Redeem now Warning: There are spoilers ahead for season six of "Orange Is the New Black."
Season six of "OITNB" is now streaming on Netflix. If you've been bingeing you may have noticed some of your favorite characters are missing from the new episodes.
Most noticeable among the missing inmates is fan-favorite Maritza Ramos (Diane Guerrero), the feisty, make-up loving, wise-cracking sweetheart around Litchfield prison.
Instead, we see her best friend, Flaca (Jackie Cruz), wandering the halls of Litchfield's max prison without her partner-in-crime, trying to get by without her, and hosting a radio show with the most unlikely of new friends, Cindy. It's not the same as the YouTube channel she was running with her gal pal, but it's something.
What happened to Maritza?
It's a pretty simple answer.
Early on the season, Flaca says Maritza was sent to another prison in Ohio after the riot came to an end at Litchfield prison.
If you go back to the season five finale, many of the women were separated and placed on buses going to all different parts of the country.
While Maritza and Flaca tried to stick together, a guard wedged them apart and sent them on different paths. They try and say they're together, like on a field trip. But, alas, this is prison. There are no bus buddies.
Maritza isn't the only woman sent to a different prison than Flaca, Piper, and Red.
Boo and Skinhead Helen can be seen briefly on season six's third episode. But other than that, we're not sure where the rest of the women are currently being held.
Why didn't some of the cast come back?
Episode writer Brian Chamberlayne told the Hollywood Reporter the smaller cast allowed for a better focus on a core group of characters on the new season.
"The change of location provided the opportunity, in that the first season is Piper being a fish-out-of-water in the prison," said Chamberlayne. "We get to know all these characters around her, so it’s only fitting that when we’re coming to the end of her story in prison that we see those same characters that we met in season one in this new location where they’re all fish-out-of-water. They’re having to make new friendships and bonds and also learn how to survive in a different way."
Does that mean we could see any of the other women again in a larger capacity? Maybe. But it needs to serve the story moving forward.
"If the story takes us there, it has to be organic for us," executive producer Tara Herrmann told THR. "We never want to suddenly be in a world that we haven’t set up. But we love those characters and miss them as storytellers for sure, so we hope to always see them."
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Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
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