2015. május 26., kedd

Orphan Black 3x02 Transitory Sacrifices of Crisis


Remember when last week I was hella confused by pretty much everything that was happening in the Orphan Black season premiere due to my inabilty to rewatch the first two seasons before the new one began? And remember how I said that by the end of the episode everything was pretty clear and I wad good to go forward? Yeah, forget that. It seems like my confusion is not over yet. Oh no, in fact, by the looks of it, it’s only just beginning! Honestly, it even made me question whether I should be writing these reviews at all, because I imagine after a while it will be pretty tiring if my reaction to everything will be something like „okay I have no idea why that’s happening but it’s alright, I can roll with it!”... But for now, I’m gonna write this review and then see where the next episode takes me. Also, please do point out if I’m talking bullshit or completely misunderstand something that should be obvious. I promise I will be extremely grateful because I WANT to enjoy this show to the fullest, and I feel like much of my annoyance with this episode was rooted in not remembering simple but essential details about the show’s mythology.

But first thing’s first: last week I mentioned that I don’t know any of the Castor clones’ names and netiher can I distinguish them from each other, so I’m just gonna call all of them Clone Boy and hope that it won’t get too confusing. Well, most of this problem was solved by this episode so just recapping it real quick for my own benefit: Scarface is called Rudy, he’s the one who was locked in by Dyad but was broken out by his brother in the previous episode. Said brother is the one with the Pornstache, also known as Seth, and they’re the ones doing all sorts of weird shit to random women, including that one Leda clone from last week. Then there’s Mark the Prolethean, who made a very brief appearence at the end of this episode but has yet to truly come into play, and another, fourth one at the military base where they’re keeping Helena. His name I still don’t know but for now it doesn’t seem like I have to, he hasn’t even spoken a single line yet if I remember correctly. So now that I can call them by their proper names, I can continue with the fact that Rudy and Seth opened this episode by doing some weird shit to a random woman, which is nothing new from them but it was still pretty fucking unsettling to watch. The good news is that she came out of it alive – but I’m getting way ahead of myself here.


I think the clone-by-clone rundown of events worked pretty good last week so I’m gonna keep doing that until their storylines get more entwined. Right now they’re about as unrelated as they can get on this show which feels a bit odd to me but makes my job here that much easier: Rachel was nowhere to be seen in this episode, and Cosima was only seen doing a bit of research with Scott, which mostly consisted of talking. Scott says that if they had the original genome, that would solve all of their problems, but since the Duncans took the identity of the originals to the grave with them, right now this seems impossible. Alison was still determined to run for school trustee even though Donnie said they can’t afford it, in fact their financial problems run so deep that they might have to sell the house – if not for the body buried under the garage. Alison was approached by her old dealer and this gave her an idea, and by the end of the episode Ramon’s drug business was hers. Now they can get money for themselves and support in the election from fellow drug-addict soccer moms. I can only guess how well this will turn out. Helena had a little more to do than last episode now that she was out of the box... or more precisely, there was more done to her. Poor thing got restrained and tortured – sorry, „stress tested” – by a bunch or army duded, who only stopped when a woman named Dr. Virginia Cody told them to leave her alone because she’s pregnant. Say what? I didn’t know this. Should I have known this? Later she was tested again but this time all she had to do was answer some riddles, which she didn’t do because that talking scorpion from the previous episode came back and distracted her. Will we ever find out what’s up with that? Then Dr. Cody took her outside and told her that Sarah sold her out after having decided that she was expendable. Helena didn’t believe her but unfortunately I can see this woman having the means to convince her somehow... to be continued next week, I guess.

