Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett (portrayed by Taryn Manning)–also known as “Hick” (Alex Vause), “tweakhead” (Janae Watson), “crazy fuckin’ hillbilly” (Piper Chapman), and “Forrest Gump” (Black Cindy–was sentenced to prison for manslaughter after a nurse at an abortion clinic commented on the amount of abortions she has had: “number five, huh? We should give you a punch card. Give you the sixth one free.” Tiffany takes a shot-gun and goes back into the clinic to kill the woman for “disrespect[ing]” her. In Litchfield Penitentiary, Pennsatucky is appointed van duty in season three after Lorna Morello lets Miss Rosa escape in the season two finale.
As a young girl, Pennsatucky grew up in a single-parent working-class home with her younger brother. Her mother hops Pennsatucky up on sugar to make it seem as though she has behavioral issues, which will persuade social security to give her more money to raise her. When she gets her period at age ten, her mother is surprised. She is given a half-assed and pessimistic version of “the birds and the bees” that teaches her hardly anything about sexual reproduction. Instead, she is advised to let boys “do their business” and hope for it to be done quickly.
“Now you’re like a case of pop. You’ve got value.” – Pennsatucky’s mom
In her teenage years, Pennsatucky begins virtually selling her body, allowing her peers to have sex with her in exchange for six-packs of Mountain Dew, which inhibited her from developing deep emotional connections with her peers of the opposite sex. When Nathan, the new boy in town, asks her out on a date, she asks what she has to do in return for a dinner and a movie; however, such is not the case. She falls in love with him just before he’s uprooted and removed from her life, leaving her vulnerable to her first on-screen rape. We can assume that this behavior directly led her to murdering the abortion clinic nurse, and thus her need to “defend the unborn” as a part of her act which allows her to get less time in jail.
We first focus in on Pennsatucky when she is haranguing the woman in charge of faith services about hanging a cross in the chapel. She begins faith healing and claims that God is speaking to her, and she makes it her personal mission to condemn the lesbians.
While in the laundry room, Pennsatucky responds to fan mail that she started receiving from the publicity of her trial: “I pray for all the dead babies, and all their dead baby souls. And God, he’s gotta let them into Heaven even though they weren’t baptized.” Her false religious convictions earn her the respect of Leanne Taylor and Angie Rice.
The culminating fight between Pennsatucky and Piper Chapman is over the fact that Piper promises to pray and find God to cure her “lesbianness,” and then backs out of her agreement to be baptized, which is an act of disrespect in Pennsatucky’s eyes. Season one ends with the two fighting in the yard during the Christmas pageant; in an act of fear, Piper knocks out Pennsatucky and her teeth.
We learn that Pennsatucky was in the SHU for a month because she was suspected of hitting Piper back. In a meeting with counselor Sam Healy, she says that she’s never felt “saner” in her life, and that the SHU purified her. Because Counselor Healy is responsible for the fight, given he didn’t go outside to check up on them, Pennsatucky attempts to blackmail Healy. In order to assuage her, Healy gets her a set of new teeth. Since a new set of chompers is what she’s wanted all along, she is officially off of Piper’s back and overall a more positive person.
The new teeth put a rift between her and her followers, however. Her month in SHU has given Leanne and Angie the time to discover that it’s been more peaceful without Pennsatucky around. While Pennsatucky says that they are just jealous because “I’m kind of pretty now and you’re not,” the girls claim otherwise. Upset about the split from her posse, she goes outside to sit next to Counselor Healy during the Valentine’s Day dance. They split a heart cookie, and Healy consoles her, which fosters a friendship between the two.
We discover that Pennsatucky’s anger issues run parallel to Healy’s, and so he offers her counseling so she can “turn over a new leaf.” Their involvement eventually evolves into the “Safe Place” therapy group, which she helps him with until Super Storm Wanda hits and Pennsatucky realizes that Healy is a misogynist. This pushes her into Big Boo‘s “gay agenda-embracing” arms and she decides to “fight the man” and get a “dyke” haircut.
Season three brings Pennsatucky a peculiar sense of regret toward all of her unborn babies. While all of the other mothers are celebrating with their children, Pennsatucky makes a shrine to all of her unborn babies and “feeds” them all with cap shots of Mountain Dew.
