Photo Credit: © Steve Wilkie for BBC AMERICA
The creative team at Orphan Black must have had a good laugh at the Clone Club’s expense when they had “certain agony” in the title of this latest episode. There was plenty of agony to go around as Sarah Manning suffered painful medical experiments at the hands of Dr. Coady’s team after being left behind by Helena last week. It wasn’t just Sarah who was suffering, though. Name a character played by Tatiana Maslany, other than Alison Hendrix, and you will have mentioned a character who went through some sort of hell or another this week. Even Pupok the scorpion, voiced by Maslany, wasn’t safe! Of course, the big story was the ultimate sacrifice made by Dylan Bruce’s Paul Dierden. Read on to suffer the certain agony all over again.
Dream a little dream…of Beth?
I killed myself because I couldn’t understand it.
Perhaps the most striking part of this latest installment of Orphan Black was the use of Sarah’s dream sequences, which opened the episode and were sprinkled throughout. Sarah Manning’s mind is a very strange place, or maybe it’s just like that when she’s suffering through a massive fever, after having had Castor blood forced into her system by a mad scientist. Either way.
As Sarah seemed poised on the brink of of death, she was visited by everyone from Kira, to Charlotte (the child Leda clone we met in season 2, who I was hoping at the time was actually Sarah’s younger self), to…Beth Childs. The home videos of Paul and Beth that Sarah had used to learn how to take over Beth’s life came back in much fuller detail than viewers had previously witnessed…and then there was the moment where Sarah was confronted by Beth herself.
There was what seemed, on the surface, like an overly large focus on Beth’s relationship with Paul. Beth told Sarah the story of when Paul first moved in — how she should have seen all the red flags but ultimately didn’t. Sarah was also accused of being a liar like Paul. So much focus on Paul, the purpose of which became painfully clear later in the episode.
But the most important part of Sarah and Beth’s conversation — besides, possibly, the ridiculously amazing performance Maslany gave as both characters, particularly the previously unexplored Beth — was the advice Beth gave Sarah:
We do terrible things for the people we love. Stop asking why. Start asking who.
Start asking who. Now, Beth obviously couldn’t give Sarah advice from beyond the grave, could she? I’d normally say no, but considering how prophetic all of those dreams about following others through a tunnel were by the end of the episode…
If Sarah is special enough to beat her fellow clones’ Leda-sterilizing and Castor-brain-destroying protein, maybe she has a sixth sense? Probably not. But who knows? Either way, how is the “who” so important? I thought we already knew Professor Duncan had been behind all of this, having created the clones in the first place, but now I’m wondering who else is out there. And how awful that person will be.
Speaking of doing terrible things for the people we love…Felix Dawkins: You, sir, have seriously gone to the dark side in your desperation to find your sister.
If anyone thought previously that Jordan Gavaris’ character was nothing more than Sarah Manning’s fabulous brother, master of the flawless entrance but otherwise only there for comic relief and the drinking of mini bottles of alcohol with Alison, they thought wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
In what was, even in the midst of all of the Dirty Paul angst and Sarah’s travel through dreamworld, one of the most powerful moments of the series, Felix found himself face-to-face with Rachel Duncan. Unlike their previous meeting, though, Felix wasn’t the one being taken down. Oh, no.
In order to get information on Project Castor out of Rachel, Fee resorted to torture. Even if it wasn’t the traditional military methods brought to mind when the word “torture” is used, that’s what it was. I, for one, am happy that Felix didn’t resort to the usual military methods anyway. Even Orphan Black isn’t going to go as far as anal feedings…
What else, besides “torture,” could one used to describe actions like humiliating the former top Dyad dog by painting over her eye patch and forcing her to look at it, imitating her speech impediment, and tapping her on the head with a paintbrush when she failed to provide answers quickly enough?
And then, in the lowest blow:
We already knew that Gavaris and Maslany were capable of producing fantastic television together, both through the Sarah-Felix relationship and the Alison-Felix one. Now, we know that this rivalry with Rachel is capable of producing big things for Fee, including taking him to his personal dark side, as well.
…but I can’t help but feel sorrier for the uber-bitch the more time goes on, especially since she’s lost her coveted position of power to Delphine, of all people. Ugh.
…and then there’s Cosima’s relationship grief. For the first time since their break-up, Cosima came face-to-face with Delphine. Scott tried to warn her (bless his heart), but our beloved scientist clone was still clearly blindsided by Delphine’s sudden reappearance.
Never one to be accused of being a good person, Delphine felt the need to emotionally manipulate Cosima, telling her she missed her. Oh, and she’s also into the stalking game now, which she obviously did not share.
Did Delphine come back because she “missed” Cosima so much? Obviously not. She came back as soon as she heard Sarah was missing. Can’t have the Dyad’s most prized clone slipping through your fingers, eh?
