Orphan Black recap: The Antisocialism of Sex

TGFF. Thank God for Felix.

Brother Sestra really came through tonight, saving not just one but two clones from making disastrous (and potentially deadly) decisions.

Those two, of course, were Cosima and Sarah, both wracked with guilt by the fallout from their decision to team with Susan Duncan, which led to them getting double crossed by Neolution baddie Evie Cho and Kendall Malone being murdered.

Suffice to say, no one had a good week this week — we couldn’t even get through a child’s slumber party without arrests and police threats. (Happy birthday, Gemma!)

So, without further ado, it’s time to put the clones through the Orphan Black Clone Status Hyper-Sequence Generator Calcutron and rank the best of the worst.

Sarah

Sarah Manning takes the cake this week for saddest and most self-destructive clone. She and Mrs. S are still reeling from Kendall’s death, and S doesn’t mince words when it comes to Sarah’s role in what happened: She put Kendall in the line of fire. Sarah takes off, leaving Kira behind with S, and becomes the Sarah we remember from Orphan Black’s early days — drinking, drinking, drugs, more drinking, sex (a threesome with strangers she meets in a bar), and so on. Through it all, she keeps seeing visions of Beth.

Felix puts the differences he’s had with Sarah all season aside and goes out to look for her — and points out to S that no matter how she feels about Sarah right now, she’s the glue that holds this whole thing together. I don’t know if I ever thought of it like that, but I think he’s right.

Sarah goes home with Dizzy, whom she ran into at the bar, and is looking to keep numbing her pain by sleeping with him too, but he’d rather talk bots. Turns out Ed Capra, the body Beth caught off M.K.’s tip in the premiere, was a friend of his. He also noticed her implant was gone and wants to know how she managed that. Sarah is having none of it, though, and yells at him and walks out.

Her next stop? The train station, where she looks over a ledge at tracks below while talking with Ghost Beth, who is a lot meaner than Real Beth. “You gonna follow me the rest of my life?” Sarah asks. “Tonight’s our last night, I hope,” Beth replies, not at all ominously.

What saves her from herself is a call from S to Felix, warning him about something Kira said — that her mother wouldn’t be back this time and was “following Beth.” At the same time, he gets a call about Cosima (more on that below), but thankfully still manages to get to the train station in time. GB (Ghost Beth) is telling Sarah to go over the edge, but Felix urges her to be stronger than Beth was. It works, and she hugs him instead of following Beth into the dark. Back at home, S makes her breakfast and they hold hands at the table. If all’s not forgiven, it’s a start.

Cosima

The other clone reeling from her part in Kendall’s death, along with what Evie told her about Delphine being shot and killed. She can’t even be cheered by what Scott says is her favorite thing – bad coffee and a good croissant. (I love little details like this. I also love good croissants.) The malware on the Evie Cho-provided Brightborn hard drive from last week wiped all their data, meaning they’re back to square one and she’s feeling hopeless. Except…that she stole Sarah’s bot off Evie’s desk and has it in her possession.

Cosima wonders if the bot, which was trying to find the right genes to make Sarah sick, could perhaps do the opposite for her and make her better. Scott points out there’s a whole host of other, very bad things it could do, and while she acknowledges it’s risky she also locks him out of the safe house so she can DIY a Neolution implant.

Cue a frantic phone call from Scott to Felix. He tells Fe that Cosima blames herself for Kendall and is distraught over Delphine, which makes Felix remember something. He calls Cosima next, as she’s trying to place the bot in her cheek, and at Scott’s urging she finally picks up. Felix tells her Krystal — in the midst of her half-brained, totally bonkers but somewhat helpful investigations — saw Delphine get shot but also saw she was still alive when someone picked her up and took her away. It’s not a great sign, per se, but it’s enough to give Cosima hope again. She puts the bot down, crying hysterical tears, and gives Felix a thank you. He promises they’ll figure it all out together.

NEXT: Alison, Rachel, and another clone cameo

Alison

What, your kids’ sleepovers don’t end in police raids and your husband getting arrested?

This is definitely not the party Alison wanted to throw, but in the middle of Donnie telling spooky ghost stories the police burst in and arrest him for trafficking in narcotics. Interestingly, Alison isn’t cuffed, though we know Duko said the police were eyeing both of them. And speak of the devil, guess who was there to give Alison his card and ask how she’s holding up after Kendall’s death? They’ll be needing to keep in touch, Duko tells her.

And speaking of Duko, dude was on a roll this week. Aside from the sleepover drama, he also laid a bunch of threats out on Art. He says “they” (Evie? Neolution? They’re one and the same I suppose) know he teamed up with Sarah, was helping the Hendrixes, and put the cell phone in Maggie Chen’s hand after Beth shot her.

Rachel

With the aid of her motorized chair and then crutches, Rachel heads above ground in the compound where she’s being held. Upstairs, it’s a tastefully decorated home overlooking the water and with snow on the ground. But just where are they? “Welcome to the Island of Dr. Moreau,” says Susan Duncan, tipping back a drink at peak levels of we-lost-the-original-and-all-hope-for-a-cure.

But she does give Rachel a lesson in Neolution 101 – the group dates back to the Victorian age and a wealthy industrialist who used his money to create a secret science society dedicated to breeding a better human. That man actually built the facility that’s been Rachel’s home/prison, Susan adds. She’s sleeping in his former room, and this house was built above it. And now, Evie Cho is building on top of her.

Rachel doesn’t want her mother to give up – she says she wants to get better and help find a cure. And she sits by her side as they take a video call from Evie, who tells them Neolution is under her control now. The Leda project is being dismantled, the monitor program scrapped. The clones themselves will be cut loose – per Evie, their days are numbered anyway — but the self-aware ones are still a threat and won’t be let off so easily. Rachel offers to help, emphasizing that she’s not like her sisters and was brought up in the Neolutionist fold, but Evie scoffs and says there’s no way a clone would ever be given a high position within the group.

And one could only hope this is karma for messing with our Ledas, but Evie’s not doing so well herself. She’s got shingles, which she claims is the result of being on so many immunosuppressants during her sickly childhood. Her doctor assures her that once she’s implanted with the latest generation of bot, her condition will be a thing of the past. Just like she wants for human clones.

(Side note: What do you think of Rachel’s swan vision? She saw the hallucination in her high-tech eye, and then it glitches and disappeared. I’m not sure what to make of it yet, so I welcome any and all theories.)

M.K.

Did you miss her? I kind of did. Our mask-wearing hacker makes a quick appearance at the end inside Kira’s computer. What does she want from our littlest Clone Club member? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.