This week on Orphan Black: Sarah gets a hot boyfriend, Alison gets really drunk, Cosima gets emotionally traumatized, Helena (possibly) gets impregnated, and I get carried away and write another long recap. Let’s go!
Orphan Black Spoilers: Each Clone Faces Their Own New Threat >>>
Sarah
Usually going on the run on television is more glamorous than in reality, involving fake identities and fancy hotels. This is not the case for Sarah. “Mingling Its Own Nature with It” opens with Sarah and her family sleeping in a truck, peeing in a field, and stepping in poop. After talking about Mrs. S’s previously-unknown badassery, Sarah and Felix realize that they need things like food and shelter. They stop at a convenience store and use Kira’s cuteness to steal some stuff, and then try to impart on her that stealing is wrong.
Not wanting to keep her daughter living in such conditions, Sarah says that she knows of some cabins nearby and breaks into one. After some cute family bonding moments, everyone goes to sleep. But because nothing is easy in their lives, the cabin’s owner returns in the middle of the night and catches them. Turns out Sarah picked this cabin on purpose because it belongs to Cal Morrison, someone from her past. She stole $10,000 from him once upon a time, and he’s still a bit sore about that. Before he can kick them out or call the cops, though, Kira comes downstairs and asks the obvious question: “are you my dad?” Spoiler: he is.
First of all, major props to Sarah for landing this guy as the father of her kid. Given her track record with people like Vic, I assumed Kira’s dad was a hit man or a professional puppy-kicker. But Cal is a catch. He looks like a hot lumberjack, doesn’t appear to be a jerk, has tons of money, and possibly invented drone technology. Definitely a step up from boring Paul, and I tip my hat to her.
Second, she reminds us all just how conniving she is with this move. Since she’s been primary dealing with crazy circumstances lately and has therefore had to have some crazy responses, I kind of forgot that this is the girl who faked her death and posed as a random lookalike to get some cash. Since Cal seems like a pretty decent guy, Sarah must have known that he wouldn’t kick them out when he found out about his child. She waited to tell him until the information was the most useful to her, and even though it was a pretty crappy and self-serving thing to do, it was smart. Again, I tip my hat.
Daddy Issues
In the wake of this revelation, Sarah has some explaining to do. Kira doesn’t get why she never got to meet her awesome dad, and when Sarah says that she just wanted her to herself, she calls her out for always leaving. Damn that’s gotta sting. Sarah realizes that this is the time to get real, and explains how her own lack of parents messed her up. It’s a sweet mother-daughter scene in which Sarah genuinely seems to be growing up and trying to be better for her daughter. She’s done a bunch of people wrong with this lie, and they let her know it, but she still manages to be sympathetic.
On the subject of people letting her know it, Felix is not pleased. He’s been there for Sarah through everything and she’d let him think that she didn’t know the identity of Kira’s father. This is a lie that spanned eight years. He loves her, but it’s apparent that his trust in her is broken. In yet another moving scene, he tearfully tells her that “there’s no place for me here”, and decides to return home to help Alison through her crisis. Alison, for all her neurosis and intoxication, is at least honest. He gives his love to Kira, his sympathy to Cal, and leaves.
This leaves a very awkward family reunion happening in the cabin. Cal clearly had some serious feelings for Sarah when they knew each other, and Sarah implies that she felt the same. She says that she originally intended to steal everything from Cal instead of just ten grand, but didn’t because he was such a nice guy. Probably not the best way to defend yourself, Sarah. After Cal proves himself trustworthy by getting rid of an enquiring police officer, Sarah attempts to leave and spare him any further trouble. He doesn’t want her or the daughter he just met to go though, and their tender conversation naturally devolves into sex.
While all of this has been happening, Daniel has been tracking Sarah and Kira. He starts at the murder house, where the Prolethians are disposing of the bodies left in Mrs. S’s wake. Eventually he catches up to them at the cabin. Sarah has apparently learned nothing from the past few weeks and lets Kira go outside by herself, where Daniel grabs her. He attempts to take Kira and Sarah, but Sarah struggles and Cal manages to get Kira back into the cabin where he can defend her with a shotgun. Unable to get Kira, Daniel settles for just taking Sarah. He forces her to drive away with him and tries to get information on LEDA and Mrs. S. But on the way to wherever they’re going, their car is hit by a truck. How much do you want to bet a Prolethian was driving it?