The lasting effects of Delphine’s lying are more than just in Cosima’s broken heart: She’s unable to trust her latest love interest, Shay, and is instantly suspicious when she mentions Sarah’s name. It turns out Shay only knew that name because Cosima was saying it in her sleep, but the complete lack of trust in anyone who shares her bed and mentions the name of Sarah Manning is there. Thanks a lot, Delphine.
At least she’s good for something, other than being deceitful and stalkerish: Delphine did, at least, discover that the protein in the Castor brain was the same as that which had infected Gracie. Paired with Dr. Coady’s later revelation that it also happened to be the cause of the Leda clones’ (minus Sarah and Helena) infertility, we learned that the Castor boys were transmitting the ultimate STD and weapon.
And that brings us, unfortunately, to the sad tale of Paul Dierden. Hot Paul. Big Dick Paul. Dirty Paul. Dead Paul.
In my recap of “Scarred by Many Past Frustrations,” I wondered whether Paul had started to question the machine of which he had so willingly been a part. The ghastly experiments performed at the Castor base, including performing tests on Parsons’ exposed brain while he was still conscious, were all to save Paul’s brothers-in-arms from their illness. He defended it all to Sarah, including the taking of Helena in exchange for her safety…but then he saw the log books.
…and yes, as it turns out, he started to wonder whether it was all worth it.
Paul spent the majority of this episode questioning the work being done on the base. Urged on by a higher-up contact who he thought was on his side, Paul arrested Dr. Coady and named her unfit to run the base when he realized that she was illegally sterilizing women without their consent. Aided by Mark, Paul discovered far more than he ever wanted to know about what was being done, supposedly in the name of saving the boy clones. As it turned out, there was far more to the “science” being done at Castor headquarters than just that.
After seeing what had been done to Sarah, discovering the unsanctioned research on civilians kept in the clones’ log books, and deciding enough was enough, Paul set out to rescue Sarah and finally do the right thing. Finally. Unfortunately, it was too late to set things right.
Betrayed by his contact, Paul was attacked by a released Miller as he ushered Sarah to a tunnel that would, ultimately, lead her to safety. Leaving Sarah in the tunnel, Paul confessed his love for her and returned to a compound in chaos.
As Paul was at the mercy of Rudy and Dr. Coady, begging her to cure the soldiers and drop everything else, more of those home movies with Beth played. I guess losing a character who has been there since the beginning isn’t painful enough; we needed all of those happy (if somewhat false) memories and a reminder that maybe we’d misjudged Paul all along:
What kind of guy am I? You know what kind of guy I am.
Having already been stabbed multiple times while protecting Sarah from Miller, Paul was now shot, repeatedly, by Dr. Coady. But at least he went out in a blaze of glory — literally. As he was dying from his wounds, Paul dropped a grenade, causing a rather large explosion.
…and then Helena saved the day! Having argued with Pupok and decided he would make a nice snack earlier in the episode, Helena returned to save Sarah.
Side note: Swallowing Pupok tells me Helena’s eating habits have taken a dark turn. I miss the “these I like” powdered donuts. Also, there’s this:
That scorpion cannot have tasted better than Helena’s mangoes. #OrphanBlack
— Sarah Lichtor (@slichtor) May 24, 2015
And back on track: Trapped in the tunnel where Paul had left her, Sarah may not have survived the explosion had her sestra not returned to release her at just the right moment.
Come, sestra. People miss us.
People miss us, unlike poor Rachel, who’s alone without Professor Duncan, any power, or even a booty call from Hot Paul. As the episode closed out with Rachel, painting away at those weird symbols (which, surprise! may be the key to Duncan’s coded book) and sobbing, Rachel’s tears were my own.
Goodbye, Hot Paul. Your beautiful face will be greatly missed, even if you did make tons of terrible decisions in the name of the greater good. Being that beautiful obviously takes a toll on the common sense. Can’t be perfect, after all.
But let’s end on a positive note. The only characters not experiencing agony — or causing viewers to run out after the episode for massive amounts of feels-feeding snacks — in this latest episode of Orphan Black were the Hendrixes. Bless their twerking and making it rain with their drug money. Bless Donnie’s awkward, overly conspicuous arrival at Alison and Jason’s meeting. Bless it all. Here’s hoping business stays good, and Alison stays out of all of the clone drama for as long as possible. May her mother’s store be the perfect front business, and may Justin Chatwin continue to be a beautiful Jason Kellerman to replace the Dirty Paul eye-candy. To the tv gods I pray, amen.
Never forget, Clone Club. Never. Forget. To think: The latest episode of Orphan Black was phenomenal, and it had nothing at all to do with this:
