Welcome to Orphan Black season 2! Last season, Sarah Manning found out she was one of an untold number of clones, assumed the life of one of them, got into various shenanigans, etc. etc. I’m sure if you’re reading this you already know everything that happened, unless you’re my mother. Hi, mom!
Orphan Black Season Two: A New Clone is Revealed >>>
Back Where She Started
This episode, “Nature Under Constraint and Vexed”, picks up immediately after the events of last season’s finale. Sarah has just discovered that Kira and Mrs. S are missing and is running around in the rain like a mad woman. She stops at a diner for some tea (she is British, after all) and to try and contact anyone who can help her. All of the other pink Clone Phones have been disconnected, and both Felix and Paul aren’t answering.
To make matters worse, two very creepy guys enter the diner. We know they’re evil because they’re rude to the diner’s owner and think bolo ties are an acceptable fashion choice. They try and take Sarah with them at gunpoint, but the owner stops them with his chivalry and shotgun. They kill him, and Sarah manages to shoot Mr. Bolo with the shotgun before they can take her. Luckily for her the building is structurally unsound, and she gets away.
Sarah finds Felix at a gay club, high as a kite and wearing assless chaps. Bless his consistency. She fills him in on the situation and sends him to Alison’s to borrow a gun. Alison is reluctant to get involved, because she wants to get her life back to normal instead of living the kind of life that involves men in assless chaps in her kitchen at 4am. Ironically, the assless chaps life involves less murdering of her close friends, but she hasn’t arrived at that realization yet. She does agree to get an unregistered gun and give it to Sarah, but after that she wants nothing to do with it.
Science!
By this point, Sarah has learned that a) Rachel and Dyad have Paul, and b) Rachel claims to have Kira. She says that Sarah will only be reunited with her if she turns herself in to them and takes the deal offered to her last season. Paul tells her that Rachel is planning to take Kira to Taiwan in the morning, and that the only way Sarah will see her is if she’s on the plane as well. Sarah still refuses to give in to them, because she is a free bird and because she reacts badly to people kidnapping her child. Rachel, who does not possess emotions, doesn’t seem to comprehend this.
Of course we can’t ignore the other big connection to Dyad, Cosima. She and Delphine are getting their science on to try and figure out what’s wrong with her, since she’s started showing the same respiratory symptoms that Katja possessed. Cosima is now subscribing to Sarah’s philosophy of having as little to do with Dyad as possible, so she doesn’t want to have them research her illness or take the job offered to her by Leekie last season. Delphine agrees, but later reports Cosima’s illness to Leekie and gives him a sample of her blood. One could argue that this act means that she’s still a loyal monitor above all, but I think it has more to do with being genuinely in love with Cosima and wanting to save her life by any means necessary. In any case, it’s a huge breach of trust that will certainly come up again later.
Po-Po Shut Her Down
Alison procures the gun from her dealer Ramon, a teenager who also sells her prescription drugs. She intends to hand it off to Sarah at the rehearsal for her community theatre’s musical. It’s hilariously bad and now that she’s offed Aynsley, Alison has the lead. I’ve never actually lived in suburbia, but damn this show makes it seem dark.
Unfortunately, Art and Angie intercept Sarah, so the exchange can’t happen. They can’t actually arrest her, because Dyad made sure her case was thrown out, but Angie really hates her so she seems ready to pretend otherwise. Sarah directs them to the diner to show that Dyad is up to no good, and a mysterious “federal” agency has already taken over the scene from the police. Art is desperate to know what’s really going on and senses that Sarah is close to trusting him, so he convinces Angie to let her go. Angie and her comically arched eyebrows fuss but comply.
The gun does eventually get to Sarah, via a bouquet delivered by Ramon. Alison still doesn’t want anything else to do with this, so Sarah and Cosima are left to work things out. There’s a great sibling vibe between the clones in this scene, even though Alison only appears via webcam. It’s good that they can trust each other, since trusting people outside of the Clone Club is becoming more and more difficult.
Double the Fun: TV’s Top 10 Twins>>>
“There are Other Forces at Work”
Dyad is holding an event that night, and Sarah’s plan is to just go in and start shooting people until Kira materializes before her. Cosima has an issue with this. Since she and Delphine are actually invited to the event, Cosima suggests that she just talk to Leekie and try to figure things out. Oh, Cosima. Sweet, naive Cosima. Sarah and her street smarts know this won’t work, but her plan isn’t really a winner either. So they go for the old standby and start impersonating each other.
The first step of the plan is to distract Daniel, who is always with Rachel and may or may not be her monitor. Rachel’s probably had everyone around her monitoring her entire life, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had someone responsible for a bit of extra security. In any case, Sarah manages to get rid of him by sending him after Alison, thinking that he’s going to meet with her. Alison very nearly takes down his men soccer mom-style, which makes me even more afraid of the suburbs.
At the same time, Sarah goes to the event pretending to be Cosima. She does a pretty good job, despite the fact that her hair is clearly not in dreadlocks. Delphine realizes what’s happening, but not until after Sarah has stolen Leekie’s key to the secret room where Rachel is holed up. Sarah sheds her disguise and confronts Rachel. Rachel says that she doesn’t actually have Kira, and that she lied about kidnapping her in order to lure Sarah. She seems unused to confrontation, because she remains perfectly stoic until Sarah actually starts getting physical, and then gets pretty flapped. Paul comes in and confirms Rachel’s story, but Sarah pistol whips her anyway for good measure.
Paul tries to force Sarah to stay, because he thinks her resistance is futile, but Sarah is having none of it. He lets her get away, and she goes to Art’s apartment. When she says that someone totally different has Kira, he reveals that the creepy guys from the diner were actually Prolethians, the people Helena worked for. They are implied to have Kira, who we see is alive and physically well, and Sarah is implied to finally confess the clone situation to Art.
And just when it seems that the episode is over, freakin’ Helena shows up. Bleeding, stumbling, and still buckets of crazy, she manages to make her way to a hospital. We don’t really know how she survived being shot point-blank in the chest, but the preview for next week suggests that she might have the same kind of super healing power that Kira has. Whatever the reason, I’m just glad her crazy ass is still around.
What did you think? Do the Prolethians really have Kira? Are Delphine and Paul trustworthy? Will Helena dance with anyone’s severed tail this season? Share your thoughts!
Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 9pm on BBC America.
(Image courtesy of BBC America)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
