Idea: This is where Clone Club should meet next year.
Credit: Steve Wilkie for BBC America
We open the season finale with Mrs. S and Sarah fighting over whose fault Kira’s abduction is, interspersed with what is clearly Sarah’s surrender to the Dyad, where they ask her a series of awful question about her sexual history while examining her. This includes the information that she’s had an abortion.
Eventually she ends up with a Dyad doctor who coldly says it’s not the first time they’ve met, because he’s the one who examined her while she was unconscious in Season 1. She wants to see Kira, but he just says Kira is fine.
Kira is actually getting a cheek swab from a doctor. As soon as the lady’s back is turned, Kira quickly reaches into her pocket and steals the woman’s cell phone, because she is Sarah’s daughter. Remember when Cal made her memorize his number earlier this season? That came in handy.
Meanwhile, the bad news continues in Cosima’s lab, where she learns that she has a new doctor, per Rachel’s orders, and strange men come in and steal the bone marrow material.
Delphine, meanwhile, is being shipped off to Frankfort for her little betrayal last week. She begs Rachel to let her say goodbye to Cosima, but Rachel, of course, is unmoved.
Scott tries to argue with Rachel’s assistant that Delphine is the person best equipped to deal with Cosima’s illness, and Cosima calls him off once she sees the email Delphine just sent her, which indicates that Sarah is scheduled to have some kind of freaky surgery shortly. Poor Cosima. She’s dying, her girlfriend just got shipped off the premises and now it’s basically up to her to save Sarah.
The Dyad doctor wants Sarah to consent to them taking some of her eggs. She tries to argue for seeing Kira first, and the doctor shoves a consent form at her. The handcuffs seem to indicate that Sarah is pretty well contained, but they force her to sign anyway. She has a fancy autograph signature, which may not be entirely relevant.
She is allowed to see Kira through a one way mirror while Rachel visits with her and says passive aggressive things about how Sarah isn’t there for her daughter.
Someday this show should make a prequel episode about Mrs. S’s rebel past
Back at the S house, Mrs. S has an intense conversation with a mystery individual about making car bombs when Cal shows up. He’s figured out that Sarah has clone sisters and has done some additional homework on the Dyad. While they’re discussing this, Art calls to say Helena has showed up at his house. Adorably, she yells “Hello sestra brother” over the phone at Felix. Everyone agrees that it would be best if nobody told Helena what’s happening, because she’s a little too unpredictable to unleash on the Dyad. Felix gets sent over to babysit. She is maybe his least favorite clone to babysit.
Sarah runs into Duncan in the Dyad prisoner bank, and he tells her not to despair.
Art and Felix want Helena to admit to burning down the Prolethean ranch, but she smirkingly denies having anything to do with it. She does admit to having made a nice new friend in Gracie.
Cal is trying to show off his internet research to Mrs. S, who was born unimpressed. But he reveals that someone on the inside at Dyad has been trying to contact him, and in fact, for purposes of dramatic effect, is ready to IM with him on secret computer message boards right now! Everyone at Dyad is on gchat all day too, I guess. Anyway, the person on the other end seems hesitant to help until Cal reveals that he’s with Mrs. S. She has to help him spell her name, which was sort of an adorably accurate moment. The secret Dyad person tells him to ask her about Castor. More Greek mythology.
Mrs. S goes to a Warehouse of Nefarious Doings to meet with a mystery individual, who shows up in a crazy military vehicle. Not to nitpick, but if you’re trying to commit secret nefarious doings, maybe don’t drive around in your ridiculous military vehicle. Out steps Paul! Welcome back, Paul. He’s a major in the army of whichever country this show takes place in. Canamerica.
Rachel’s annual employee review is going to be weird
Meanwhile, at Rachel’s House of Dyad Torture, Duncan is being forced to watch her home videos of their family. She’s hoping this will convince him to share his cipher to make more clones. He tries to negotiate for Cosima’s health, but Rachel wants the cipher first. When she turns him down, he sips the tea he prepared for himself. He tries to ask Rachel if she remembers the feeling of how much he and Susan loved Rachel, but she’s not having it. That’s about the point where he drops his mug of tea, because his self-prepared tea bag was poison. As he collapses, he tells Rachel he doesn’t think she deserves him anymore. Goodbye, Ethan Duncan. I liked him a lot, and also the work Andrew Gillies did with him. This scene was pretty brutal.
Back to the Warehouse of Nefarious Doings. Cal and Paul get to meet and have a brief moment of implied competition over Sarah, which makes Mrs. S laugh. Paul gets in the limo Cal arrived in, where we see that the Dyad mole is Marion. Paul hands over information about Castor in exchange for a guarantee of Sarah and Kira’s safety. Is he acting in the interests of the military or his own feelings for her? Are we getting a love triangle next season?
Cosima has been granted a brief visit with Kira. This is maybe the first time they’ve met in person? Am I the only one bothered by the fact that Kira has always expressed awareness of Cosima despite never meeting her? Anyway, they are having a little science session, wherein Cosima explains to Kira how to shove a pencil through a sheet of paper. Which is basically what she and Scott are doing with a fire extinguisher. Since Cosima knew she’d be filmed while she was with Kira, why is she describing her plan? The scene is interspersed with clips of her and Scott assembling her device. She nearly collapses while with Scott, who has been trying to get her to escape from the Dyad. Scott shows off some spy skills — he’s swiped a key card and offers to make the plan happen.
