Donnie may or may not have made the right call in the Orphan Black season 5 premiere when it came to his wife, but Kristian Bruun will back him up. After all, there was only so much he could do, right?
Read on for part 2 of BuddyTV’s chat with Bruun as he discusses a few key events in the premiere, including leaving Alison, what’s next with Helena and more.
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BuddyTV: We see Donnie leave Alison when she’s grabbed. Did he know he couldn’t help her in the moment and that’s why he left? Was that something that was planned? Is that something that’s going to affect their relationship going forward?
Kristian Bruun: “I definitely have started to get a few questions about that and some flak from people about that, wondering why he ran away on his wife. Listen, there were two or three armed men with guns. Donnie’s armed with a rolly-bag. There’s nothing this man can do in this situation, and he knows that if he’s not captured, if he can get away, then there’s the chance for him to be useful and somehow can maybe rescue Alison at a later date. Obviously he runs away, he’s in fear, but he knows there’s nothing he can do in that situation, so it’s better to live and fight another day, as opposed to either getting shot or taken as well.
Ultimately, people are always after the clones, not so much the people around them, so he can easily be killed off. I will back him up. I think he makes the right decision to live to fight another day. But yes, that’ll definitely be a point of contention.”
Well, he does get into the action a bit after Helena shows up to save him. And I love that Donnie just goes, “oh, Jesus,” because he knows exactly what she’s going to do.
“Totally. And he loves Helena, and she has saved his life and Alison’s life before, at the end of season 4, and she is a wild, dangerous, dangerous animal. She’s wonderful with kids and scary with people she doesn’t like, and yeah, he knows what’s about to go down and also, obviously, she’s very pregnant and that adds a whole other level of danger and care to it, so watching her be wild and her standard, typical Helena self with two very quickly growing babies in her belly, it’s a dangerous combination.”
We see Helena get hurt and that highlights the fact that she probably shouldn’t be involved in the action quite as much because of her pregnancy. Since Donnie is with her, is he going to be the one to maybe bring that up and maybe talk about her changing her role in Clone Club?
“Well, there’s some definite interaction in the second episode continuing on on what happens to Helena at the end of the premiere, so we’re going to see some of the consequences of that very quickly. We’re going to get some answers from that. It’s interesting. It’s hard to tell her things. She is such an independent spirit, that one, and you have to sort of be careful what you tell her because she is so fiercely loyal and it’s always good to be on her good side, like Donnie and the Hendrixes are. But it’s interesting, we had Helena live at the Hendrix household before and she was just kind of this wild clone that lived with them.
“It’s kind of hard to tell her what to do. She is quite a strong-willed character, and Donnie can be a bit of a pushover sometimes, so he might not be the best person to — he’s kind of the mediator between Alison and Helena. Alison and Helena would not get along under one roof too well without Donnie there to mediate between the two of them.”
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Are we going to see Donnie torn between the two because Alison’s his wife, but then we have Helena who’s pregnant and needs to be told not to jump forward into the action?
“Well, we certainly see Alison and Donnie wrestle with their relationship this season, and they have to make some bold decisions towards a future, but Donnie is a loyal, loyal man. I think he’s ultimately a good father and a husband. He has done some questionable things in the past. That whole monitoring thing didn’t go over too well, understandably, but he was also quite harmless in his intentions originally with what he thought he was doing.
“But he’s a loyal member of the Clone Club and I think the sestras trust him, as well they should. He’s a good guy and he just kind of wants to make the peace for everyone.”
Do you think that loyalty and the part of Donnie that embraces the clones, like he does, comes from the fact that Alison’s mother doesn’t like him, but here’s this part of Alison’s family that does?
“Yeah, I think having an extended family that accepts him for who he is, doesn’t belittle him, sees him a part of the club, I think he loves that, and I think that’s something he’s always wanted in his life. And even with Alison, they’ve gone through struggles in terms of realizing they can’t have a child together and adopting children. They understand the idea of the family you choose, so it’s a natural progression for them to see this extended family as true family for them and to really be a part of it and I think Donnie and Alison, of all the characters on the show, really understand that.”
We see that Neolution has come to the Hendrixes’ lives with Art and his new partner and that partner’s threatening Art. They seem to be focused on Alison. Is Donnie going to come into that in the next episode?
“The past for Donnie and Alison has been difficult for Art to keep wrapped up. We’ve always seen Art struggle with his job and his duty and also see how that plays up against his loyalty to Beth and then Sarah and then the sestrahood when he comes into Clone Club.
“So Neolution always finds a way of getting what they want from people and this extended family, for all of us characters, it has its weakness or it has its points of leverage that Neolution finds. And one of them definitely is Donnie and Alison, so that’s going to play a factor eventually.”
Orphan Black season 5 airs Saturdays at 10/9c on BBC America. Want more news? Like our Facebook page.
(Image courtesy of BBC America)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
If it’s on TV — especially if it’s a procedural or superhero show — chances are Meredith watches it. She has a love for all things fiction, starting from a young age with ER and The X-Files on the small screen and the Nancy Drew books. Arrow kicked off the Arrowverse and her true passion for all things heroes. She’s enjoyed getting into the minds of serial killers since Criminal Minds, so it should be no surprise that her latest obsession is Prodigal Son.
