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Orphan Black: From Dancing Mice to Psychopaths

“Hold on tight, because this is very confusing.”

This episode wrapped up the season but it did so in such a way it got me wondering why we’d wasted our time at all.

We’re not in exactly the same place we were when the season started. Sarah is bleeding to death in on a remote island and that’s new. But the whole bot/Evie Cho story felt like ten episodes worth of set up with no pay off. Evie’s dead and Rachel wants to put bots in clones but getting there could have and should have been much faster. So much of this season felt like prologue and for what?

At least I feel like we’re headed in a better direction now. Rachel is back in charge and back to her evil self, Mrs. S and Kira are at the mercy of the merciless Ferdinand, Sarah is stranded all alone and seriously injured (how’s she gonna get out of this one?) and, best of all, Cosima and Delphine have been reunited.

The betrayals of Susan and Rachel Duncan were inevitable but certainly welcome. I like that the show is returning to Clone Club vs. Rachel. Evie was never a good villain and Susan, bizarrely, was far too sympathetic and conflicted to make rooting against her in any way enjoyable. Rachel is one of those love to hate characters and an almost too perfect foil for Sarah.

With Susan, I believe her when she says she cares about the sisters. I truly believe she wants to cure Cosima and Charlotte. Even as she was betraying Cosima, it was hard to hate her. And then there’s the whole man behind the curtain mystery. Last week she revealed she was under pressure to create Charlotte and she seemed, not just happy, but relieved when she found out she’d be able to resume human cloning. I get the impression that she’s being pressured by a third party, likely Westmoreland, which mitigates her villainy somewhat. I’m a little confused as to her eventual fate. Rachel patched her up but it certainly didn’t seem like she did a very good job. She then locked her in. Is this a let her bleed out all alone sort of thing or a keep her prisoner thing?

Speaking of letting people bleed out, Sarah. The fight between Rachel and Sarah was horrible in the best way. I could barely stand to watch. Rachel really, really hates Sarah. I mean really. And then to have Susan try to step in and help Sarah was amazing. Is it crazy that I like Susan as much as I do? I can’t even imagine how Sarah is going to escape freezing and or bleeding to death and I’m really excited to find out how she manages it.

Cosima’s never been my favorite sister (don’t hate me), but her scenes in the episode were my favorite this time around. The way she took care of Charlotte was so touching and, of course, we saw her reunited with her one true love. Watching that scene, I kept imagining Cosima thinking she was dying and then seeing Delphine and assuming she had died or was hallucinating or something.

Overall, a satisfying end to a less than satisfying season. I’m just glad we’re done with Evie Cho and Bright Born and focusing back on the sestras.

Keeping Up with Clone Club

No word from MK. The Hendrixes are hiding out in Helena’s yurt. Alison is not enjoying the experience. Krystal’s been let into Clone Club but hilariously doesn’t believe a word of it and is still convinced that Estée Lauder is behind all of this.

Proleathean Bits and Neolutionist Pieces

Delphine is back and even better, her curls are back. Farewell, Delphine’s evil straight haired twin. Stay away.

Does Charlotte have the same psychic ability as Kira?

Clone Quotes

Donnie: “Alison thinks we’ve been hiding out long enough. I don’t think the frontier life agrees with her.”
Helena: “She has the shits.”

Krystal: “This girl looks nothing like me.”

Krystal: “This is about human experiments and two factions fighting to control them.”
Art: “Shit, that’s right.”

Sarah: “Neolution has a board?”
Mrs S: “There’s always a bloody board.”

four out of four major stab wounds
---
sunbunny, who is probably not played by Tatiana Maslany

4 comments:

  1. To be honest the show's plot has started losing me somewhere in season 2. The constant introducing a villian behind a villian has gotten old and I just can't put myself to care about the twists.

    What keeps me though is the wonderfull Tatiana and her acting and the other characters. Without the characters I think the overall level of the show would be on par with FlashForward or Revolution or late seasons True Blood. You know the convoluted plotting that leads nowhere and ultimately means nothing.

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  2. I enjoyed last season and the first part of this season and then the last few episodes just didn't seem to add up to anything. A few good moments here and there that don't make sense as a cohesive plot. Since next year is the last, I hope they come up with something amazing that will end this tale with the same brilliance with which it started.

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  3. When I saw a bunch of poorly-dressed types living in yurts on "the island" and following an invisible leader, I started to think I was watching another show...

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  4. I thought season 4's episodes mostly worked as individual episodes. I never found it boring. But there is something disjointed about the whole season. Felix boomerangs between suddenly being all about finding his biological family and giving Sarah the cold shoulder to being his normal supportive self. The bot in Sarah's cheek is discovered (did they ever explain how it got there?) and it dominates for a couple of episodes. Evi Cho is eliminated almost as soon as she is revealed as a big bad. There are various supporting characters (Adele, Dizzy, Trina) who reoccur but don't seem to do much. I liked Adele and Dizzy well enough as characters, but Adele's only role seemed to be to create tension between Felix and Sarah, and I have no idea why they bothered with Sarah's unsatisfying hookup with Dizzy in episode 7.

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