Right off the bat, this episode of Orphan Black was fantastic! It picked up right where last week left off, with Sarah trapped in the barn hiding from Gracie’s homicidal mom. I automatically got a cinematic vibe from this episode, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
Great news! Mark is still alive, and horribly wounded. I don’t know why I was so set on believing he was dead. Maybe Gracie’s mother just looks like she wouldn’t miss.
“Newer Elements of Our Defense” was really an extended game of hide-and-seek for Sarah, and man, is she good at it. She slipped away just in time from Gracie’s mother, and again from Rudy. Sarah decides to help Mark, and they hobble away from the Prolethians and their guns. Mark tells Sarah to help him get the bullet out of his leg, and she negotiates that he has to reveal where the Castor clones are holding Helena. I have so much appreciation for how they handled that scene because Sarah may look like she spends her days taking bullets out of people, but she doesn’t! After a realistic amount of being completely disgusted, Sarah gets the bullet out of Mark’s leg and finds out he has the box of Duncan’s stuff back at the motel. She steals his keys while he sleeps and retrieves the box.
Meanwhile, Gracie returns to the Prolethians, and they are happy to have her back, but only because of the baby, which they call ‘the blessed child.’ Gracie has complications with her pregnancy and loses the baby. Her mother makes it very clear that she is no longer welcome in their home. That was a short-lived invitation. I hope that she and Mark are reunited, because he’s the only person who has told her the truth.
Cosima spends her time catching up with Alison, which is really sweet because I’ve always loved their unusual friendship. She is also still solving the genome problem with Scott, and theirs is another cute relationship. However, Felix knows that Cosima still pines for Delphine, and he’s determined to get her out to meet new girls. Felix even tries to get her to sign up for a dating app called Sapphire.
Later in the episode, Sarah calls Felix and Cosima to tell them about the papers she found in Johannsson’s deposit box. Of course, Mark and Sarah couldn’t understand any of the scientific journals inside, but Cosima immediately knows what the cryptic jargon means. They discover that Johannsson (Gracie’s father) was Duncan’s lab assistant, and his wife gave birth to the first clone. Amazing. It’s fantastic to know that these Prolethians actually have some reason to be invested in the clones. Mark shows up to attack Sarah (poor Sarah was really getting beat up in this episode), but she stops him when she asks if Johannsson ever mentioned a son. He did! So they go to find the house where they used to live, and unfortunately, the son did not live past infancy.
Here’s where I thought “Oh please do not dig up a dead baby.” That’s when Sarah said “You’re not going to dig up a dead baby,” and then Mark told her he wasn’t going to but she was. Oh boy. So while Sarah digs up the grave and Mark determinedly points the gun at her, the two of them talk about Helena. He says he cannot trust Sarah because she was forgiving of Helena so shortly after having she shot her and tried to kill her, which is fair, Sarah can be difficult. She comes to Helena’s defense, telling Mark that Helena had no control over herself because she was raised to be a killer.
Speaking of Helena, she’s plotting to escape the Castor prison all along, and the most shocking thing on Orphan Black happened with Helena this episode. So she fakes a fit of insanity and somehow prevents the sedatives from getting into her bloodstream immediately. When they leave her alone in an unlocked room, thinking she is asleep, she gets up and begins exploring. She hears the sounds of doctors torturing a Castor clone; she then rushes back to the sick bay area before she passes out.
The security on her is higher, but clearly, it’s not enough, as she fashions a key for her cell door out of a rib. At first, I thought she was making a knife, but I was so pleased to find out that she was more resourceful and didn’t have to use violence.
Helena escapes her cell, and she looks for the tortured Castor clone. She finds him, sitting upright, awake, and terrified. She pulls the cloth covering the top of his head to reveal that the people at the base have completely removed his scalp, exposing his brain, which has black marks all over it. He begs her to kill him.
I think Orphan Black fans generally love Helena, but this is where I truly felt for her. She looked so very sad for this clone, and she even ignored the imaginary scorpion telling her to escape to stay and provide him with some type of peace, as she takes a knife and plunges it into the clone’s brain (there were definitely nicer ways to do this, Helena). The Castor mother walks in calls her men in to hold Helena. I expected Helena to lash out at the Castor mother, simply because she is not actually a mother to the clones.
The lightest part of the episode featured Alison and Donny, who are confronted by Ramon’s boss. Turns out that the head of the drug operation never agreed to the switching of his dealers. Donny has become especially lovable in these recent episodes, and he had a great line that really sums up the entire show: “Oh my god is everyone else’s life this chaotic?” I know Donny; it must be difficult to manage two kids, drug dealing to soccer moms, and the Clone Club.
And guess who Ramon’s boss is? Justin Chatwin! (He also plays Jimmy/Steve in Shameless, the other show I review for TVOvermind.) In Orphan Black, however, his name is Jason Kellerman, and he is Alison’s high school sweetheart. What a twist! They make a deal to stay on with the soap-drug plan, because Alison is a good business woman and she knows what she wants.
Back to Sarah, who attacks Rudy just as Mark falls asleep. She runs and hides in yet another barn and doesn’t escape as swiftly as she did in the beginning of this episode. It’s nice that the writers kept up with the hide-and-seek theme this week. Just as I am certain Rudy will kill Sarah, Mark hobbles in and tells him to stand down, because he is the superior officer and it’s an order. Rudy and Mark make amends just after Rudy smashes Sarah’s head against the pillar (really, poor Sarah; she’s going to have a wicked headache, maybe a concussion). Rudy mentions how they never leave loose ends, and the episode ends with Sarah’s shocked face.
Two cliffhangers in a row! The energy of this season of Orphan Black has really picked up, and I can tell it will only keep going. The scenes for next week actually make me excited to see what happens next. Alright, Clone Club, let’s keep it up!
[Photo via BBC America]
Follow Us
