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'OITNB' Fans Have A Theory About A Returning Character In Season 6 & It's Bad For Alex

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The recent fifth season of Orange Is the New Black took a break from Alex and Piper's criminal past to focus instead on Litchfield's prison riot, but some fans think that the upcoming Season 6 will see the return of one of Alex and Piper's biggest threats. Although he seemed to be handily dealt with in Season 4, there is a fan theory that the drug kingpin Kubra Balik may return to try to kill Alex once again in the new season, and it actually makes a lot of sense. So will Kubra return in Orange Is the New Black Season 6? Let's talk about why fans are expecting the crime lord to make a surprise comeback.

In case you forgot who Kubra Balik is, he is basically the whole reason that Piper and Alex are in prison in the first place. Kubra was Alex's boss when she worked for his international drug cartel — it was while working for him that both Alex and Piper got caught smuggling drugs and sent to jail. Soon, Kubra is actually caught as well, and Alex and Piper are ordered to testify in his trial. Piper decides to lie and say she never met Kubra, but Alex tells the truth about working with him. However, Kubra is actually freed due to a mix-up in evidence, and Piper realizes that he will be coming after her since she testified against him.

Piper becomes increasingly paranoid as she returns to Litchfield, as she begins to suspect that new inmate Lolly was sent by Kubra to kill her. It turns out that Alex was wrong about Lolly, but Kubra did send in a man named Aydin to take her out. When Aydin tries to kill her, Lolly actually saves Alex by beating him senseless. And it seems like Alex is also able to finally get Kubra off her back by taking Aydin's phone and sending the drug-lord photos of her pretending to be dead. Kubra seems to buy Alex's trick and that's that.

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Or... at least we though that was that. Some eagle-eyed fans noticed a tiny but significant moment in Season 5 that could be setting up Kubra's return.

Towards the end of Season 5, CO Dezi Piscatella covertly breaks into Litchfield Penitentiary on his own and begins to round up all of Red's closest allies in a closet, finally nabbing Red herself as well. His plan is to get revenge on Red by shaming her in front of her friends, but little does he know that the closet he decided to round everyone up in actually had a secret entrance to Frieda's hidden "bunker," a never-used underground pool that survivalist Frieda had been hiding out in during the riot. Frieda is able to knock Piscatella out, but not before the enraged guard breaks Alex's arm in the midst of his torture.

The inmates tie Piscatella up in the bunker and debate what they should do with him. Of course, Red is bent on killing him, but her friends are able to talk her down. In the end, they finally decide to let Piscatella go, but they don't let him off the hook without one last jab. Gina, who has been training in electronics, reveals that she secretly filmed Piscatella breaking Alex's arm and the group decides to upload the violent video to the internet to ruin Piscatella's career.

But wait... did Alex forget that Kubra thinks she is dead? As one Reddit user pointed out, Kubra could easily see the newly uploaded video of Piscatella breaking Alex's arm and realize that Alex faked her death. If he finds out Alex is alive, you can bet that Kubra will come after her again, which might be a big part of the upcoming sixth season.

Season 6 of Orange Is the New Black will premiere on Netflix on July 27.