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Orphan Black: History yet to Be Written

“Could you give a sister a little blood?”

Although it wasn’t a thrilling, white knuckle, ultra crazy cliffhanger kind of finale, I feel extremely satisfied with it.

We leave season 3 with Delphine bleeding out in a parking garage, Sarah reunited with Kira, and Rachel in the grasp of…her mother. It turns out Leekie is even worse at killing people than we thought.

Rachel

Okay, let’s get this out of the way first. Is Rachel’s mom being alive a retcon? I’m going with no, although it is a little weird Duncan never mentioned his wife being “corrupted” or whatever when he was alive. But Leekie engineered the explosion, it stands to reason that he could’ve faked her death if he wanted, which, clearly, he did. I can’t wait to see more of Susan Duncan. Rachel is my least favorite clone but Tatiana does such amazing work with her, I definitely wouldn’t mind more focus on her next season.

I love the Neolutionists coming back bigger and badder. It always struck me as sort of odd that they just faded away into nothing after Leekie’s death. That they’re in charge of a grand conspiracy encompassing both Leda and Castor not only makes sense but is just... fun. Let’s face it, grand conspiracies are fun. I mean on TV. Probably not in real life. It was nice to see Charlotte again, too. I thought they might have forgotten about her. Of course Charlotte’s reappearance and her declaration that Rachel is to be her “new mum” by edict of Professor Duncan brings up one serious question: what happened to Marion?

Cosima

Cosima finished out the season like she spent it: doing the science and being in a love triangle. Sigh. Delphine gave Cosima permission to tell Shay the truth if she wanted to so I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her. Although I wonder why Delphine told Shay to tell Cosima it was okay to confess the truth. She saw Cosima later and didn’t mention it. Why go to Shay instead of Cos? Is there something funny going on here or did the writers just want to demonstrate that Delphine trusts Shay now?

After being absent for so much of the season, Delphine was a huge part of the finale. She ferreted out the truth about “Rachel,” interrogated and killed Nealon, and almost swallowed a worm not at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. One of my favorite little moments of the episode was Sarah immediately and unquestioningly following Delphine’s orders to tell Ferdinand the truth. She has well and truly earned clone club’s trust.

A lot of people online were bemoaning her death but until I saw those complaints it never occurred to me that she was dead. One shot to the upper abdomen is survivable even when you’re not in a scifi realm where people have tails and produce worms in their bodies. And I keep thinking: Neolution wants the original genome. Cosima has the original genome. Now Neolution has Cosima’s puppy in their power. It’s not a stretch to think that they might want to leverage Delphine’s safety to get what they so desperately want, right?

Appeasing my anxiety over Krystal, Delphine almost immediately realized she wasn’t Rachel. Or, at the very least, that something was off. Although I now have almost an entire year to stress over what the frick happened to Krystal after Delphine discovered her. I know they had a lot to get through in a single episode, but would it have killed them to give us a throwaway line informing us of her safety? Speaking of, where are Mark and Gracie? Orphan Black, you can’t just make us care about these characters and then take them away. Will Cosima and Scott be able to cure Mark with Kendall’s genome? Will they even try?

Sarah

We got a mostly satisfying answer as to how the daughter of the original ended up adopting a clone. Kendall and Duncan steered Sarah towards her to, in a way, make up for murdering her husband. Which was a sweet thing in the moment, the three were all together and crying but when you really think about it, ‘sorry I killed your hubby, here’s a problem child with a batshit crazy origin story to take care of for the rest of your life’ is more of an imposition than a gift. Sorry, Sarah.

Speaking of Sarah, she was finally reunited with Kira and it was so sweet. Sarah looks at Kira like she’s the sun. It makes sense to stash Kendall with Kira and Cal. Why use two per secret hiding places when one will do? I wonder if we’ll get scenes with them doing their thing in Iceland next season. It would be interesting to see Kendall and Kira interact. Kendall is so grouchy and Kira is... well, she’s Kira. Cal can come too, if he can pry himself away from the Mother of Dragons.

Helena

Helena was reunited with Jesse in one of the weirdest but most Helena-ish romantic reunions of our time. Also she killed Rudy. That scene was just... I hated Rudy. Hated him. But he made an amazing villain, being as creepy as he was. It’s right that it was Helena who killed him. In the clone club chore wheel, Helena usually gets the killing people duties. I love the way she comforted him as he was dying without absolving him of his crimes. Pitch perfect performances from both Ari and Tatiana.

Alison

Alison won her election by 56 votes and celebrated with the cutest dinner party ever. Alison’s season saga seems to be wrapped up in a nice, Alison-approved bow but I do have one remaining question from the drug dealing bit: what happened to Jason Kellerman? It’s not like Orphan Black to leave us hanging. Is he due to pop up next season or are we done with that whole thing completely?

Bits and Pieces

Rachel’s eye is a callback to season one, where it was stated that Neolutionists believed that the perfect human had one silver eye. Maybe they’ll get to the white blonde hair over the hiatus.

Helena referred to Mrs. S as her new mother and clone club as her family.

This marks the first (and possibly last) time a Castor clone has impersonated another Castor clone.

Clone Quotes

Felix: “You always think I can’t handle the tough stuff, but you know what, Sarah, this time, follow my lead, okay?”
Felix: [kicks down door]
Felix: “Oh shit, it worked.”

Jesse: “Holy moly!”
Helena: “Yes, much moly.”

Nealon: “Wherever you think the science is at, I guarantee you’re wrong.”
Intriguing tease for next season.

three and a half out of four mouth worms

sunbunny, who is probably not played by Tatiana Maslany

5 comments:

  1. I assumed Delphine was a goner. But I guess we'll see. Krystal will be okay though. I hope.
    Perfect end for Rudy, and nice to see Helena happy with her guy and her sestras.
    Next season can Felix get more to do? I like him being supportive to the clones, but how about something of his own to do?
    Shay can stay away..I love Ksenia Solo but this character added nothing to the story but being a pointless red herring.
    Soo..team Delphine lives!
    Thanks for the great reviews.

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  2. I don't know if Delphine is supposed to have a survivable wound or not. Some people die on TV when they're barely winged, and other people survive wounds that would kill anybody because "it's in the script". You can't apply reality as a guide, so who knows?

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  3. I must say that this show has given me new hope for the future of television.

    It is just great

    It is fabtastic

    Isn't Tatiana Maslany the best actress ever? She has now played at least ten(?) different characters, and you don't even feel it's a different actress. Without Tatiana and her acting abilities, this show would have been nothing. And I must give an honorble mention to Ari Millen as well, he is portaying the brothers perfectly.

    I haven't felt this way about a show since Buffy - and that's now a looong time ago.

    Freakily, I will always treasure the moment when clone Alison lectured her husband to wrap up a body properly in the trunk. Lollollol.
    Ah well, that was last season? or the season before? Doesn't matter...

    I just looove this show! Can't wait for next season...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm considering starting this show. Is it possible to have the Douxs' opinion about it? I didn't want to check every review. yay or nay?

    thank you :)

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  5. Kayne - I honestly can't recommend this show highly enough. And not just because I'm the one that reviews it. It's dramatic but still light enough to be watchable, funny when it needs to be, and has just the right touch of sci fi (enough to keep me interested but not scrambling to keep up). And Tatiana Maslany's performance is...I think the best description would be "crazy good."

    ReplyDelete

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