Felix and Sarah are working on their wilderness badges. They’ve already got the shoplifting badge.
/ Credit: Steve Wilkie for BBC AMERICA
The world’s least likely camping trio has spent the night in a truck in the middle of a field. Felix and Sarah are both weirded out by the discovery that their foster mother has a violent past, but Sarah is relieved that at least Kira didn’t see Mrs. S. shoot a dude in cold blood. Then Felix steps in cow poop and everyone has a good laugh.
But those laughs seem fated not to go on too long, as the next scene shows us that Cylon Daniel is hot on their trail. He’s at the Home for Retired Revolutionaries, but he doesn’t spend too much time there, because the Prolethians show up to burn the place to the ground. Heavy villain traffic at that place. Mark, the erstwhile diner shooter, apologizes to the pastor for putting his faith in the wrong people. This seems like an unnecessarily harsh thing to say about two people who died trying to fulfill your evil plot, but Mark is a harsh dude.
Kira is hungry, but when Felix gripes about Sarah throwing his visa card out the window to prevent them from stopping at a diner for breakfast, she reminds him that it’s because they don’t want to be tracked. That kid is getting a weird education.
Speaking of, she next takes part in a Sarah and Felix con, wherein they use her innocent accidental theft of candy to provide a distraction from Felix stealing a lot more food. Not to nitpick, but Sarah should really break out her American/Canadian accent for times like these, since she has it ready anyway, and being British makes her stand out.
Angie stops by Art’s place to try to talk him into continuing the clone investigation, but he isn’t having it, and threatens to rat her out to their boss. She accuses him of letting down two partners, her and Beth.
Sarah, Felix and Kira enjoy a stolen food lunch in the woods, and Sarah explains vaguely that she’s been there before and that there are lots of cabins for them to sneak into. Sure, Sarah seems like the camping in the woods type.
No luck for Donnie
Donnie is enjoying a nice nap on the couch, so of course Alison starts vacuuming next to him. He’s supposed to be at work, but is playing hooky because his boss is out of town. That guy is a real overachiever. He says some mildly manipulative stuff about her seeming really wound up and then invites her to join him on the couch with the smooth line, “You know, morning’s my best time.” That earns him an icy cold “I just showered.” Pretty sure that ship has sailed, Don.
Delphine and Cosima are busy sneaking into Leekie’s office. Cosima tries to joke about it, but Delphine is being awkward and weird. And then I think a bit of Tatiana Maslany sneaks in, because Cosima breaks out an A+ Leekie impression that was my favorite part of the episode. If Cosima is this good at mimicking, she should be involved in way more clone shenanigans.
Apparently, Delphine has brought her into Leekie’s office to watch video diaries from another clone who was the first one to show symptoms of the lung ailment Cosima has. Unfortunately, it turns out she’s just died. Way to be a mood killer, Delphine.
Sarah and Kira are settling into the cabin she’s found them, but Kira wants to know when Mrs. S. is coming back, and Sarah promises she’ll be protecting her now. They’ve abandoned their truck a bit far away from the house, though, and a police officer finds it and reports it as stolen.
(Not) Making friends with Helena
Grace, the pastor’s daughter, is in charge of feeding Helena, a task she undertakes with the joy of someone having a cavity filled. Helena tries to make small talk and share her meal, but Grace does not want to hang. She does offer the sort of friendly news that they want Helena to join their weird churchy family, but Helena says she already has a family, a twin seestra and a niece. They are probably not going to bail you out of this one, Hels.
Felix wakes Sarah up in the middle of the night to tell her someone’s come to the not-so-abandoned cabin, but it turns out Sarah already knows him. His name is Cal, and he is not happy to see them, because the last time Sarah saw him, she stole $10,000 and his car. This implies that Sarah is a far better con artist than I had previously believed. The ensuing shouting match brings Kira downstairs, and she immediately guesses that Cal is her father. Did anyone else not expect to learn that bit of information so soon?
Cal doesn’t quite believe that Sarah is telling the truth, but he can’t make himself send them away, so it looks like Kira is going to get to know her father.
Alison is running through her dress rehearsal, but her director doesn’t look thrilled. I suspect Tatiana Maslany is actually a better singer than Alison, and is purposefully singing off key. Mainly because it’s hard to believe she’s bad at something related to acting. After the rehearsal, who should run into her outside but Angie, the world’s worst undercover cop. The surprise of running into her leads to another great Alisonism: “Holy f…fishsticks.” Angie weaves a tale of getting locked out of her car, but when she asks to hang out, Alison flatly turns her down and leaves.
Sarah is busy apologizing to Kira for not bringing her to her dad earlier, and Kira wants to know why Sarah hasn’t always been around, and it’s all very heartstring-tugging, but then Kira admits that she likes Cal’s beard, so I guess they’re going to be OK.