Pennsatucky and Big Boo‘s friendship that germinated during Hurricane Wanda continues to blossom in the third season. The two often talk and share commissary snacks with each other, which leads Boo to discover that Pennsatucky’s mother never emphasized the importance of brushing one’s teeth. Even more alarmingly, she believes that her new porcelain teeth need no brushing at all.
Despite the fact that Pennsatucky has nearly renounced her faith charade altogether, she continues to accept donations from her Evangelical followers, though she does begin to feel guilty about it. However, when she reveals the reason for her imprisonment to Boo, she encourages Pennsatucky to continue to leach off of the hypocritical teet.
When her van duty begins, she warily develops a friendship with C.O. Charlie Coates, a new prison guard hired by the MCC. Seeing as he is not keen on the rules, she teaches him all the rules of van duty; however, the begin breaking rules to spend more time with each other, pick up donuts, and feed the ducks, which causes C.O. Coates to begin showing his manipulative side.
After encouraging Pennsatucky to fetch donuts like a dog, Coates forces her up against a tree to kiss her, which she initially resists because it is inappropriate; however, when he apologizes, she brushes it off because he’s just being “assertive with [his] inmates like I taught you.”
Since Pennsatucky had been bringing her left-over donuts to Big Boo, she realizes that something is wrong, leading her to discover the cheap 99-cent bracelet and awful bruises that Coates leaves her, which keep her feeling indebted to him. Despite the fact that Boo tries convincing Pennsatucky that she is being abused, she obstinately denies it. However, when Pennsatucky is approached by Boo for sex in exchange for what she’d call a “shit-load of commissary,” she finally breaks down and admits to being raped.
The two contemplate telling Caputo because George “Pornstache” Mendez was arrested and marched out of Litchfield; however, this only occurred because Daya purportedly got pregnant from this transgression. Instead, she is forced into silence in fear of being sent to the SHU, but Big Boo will simply not allow her to stand around idle. They plan to use animal tranquilizers that Boo lifted when she was in the puppy program to knock out Coates and then “rape him back” with a broom handle.
Although they are pumped about their revenge, when they get him into the laundry room, neither of them can bring themselves to defile Coates, no matter how disgusting he is. In discussing their inability later on, they decide that they feel good about not getting revenge on him, but Pennsatucky still is endangered by him. Thus, they decide to use one of the remaining tranquilizers to help induce a seizure when Pennsatucky is driving, which renders her fit for driving.
While Pennsatucky is saved from van duty, she and Big Boo discover that Maritza Ramos has now been appointed to her job, which unfortunately will put her in the same position.
Season 4 pictures Pennsatucky avoiding C.O. Coates in his attempts to win her back, for she is still deeply suffering from being raped. However, her pain doesn’t prevent her from looking out for Maritza, who she fears is suffering Coates’ desires. Although Maritza entirely misunderstands her attempts at checking in on her, Pennsatucky continues to pry on one of the few occasions that Coates manages to get and hold her attention. But when she asks him about Maritza and he thinks she’s jealous, she corrects his assumptions, saying, “I just wanna make sure you’re not raping her is all,” which opens up the conversation to what happened between them and to the revelation that Coates didn’t realize that it’s still rape even if he said he loved her.
After spending some more time away from Coates, Pennsatucky decides that she’s “so tired of walking around feeling shitty every day,” so she’s deciding to forgive Coates because she truly believes he made a mistake. Not surprisingly, Big Boo gives her an ultimatum in light of this breakthrough: Pennsatucky can either continue to be friends with her, or she can forgive Coates. Although Pennsatucky risks her friendship with Boo by choosing the latter, she finds that Boo continues to speak to her after explaining how she refuses to suffer any longer and suggesting that Boo learn how to forgive, too.
Finding peace in forgiving Coates, she willingly helps Nichols through her detoxing during the lock-down, offering her meticulously-woven recycled basket as a barf bucket, which paves the way for a friendship between the two of them as she slowly moves farther and farther away from the hate-mongering group she once belonged to (Leanne Taylor and Angie Rice).
Now friendly with Coates again, she finds that she’s still attracted to him and likes him a lot, but she also discovers that Coates is afraid of himself and his ability to control his desires. So while she may have forgiven Coates and changed her mindset about him, he has not entirely changed who he is and what he wants, which could pose yet another problem for her in future seasons.
Literary Litchfield 