Things are never boring on Orphan Black. In the span of one episode, “Governed by Sound Reason and True Religion”, we get misplaced organs, multiple shootings, a hilariously terrible musical number, and a recap that is way longer than I intended. The clones’ storylines are pretty separate this week, so let’s take it one at a time.
Orphan Black Interview: Jordan Gavaris on Tumultuous Relationships and Evolution Theme in Season 2 >>>
Sarah
It turns out Sarah did tell Art the whole clone truth, as it was hinted she would last week, and he’s handling it remarkably well. He, Sarah and Felix are trying to figure out how to find Kira when Kira calls them. She managed to get to a phone while her abductor wasn’t looking, but he finds her and cuts off the call before she can relay any information. Luckily Art is able to trace the call to a motel, but by the time he and Sarah get there Kira is already gone.
Daniel shows up while they’re looking for clues, and Art distracts him by putting his own career in jeopardy. Sarah finds a trail of clothes that leads her to a laundry room, and the abductor is waiting there for her. He puts her in the trunk of his car, saying that he’ll take her to Kira. When he lets her out she attacks him (naturally), but soon finds that he’s taken her to Mrs. S.
It turns out that Kira wasn’t really kidnapped at all. Mrs. S knew that things were about to get real because of Sarah’s dealings with Dyad, so she staged an abduction and took Kira to her old friends. These are the same people that helped her disappear with Sarah when they came over from the UK years ago. Sarah is understandably pissed, and shows Mrs. S the incriminating picture Amelia gave her last season. Mrs. S claims that she has no idea what the picture means or where it’s from. She seems genuine, but it’s hard to tell with her. Even as she tells Sarah that she’s always been on her side, she remains frustratingly vague. She’s also wearing a shotgun, which doesn’t really inspire trust.
Mrs. S really pushes her luck when she says that she wants to take Kira to London, leaving Sarah and Felix behind. Maybe she thinks Sarah will go along with it because it’s allegedly in Kira’s best interests, or because of that whole being absent for an entire year thing, but Sarah is not particularly receptive to the plan. They seem to proceed anyway, with Mrs. S and her friends Barry and Brenda planning various stages of the getaway, but Sarah is clearly not sold.
When she finally gets Kira alone, she tries to get info on Mrs. S from her, and then sneaks out with her daughter into the night. Can’t say I really blame her for that one. This ends up being an excellently timed escape, because just as she and Kira find a getaway car, Barry and Brenda are revealed to be terrible people. They were bought out by the Prolethians and intended to give Kira over to the group.
And then Mrs. S goes off. Someone clearly flipped the Batman switch because she both kicks ass and takes names. She stabs Brenda through the hands, securing her to the dinner table, and then shoots Barry when he attacks Sarah and Kira. She lets Sarah go, though it clearly pains her, and then goes back inside and shoots Brenda in the face. Never in my life have I wanted to know a backstory so badly.
Sarah’s segment of the episode ends with her picking up Felix and driving off into the sunset. They don’t seem to have a concrete plan of where they’re going, but it doesn’t really matter because they probably won’t get far. They’re having way too much fun with the other clones to leave them for good.
Alison
Who would have thought that when Alison first appeared, telling Sarah to keep her ugly face out of sight, she would end up being the most entertaining clone? I certainly did not, but oh how I have fallen in love with her. Her saga starts at Aynsley’s funeral, where her friends are not even remotely concealing the fact that they’re gossiping about her. Alison’s neighborhood is basically the worst parts of high school rolled into a ball of bitchiness. While Alison is enduring the scorn of her peers, she gets her hands on Donnie’s phone and finds incriminating texts. She immediately realizes that she may have identified the wrong person as her monitor, and starts chugging alcohol.
Since they have the best bromance on the show, Alison calls Felix to help her deal with this. He arrives at the rehearsal for her weird and morbid musical and is appropriately disgusted. She confesses what happened with Aynsley, and Felix tries to comfort her by saying that she’s only slightly a murderer. They drink some more and decide to set a trap for Donnie to figure out the truth before Alison has a full-fledged meltdown.
Felix, who I feel I need to point out is doing naked artwork, calls Alison and has her fake a phone call in front of Donnie. She namedrops Sarah and says that she has to go for some urgent reason, which peaks Donnie’s monitor interests. He follows Alison to Aynsley’s grave, talking to Leekie on the phone all the while. But Alison has planned this out, and she meets with a Sarah from her play to give her an excuse for the call. She catches Donnie sneaking around the graveyard, and now she knows for sure that she killed her best friend for no reason.
Unfortunately, she calls Felix about this right as he’s going on the run with Sarah. He can’t help her when she needs it the most, and Alison is devastated. The episode ends with her feeling guilty and alone, drinking and popping pills like the good old days.
Cosima
After Sarah’s stunt impersonating her last week, Cosima’s got some ‘spaining to do. She and Delphine tell Leekie that they had no idea what Sarah was doing, but Cosima can’t hide how impressed she is that Sarah got away with it. Leekie doesn’t really care, though, because he still wants Cosima to come work for him. This time, Cosima begrudgingly agrees.
He takes her to a broke down lab, where she and Delphine are to make sweet sweet science together. Cosima feels like it’s “clone jail”, but given her health issues and how pissed everyone is at Sarah, she really can’t say no. Rachel interrupts Cosima and Delphine in the middle of their science-making, and Cosima is not even a little sorry that Sarah beat her up. Rachel gives Cosima info on her illness and Sarah’s complete genome, since Sarah is fertile and thus different from the rest of them. That’s pretty much it for Cosima time this week, but next week’s promo makes it look like things are about to get real for her. Whatever gets her more screentime is fine with me!
Helena
Last but certainly not least, we have Helena. She doesn’t really do anything in this episode, because she’s recently been shot in the chest, but the story revolving around her is interesting. The new Prolethian, Mark, was the one that brought her to the hospital, and now her breaks her out. He takes her to a Prolethian farm. I say farm, but it’s really a cult compound. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, people!
Tomas is at the farm, still crazy as ever. The head Prolethian at the farm at least has the decency to immediately dislike Tomas, so points for that. He also reveals himself to be an MIT-educated scientist. Even more interestingly, he reveals that Helena survived the shot to the heart because her heart is actually on the right side of her body. All of her organs are mirrored, which he says sometimes happens with identical twins. This also means that my theory of Helena having Kira’s super healing powers is wrong. You win some, you lose some.
The head Prolethian has one of his followers kill Tomas, which is morally wrong but let’s be real, Tomas deserved it. He then wonders if Helena would be able to conceive a child like Sarah did, and since he artificially inseminated a cow earlier in the episode, we’re left to assume that he’s planning on doing the same thing to Helena. If there is any justice in the world, Helena will get her hands on a knife and cut his tail off too.
You can watch the scene again here. “It’s a brand new day.”
What did you think? How trustworthy is Mrs. S? Will Helena be having a tiny bundle of psychosis in the future? Is Alison’s sacrum really located in her ass? Share your thoughts!
Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 9pm on BBC America.
(Image courtesy of BBC America)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
