Orange is the New Black Season 4 release date, plot news: Red may end up with Healy

The blossoming relationship of Red and Healy may finally be realized in the fourth season of "Orange is the New Black."(Netflix/File)

Netflix has yet to announce when "Orange is the New Black" will return, but rumors that Red (Kate Mulgrew) and Healy (Michael Harney) will be officially together in the show's fourth season have already sent the fans swooning.

In the last season of the comedy series, viewers watched the blossoming relationship of Red and the inmate counselor at Litchfield Penitentiary. Red, though, had previously told Healy straight up that it was impossible, as their "ships passed too late in the night for one of them to change course now."

Mulgrew, in a blog post for Entertainment Weekly, said that it felt as though the two have "an unspoken understanding."

"They are far from enemies but neither are they bosom buddies, although she has animatedly and openly defended his virtues, to the chagrin of his petulant and self-consumed mail order bride. But then our throats tighten as we watch her snuggling up to Healy over a tea tray and we blink in a kind-of disbelief as we begin to form the (by now) uncomfortably clear impression that she is flirting with Healy, and that she is using all of her albeit rusty wiles to seduce him," she wrote.

Meanwhile, reports said Netflix was casting for inmates in New York City while production of the new season was under way. In the final episode of "Orange is the New Black" Season 3, more inmates were seen arriving at Litchfield prison. International Business Times reported that the casting call was for these "new arrivals."

As for updates on John Bennett, the corrections officer at the penitentiary who was not seen much in the previous season, Matt Gorry cleared up the issue on whether he would be reprising his role in the series.

Bennett got engaged to inmate Daya (Dasha Polanco) in Season 3. He disappeared after getting her pregnant, causing their daughter to be sent to child services.

In an interview with Yahoo News, the actor said he was keeping his fingers crossed for a return but admitted that he would not be surprised if it did not turn out that way.

"The thing that I can say about Season 4 is that it's the writers' decision about whether or not Bennett is back. I have my fingers crossed that he comes through and is the man that we all hoped he was," Gorry said.

Although no official release date has been officially mentioned yet, all indications are that the next season will release at about the same time of year in 2016 as Season 3 did this past year.