The majority of the episode was focused on Sarah this time, but it wasn’t really a follow-up to last week. She was still set on finding Helena but that Ferdinand guy who she was supposed to use didn’t appear this week, plus Delphine was off to Europe, covering Rachel’s business, so Sarah kind of had no idea what to do next. That is, until Art called her. Apparently he’s back on the job (though don’t ask me why he was out in the first place) and took the case of the freaked out woman who was abused by Seth and Rudy, after looking at their picture and realizing that they look just like Mark. Sarah showed up to question the woman, who told her that the Castors wrote down all of her information and took a strand of her hair, then left. Also, they both have the same tattoo – a two-headed horse on their left forearm. Sarah called Cosima to find out whatever she can based on this new information, and Cosima told her that she has to call Mrs. S so she can get in touch with Paul. Sarah was reluctant to do this because she’s still pissed at her for basically selling out Helena, but she does it anyway because like it or not, it’s still their best lead. Unfortunately, Mrs. S has no idea where Paul is: all she can do is tell Sarah that she has to take Kira and leave because they’re still in danger.

Cal gets the same message from none other than Paul himself, who shows up at the new apartment that Cal just bought for his new little family, and tells him at gunpoint to tell Sarah to stop coming after them, and also to take both Sarah and Kira and get out of here as soon as possible. Cal calls Sarah immediately after, but she doesn’t hear it because she’s busy being adorable with her daughter, Kira tells her that she wants them to live with Cal, and Sarah says she thinks she wants that too. Sigh, if only. Unfortunately, neither of them realize that Rudy is in the apartment until he gets to Kira and demands Sarah tp tell him whether Dr. Duncan had shared his research with her, and if she has the original Castor tissue samples. Meanwhile, Cal shows up to warn Sarah but gets stopped by Seth, who has some sort of a mental episode soon after and collapses while screaming a lot, which obviously attracts Rudy’s attention. He eventually releases Kira after Sarah swears that she doesn’t have the original genome, and rushes outside, where Cal is now holding Seth’s gone as the clone is still on the floor, screaming. Rudy points his gun at Cal, and then... shoots Seth? I can’t say I expected that. He shoots his brother twice in the chest, tells him he loves him, and then simply leaves after Seth dies. So that’s one less Castor clone to remember, huh... still, this was completely unexpected. Seth being sick in some way has been built up a lot in this episode (I’ll elaborate in it below, in the notes), and I expected it to become a major problem for the other Castors later. Well... problem solved, I guess? I don’t know, to be honest I’m still a bit in shock about what happened here.

After their run-in with Rudy, Sarah finally realized that she can’t keep Kira by her side because she’s bound to be targeted and used as leverage against her again and again if she stays around, so she decided to send her away with Cal until it’s safe for her to come back. She promised Kira that she’s gonna put an end to this and then they’ll be together again, and then tells Felix and Mrs. S that now they’re gonna go to Mark in order to find Helena. I don’t really know how she plans to find Mark in the first place but that’s still a way better plan than everything we’ve seen them try so far this season, so I’m on board with it.

Episode MVP: Tatiana Maslany as Sarah Manning

Random tidbits:
 - Delphine says Dyad is off Sarah's back for the time being, which is good... one less sinister organization to worry about.

 - Felix was caring for Mrs. S this episode after the beating she took from one of the Castors last week, and he told her to call her „dodgy friends” and get to work. I wonder what that means exactly?

 - So, about Seth and his illness. Paul was seen administering the same test to Seth and Rudy as the other military guy did to Helena, the one with the riddles, and while Rudy seems to have done well, Seth made a lot of mistakes and only barely passed. Later, Rudy told him that he knew he was „glitching”, and that it has been happening for a week or two, and getting worse. It was after this conversation that Rudy went to Felix’s apartment to „finish the job”, and sadly, now we’ll never get to see Seth completely deteriorate. Maybe one of the other Castors then? This whole glitching thing needs to be explained.

 - Seth also asked Paul "Is that coming from Mother, or from you?", and I wonder whether this Mother is Dr. Cody, or someone else we have yet to meet.

 - We got a little glimpse at the married life of Gracie and Mark and the end of the episode, as Mark was busy burning off his horse tattoo in a motel somewhere. Looks like things are going great for them!

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