Alison
Back in suburbia, Alison is using passive-aggressive vacuuming to try and deal with the facts that Donnie is her monitor and she killed her best friend for nothing. It’s not helping much, and her stress is compounded by the fact that her musical is opening very soon. I consider Alison’s musical storyline a personal gift to me. If the people at BBC America would like to take some of my money, please release a full soundtrack ASAP.
Alison also has to deal with the fact that Angie is trying to get information out of her. Although Art has told her repeatedly to drop her investigation, Angie keeps digging into the clone mystery. She poses as another suburbanite and tries to befriend Alison, but Alison immediately assumes that she’s a monitor. She tells Angie off and looks proud of herself for doing so, and Angie admits that she’s a cop. I’m not sure if Alison believes her and is stressed by police involvement (she did kill someone, after all) or if she still thinks Angie is a monitor, but in any case she has a bit of a breakdown.
It’s the opening night of the musical, Blood Ties, and Alison is freaking out. She’s downing nips and popping pills backstage, and by the time the show starts she’s drunk as a skunk. Tatiana Maslany actually has a pretty nice voice, but she doesn’t really get much of a chance to show it. Alison sees Donnie in the audience and walks right off the stage. She appears to be injured, but we won’t see the aftermath until next week. At least Felix will be there to nurse her back to health.
Cosima
Cosima does not have a good week either. She’s naturally so optimistic, and the world is doing its best to beat that out of her. In “Mingling Its Own Nature With It” she comes face to face with her mortality by way of Jennifer Fitzsimmons, the first clone to develop the respiratory disease. She made video diaries through her illness and treatment, and initially seems to rival Cosima in terms of positivity. With her through her horrible decline is her boyfriend, who Cosima immediately realizes was Jennifer’s monitor. It makes her uncomfortable, since she’s also in a relationship with her monitor and still seems unsure of what that makes them to each other.
Unfortunately, Jennifer died three days before Cosima sees the tapes. Leekie treated her to the best of Dyad’s abilities, but it wasn’t enough. Delphine and Cosima perform an autopsy on Jennifer’s body to get a better understanding of the illness. They know it’s an autoimmune disease, and the autopsy reveals that the polyps found in Jennifer’s lungs originated in her uterus. This implies that the source of the clones’ infertility is also the source of their disease.
This is a lot to process, especially since Cosima has to look at a face exactly like her own all through the autopsy. She’s witnessing everything that will happen to her, and it’s impossible for her to maintain an emotional distance. This is exacerbated when Alison calls to inform Cosima about Angie the suspected monitor, and tells her that she shouldn’t trust Delphine. It’s clear that Cosima’s brain is beginning to doubt the trust her heart has so freely given.
Helena
Amazingly, despite all of the crap everyone goes through, Helena is actually having the worst week. She’s still at the Prolethian farm. We don’t really know how she feels about them, but she seems to miss Sarah and could not be less sorry that Tomas is dead. The leader, Henrik, tells his daughter Grace that Helena is going to be a part of her family. He doesn’t believe that Helena doesn’t have a soul, like Grace and Tomas, but he does think that Helena needs to be used by them in order to be saved.
The truth of it, though, is that Helena is valuable because of her potential fertility. Since they can’t get to Kira, it seems that the Prolethians are going to try and make another Kira by impregnating Helena. They perform a creepy, marriage-like ceremony with Helena, who is drugged and dressed in white. Henrik then carries her off somewhere in a scene that is a perverted version of carrying a bride over the threshold, and the implication is that he rapes her. Has this girl not been through enough?
What did you think? Who had the worst week? Will Daniel survive the car accident? Will Blood Ties: The Original Soundtrack win the Grammy it deserves? Share your thoughts!
Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 9pm on BBC America.
(Image courtesy of BBC America)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