Sarah is rudely awakened in the middle of the night by doctors who strap her down for a surprise operation. Scott carefully undoes one of the bands holding her arm down as the doctor explains that they’re removing one of her ovaries. When she tries to say she didn’t sign off on that, he just tells her she still has another one. They wouldn’t want her to be infertile, of course: They want her to have more babies.
Rachel can’t resist slipping in before the operation to taunt Sarah and hand her a drawing Kira made. It’s standard kid and mom stuff, aside from the random fire extinguisher she’s drawn in. Sarah looks over at the fire extinguisher next to the bed, which is marked “squeeze” with a skull and cross bones image. Rachel tries to get Sarah to admit that she knows what Duncan’s cipher is (she doesn’t, of course) and then smashes Kira’s bone marrow transplant in a rage on the floor. Which means that Cosima’s miracle option is just gone.
Sarah squeezes the fire extinguisher, which shoots a pencil straight into Rachel’s eye at a high velocity. Very good aim. Sarah takes advantage of the ensuing confusion to bolt. Scott gives her the key card and she leaves, only to find Marion tending to Kira. Marion sends her on her way with the suggestion that they meet up the next day. If Marion could help her get out, why didn’t she just do that in the first place?
Get ready, your new favorite scene is fast approaching
Cal takes Sarah back to Felix’s place, where Alison and Cosima compliment her on her romantic choices. Cal indicates that he wants to help out and potentially assist with the bone marrow transplant again, but Sarah says that option is out for at least another six weeks. Sorry, Cosima. Felix interrupts them making out and calls them “steamy potatoes.” Is that a Britishism? He’s brought Helena to meet the others.
Cosima and Alison are shockingly nice to someone who was trying to murder all the clones not too long ago. Cosima gives her a hug and calls her beautiful, and Helena says she likes her hairs. She also asks Alison if she’s married, and says she will be married soon, too. Good luck, Jesse.
And then Cosima turns on a little music and starts a clone dance party. My enjoyment of this scene was somewhat lessened by my concern that Cosima would drop dead in the middle of it. Since Tatiana Maslany has said she often dances to get into character as each clone, it looks like the creators wanted to give us a look at the character dances, and sure enough, each of them has their own specific style. Alison dances with Felix, of course. Helena’s dance is the craziest, but sadly lacking in severed tails.
Later, Sarah and Cosima have claimed the bed together. They talk about how different all the clones are, and Cosima compliments her on her ability to survive and propagate against all odds. Sarah gets teary thinking about losing Cosima, who reassures her that Sarah will be fine. Helena uses their distraction to leave, but pointedly departs without her frozen embryos. She’s got Jesse’s cap and a husband to find, but, regrettably, is kidnapped by two strange men. She never catches a break.
Sarah decides to try meeting Marion, who of course lives in a random giant mansion.
Kira goes to wake up Cosima, and “Orphan Black” reeeeally makes you think she’s dead for a second, but then a special vision of Delphine helps her wake up. She was probably a little disappointed when it was Kira there instead. Kira wants to read together.
Is there an age limit for Clone Club?
At the mansion, Sarah is introduced to Marion’s daughter, who turns out to be a child version of the clone. She’s the result of 400 efforts to replicate the clone experiment. Sarah recognizes her immediately. Would you recognize a version of yourself as a child if one walked up to you? Then again, this kind of thing happens to Sarah all the time.
Once Kira and Cosima finish reading a children’s book, Kira breaks out the copy of “The Island of Dr. Moreau” that Duncan gave her. Of course, Cosima has read it. But she has not read the version that contains all of Duncan’s notes, presumably explaining his cipher. So, don’t give up on Cosima quite yet. Between the notes and the embryos, here’s hoping Cosima finally starts to get better.
Marion explains that she’s part of Topside, which “steers” the Dyad, along with other groups, all committed to a future with synthetic biology. She explains that she’d heard of other agendas, but needed Mrs. S to help put the pieces together.
Apparently, the military never shut down Project Leda. While Dyad worked with female clones, the military worked with male clones. Sarah catches a glimpse of one kept in an enclosed room and says, “I know him,” just as its revealed that Mrs. S worked with Paul to turn Helena over to the military.
Meanwhile, Mark and Gracie are getting married. Isn’t she still a teenager? As the ceremony takes place, we see Helena loaded onto an airplane, watched over by a group of soldiers, including … another Mark. Guess we found our boy clone. The one Sarah meets at Marion’s place seems to have a few screws loose, and Sarah is more than a little freaked out. The other version of him tried to kill her in the season premiere, so she’s understandably not thrilled to see him.
What did you think of the big reveal? Do you think Mark will make a good clone? Were you also disappointed that Felix’s morgue boyfriend didn’t make a reappearance? #BringBackMorguey
Grade: B.
Read last week’s recap here. Follow Lisa Weidenfeld on Twitter at @LisaWeidenfeld.
