the prisoners seen so far, she's perhaps the most straight-up.
Rowena
Rowena
Played By: Deidrie Henry
A corrupt nurse with ties to the prison drug trade.
- Jerkass: She might be a nurse, but she's still cold and manipulative.
- Manipulative Bastard: She fully exploits her leverage with Ava and Boyd. She agreed to supply Ava with drugs in exchange for Boyd killing the man who murdered her partner, and for Ava killing Judith.
- Pet the Dog: When Ava ends up in solitary confinement, Rowena speaks honestly with Ava about her options while treating Ava's dislocated shoulder.
- Revenge: She promises to bring Ava drugs for the prison drug trade in exchange for Boyd killing the man who murdered her partner.