Felix gives an overprotective uncle speech to Cal, who explains that he’s a scientist who built pollinators that were supposed to save bee populations, but instead they were weaponized against his wishes. “Orphan Black,” stop making me suspicious of all scientists.
Monitoring your monitor, with Cosima
Cosima and Delphine are still watching the videos of the other clone getting sicker. Cosima is freaked out that the boyfriend helping the clone was her monitor the whole time and she never knew, and when she says she sometimes forgets that Delphine is her monitor, Delphine says, “That’s good.” Agree to disagree, Delphine. She kind of taunts Cosima into watching the rest of the videos. This relationship is getting weird.
This next scene was pretty heartbreaking. Felix is (justifiably) super pissed at Sarah for never telling him who Kira’s father is, and then bringing them all to Cal’s house without warning him. She basically has no defense for any of this. The hectic pace of the first season of this show made it easy to forget that Sarah is a pretty selfish person. When Felix tearfully points out that there’s no place for him at the cabin and she doesn’t correct him? Ouch. Great work from Jordan Gavaris in this scene. I think this might be what he was referring to when he said things were going to get pretty “fraught” this season with Sarah.
Delphine walks Cosima through an autopsy of the clone who died, because she is engaging in psychological warfare? Cosima is mostly rolling with it, but is clearly super disturbed and keeps looking at the dead clone’s face. They agree that the disease might be autoimmune-related, and might originate in the uterus and have something to do with the clones’ fertility issues. Cosima is saved by a call from Alison on her clone phone. She lies and tells Delphine it’s her mother. This is reassuring, since Delphine has spent the whole episode acting like a shady liar herself.
Oops, Alison thinks Angie is her new monitor. Watch out, Angie. You might get tied to a chair and hot glue gunned if you’re not careful. She warns Cosima against trusting Delphine. It’s really awkward to bring that up while she and Delphine are busy autopsying her other clone, Alison. She has a few other totally paranoid things to say and then hangs up to chug some booze and take some pills. Break a leg, Alison.
Felix really easily hitches a ride back home. Is this Canadians being super nice? No one in America picks up hitchhikers because we’ve seen too many horror movies.
Angie tries to buddy up to Alison again, which goes pretty poorly. It’s unclear if Angie would be better at this with a person who wasn’t already super suspicious of strangers. Maybe, but seeing as she completely underestimates Alison just because she’s a suburban mom, Angie might just not be cut out for this spy stuff. Alison is possibly even more freaked out after she learns Angie is actually a police officer, but she holds it together and tells her to stay away after Angie throws around Sarah’s name.
Sarah and Cal are having some quiet cabin time together. She admits that she could have gotten even more money out of him, but didn’t because she cared for him. Really? OK. He tells her to hide when a police car shows up, so now I don’t trust him either. The cop is investigating some shoplifters and that stolen truck he found earlier, but Cal throws him off the scent. Sarah wants to run now that the cops have been by, but Cal talks her into staying by making out with her. What a forgiving fellow this Cal is.
Alison preps for her big opening night by combining vocal exercises with a series of drug and alcohol pick me ups. Spying Donnie in the front row and having the director dedicate the performance to Aynsley doesn’t help, and she falls right off the front of the stage during her big number.
Another narrow escape?
Cylon Daniel has tracked Sarah to the convenience store where she shoplifted. Art, meanwhile, has found his way to the religious compound, where he wisely only takes some pictures before sneaking off again. Don’t get a nail gun to the head, Art.
The pastor reassures his daughter Grace about Helena joining their family and ominously says that’s what “tomorrow” is all about.
Cal’s cop friend pulls over Cylon Daniel, who shows a fine fake badge, and the cop tries to scare him off. Cylon Daniel, because he’s a Cylon, does not experience human emotions like fear, and will not be scared off so easily.
So, Kira leaves the cabin to feed some chickens at the exact moment that Cylon Daniel shows up. Sure, why not. He grabs her, and then there’s some gun fighting between him, the poor cop who returns only to get killed in cold blood by Daniel, and Cal. The end result is that Kira gets away and hides with Cal and Sarah gets carted off by Daniel, who also finds her Project Leda photo. How did Daniel even find the house? It seems unlikely that the convenience store clerk who got robbed was like, oh yeah, thieves always go hang out at that cabin hidden in the woods, here’s how to get there.
The food the religious cultists gave Helena earlier was drugged, so she can’t really fight back when the pastor performs what appears to be a wedding ceremony and then carries her off to the barn, presumably to take part in what traditionally happens after a wedding ceremony. Helena had better be unleashed in all her tail-severing fury on these guys after that.
Cylon Daniel has just enough time to check in with his bosses and threaten Kira on his own little road trip with Sarah before another car slams into theirs. Uh oh. Hope Sarah heals just as well as her twin sister.
Grade: B. Time to bring all the clones back together, “Orphan Black.” Also, no butts this week? For shame.
Read last week’s “Orphan Black” recap here. Follow Lisa Weidenfeld on Twitter at @LisaWeidenfeld.
