Lorna Morello Muccio

Lorna Muccio (Neé Morello), is an inmate at Litchfield Penitentiary. Lorna's character is based on Minetta in the memoir, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison. She is portrayed by Yael Stone.

Biography

Before Litchfield

Morello ran a mail scam ordering items online and receiving them, but calling the companies claiming they never arrived.

While picking up her packages from the post office, she ran into a man named Christopher MacLaren, who looked similar to a cut-out picture of a man from a magazine she had on her wall. They went on one date and after Christopher didn't want to go on dating she proceeded to stalk him. He moved several times, changed his phone number and email, but she still found him, going as far as to threaten him and to strangle his girlfriend Angela. Christopher placed a restraining order on Lorna. She even made attempts on both of their lives by putting a homemade explosive underneath their car, causing her to be arrested.

Season One

Morello is a hyperfeminine, often somewhat racist, Italian-American inmate, still hopefully planning for a wedding whose fruition is mocked by her fellow inmate, friend, and casual sex partner, Nicky Nichols. She speaks with a strong accent that inexplicably mixes regional features from both New York City and Boston. At Litchfield, Lorna is the first inmate that Piper talks to, since she is in charge of driving the van that transports inmates, and she helps Piper acclimate in her first few days.

She finally breaks off her lesbian relationship with Nicky after feeling that she has been cheating on her "fiancé" Christopher. It is later revealed that he never visits. Red picks her to run for WAC as the white representative stating that she is "pretty and nonthreatening, she likes her lipstick, and she listens". During the campaigning for the WAC, Morello expresses both excitement and nervousness over the upcoming election, although everyone states that she is guaranteed to win. When Pornstache is searching for how Red smuggles contraband into the prison, he has Morello drive him into the middle of the woods to intimidate her into telling him. It doesn't work as Morello cries and claims she can't tell him what she doesn't know. She expects Pornstache to carry out his threats, but he instead tells her to drive the van back to the prison.

Season Two

Morello continues to drive the prison van, including many trips to a chemotherapy clinic for Miss Rosa. In A Whole Other Hole, she breaks into Christopher's house after learning he is engaged to be married, taking with her a teddy bear she has found on his bed. Christopher later visits her in prison and threatens to kill her if she ever comes near him or his fiancé again, before exposing to everyone how all of her stories of him as her fiancé are lies. He is eventually escorted from the premises by one of the guards. Morello is seen often upset after the ordeal with Christopher, stating that nobody will ever love her. Morello confides in Nicky that "something is wrong" with her, most likely referring to her delusions. Despite that, Nicky tells her, that she does love her.

After one of Rosa's visits at the clinic, she gets to know that Rosa only has three to six weeks left to live. Knowing that for her "it's not the dying, that's the bad part, it's that [she] gotta do it in here", Lorna, in a fit of compassion, leaves the keys to the prisoner transport van so she can die on her own terms, which Rosa acts upon and drives from the prison at high speed.

Season Three

Lorna starts several correspondences with pen-pals that she plans to scam for money by pretending she shared the same interests. This plan goes awry when she confuses her pen-pal Vince Muccio's interests with another pen-pal's. When he confronts her, Lorna tells him that she became lonely after Nicky got sent to max and thought if she wrote to enough people, she would find someone. Vince forgives her, saying that he doesn't care how many people she wrote and that he was happy he got to meet her. As they continue to meet and become closer, Lorna tells Vince that someone is sending her creepy things and that it's Christopher, causing Vince and his friends to later beat up Christopher.

Later Lorna proposes to Vince during visitation and Vince says "yes". The two get married and have sex by the vending machine, due to the fact that conjugal visits aren't allowed in Litchfield.

It is also shown that she lost her job driving the van (possibly from letting Miss Rosa steal the van).

Personality

Morello is sweet and softhearted. She is likable, easy going, chipper, and optimistic most of the time. When threatened by Mendez to explain Red's ways of importing contraband products, she becomes more somber and nervous but manages to stand up to him. She is very resourceful when it comes to beauty, using tampons to curl her hair and instant coffee as eyeshadow. For the brief time that the Prison Newsletter was running, she ran a beauty column that gave advice on using legal items as makeup. She is described as "a very pretty girl" by several of her fellow inmates. Although she is one of the most deceitful characters due to the constant lies about Christopher, she is also an inmate with genuine empathy and actions, shown in the tender lollipop scene with Miss Rosa.

As of Season Two, it is made somewhat clear that Morello suffers from some form of mental illness. Her known episodes have included explosive frenzies, violent outbursts, irrational decision making, and delusions (thinking a man she went on one date with is her fiance). It is possible that she suffers from Erotomania, also known as De Clérambault's Syndrome.

Morello has been shown to have a great love for West Side Story. In "W.A.C. Pack", Nicky accuses her of basing her entire world view on West Side Story, after Morello announces her distaste of Latinos, claiming "they all want to come to America [...], live, like, 20 people to one apartment, [...] have more kids than even the irish, [...] they're are dirty, [...] greedy, their food smells nasty and they're taking all our jobs." - which perfectly shows her racist side. There is also a poster for the movie hanging in her room in her flashback ("A Whole Other Hole").

Physical Description

Morello is short with dark brown hair. Her hair and make-up are retro glam; her hair is worn in retro waves that she sets with tampons at night. She is always seen wearing ruby red lipstick, which is forbidden under the prison rules.

Relationships

Romantic

Christopher MacLaren (in her mind, crush; only went on one date)
Nicky (fling, friends with benefits, best friends)
Vince Muccio (husband)

Friends

Memorable Quotes

"Maybe I'll Pinterest. I hear that's a thing."

— Lorna Morello

"You don't go Jessica Simpson when you've got Rihanna."

— Lorna Morello

"It's like the less time you got, the slower it goes."

— Lorna Morello

"{{{1}}}"

"Hey, did you ever see that movie - the one where there's the cowboy and he's, like, the king of the castle? And then this astronaut shows up and he tries to take over, so the cowboy attempts to murder him, but, instead, the astronaut is taken hostage by, like, this evil psychopath and the cowboy has to rescue him and then they end up becoming really good friends?"

— Lorna Morello (talking about Toy Story to Rosa)