'OITNB' Fans Are Trying To Solve This Mystery About Ruiz, Here Are The Suspects

Maria Ruiz has made her fair share of enemies throughout the past five seasons of Orange Is the New Black, and the new season has her fearing a mysterious assailant who tried to take her life. Towards the end of the fifth episode of Season 6, Maria is the victim of a life-threatening attack, and there are simply too many suspects to know for sure who the attacker could be. So, who attacked Maria Ruiz on Orange Is the New Black Season 6? Let's see if we can work this mystery out. Warning: This post contains spoilers for Orange Is The New Black Season 6.

Even at the very beginning of Season 6, Maria finds herself on the outs with pretty much everyone. During the prison riot in Season 5, Maria basically took control as the most aggressive and sadistic inmate, taking pleasure in torturing the hostage COs. But at the end of last season, she made a desperate flip and helped free the hostages (from under Gloria Mendoza's nose) in order to secure a plea deal that MCC had offered to Gloria. Unfortunately for Maria, MCC never followed through on the deal and Maria wound up in max with the rest of the transplanted Litchfield inmates. Gloria even convinced the investigators into the riot that she was the one who freed the guards, leaving Maria to take the complete fall for all the terrible things she did during the riot.

That leads up to Maria being jumped in the bathroom. While cleaning a toilet, a hand pops up behind Maria's head and holds her underwater, seemingly attempting to murder her. So who could it be? As we know, Maria has a ton of enemies right now, but these seem like the prime suspects:

• CO McCullough. As one of the COs that Maria tortured during the riots, McCullough is now suffering from a pretty severe case of PTSD, which we've seen has led her to self-harm as well as violent outbursts. She seems most angry around Maria, and all this adds up to her being the potential killer.
• Blanca. Maria swore revenge on Gloria and Blanca for being instrumental in getting her prison sentence exponentially extended, and Blanca seems to be proactive in taking care of any potential threats.
• Daddy. Maria makes a new enemy pretty much right away once she's introduced to the prison's general population. Daddy immediately butts heads with Maria, and since she is basically in charge of the entire D Block, she definitely has the means and opportunity to attack Maria.
• Piper. It would be pretty surprising if Piper is revealed to be the person who attacked Maria, but the motive is there since the two have a storied hatred for one another. Maybe Piper finally saw her chance to get back at Maria now that she has no more friends or allies.

So, like I said, a lot of different suspects, right? Well, it actually takes a while for the series to get to the truth, but viewers actually do find out who attacked Maria in Episode 11.

Spoiler alert: Don't read on until you have watched Episode 11 of Orange Is the New Black Season 6. Towards the end of the season, Maria turns to religion, and in her prayer group, Beth Hoefler admits that she was the one to hold Maria's head underwater. The only thing we really know about Beth is that she is in jail for killing her children, and that crime has made her a complete outcast among the inmates, even though she comes off as surprisingly sweet. Beth said that she has violent impulses, which is what led her to attack Maria. Since we really don't get much more information on that, something tells me that we are going to be learning a lot more about Beth next season.