Rachel’s grip tightens as Kira rebels against her mother, and it’s the end for a clone sister.
It was remiss of me not to mention somewhere in my 3000 words of recap last week the one constant through the 4 seasons so far, and continuing into season 5 of Orphan Black. Tatiana Maslany. Tatiana Maslany’s performance. Tatiana Maslany’s extraordinary talent. Tatiana Maslany’s incredible work ethic to bring all these divergent characters to life. Tatiana Maslany’s ability to make us forget it’s just one person playing all of these different roles.
At any one time you could be watching (American) Tatiana talking to (British) Tatiana on the island, while (Ukrainian) Tatiana runs through forest to find food for (Canadian) Tatiana, and (English) Tatiana is creeping up on the village while (Finnish) Tatiana is in hiding, fearing for her life. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, when I say that every character, so completely diverse and different, is as if watching a totally different actress, and when you suddenly remember that it’s all Tatiana, it’s a bit of a jolt back to reality as you realise just how freaking amazing this woman is!
So, if I don’t mention it at any time, please know that I’m fully cognisant of her outrageous talent and instead, I’ll just push on with the recap! But I must warn, there are descriptions of graphic and disturbing scenes, so please be aware before reading on.
So this week’s episode begins with Sarah having one of those dreamy, visiony hallucinations of Kira, but this time she’s telling her “you need to let go”. When S appears to tell Sarah she needs to listen to Kira, Sarah jolts awake to find herself in a dark room in what looks like a green prison uniform. She’s not happy as she runs around the room screaming, “not again, I know you can hear me, you bitch.” Fair to say of all the sisters, Rachel and Sarah are still not the close ones.
Freaky AF Ferdinand appears and links Sarah to Alison and for a quick ‘update’. Alison assures her “Rachel’s very nice Neos brought her home” and she’s safe, and Art tells her it’s pretty much all over, they’ll all have to come in. Sarah’s not ready to accept this and wants to know about Cosima, who then appears on the big screen and tells her Rachel administered her treatment. You could almost knock Sarah down with a feather, but Cos tells her if this treatment works for her, she can begin treatment on all of them immediately. Sarah’s mind is spinning as Ferdie shows her images of Kira, saying Rachel is willing to offer everything she’s lost back to her, so long as “Sarah Manning is finally ready to behave.”
I can not look you in the eye and lie at the same time. It does not become me.
Sarah is brought to see Rachel, who tells her basically the war is over, all she needs to do is surrender one more thing – access to Kira for them to study her ‘unique physiology.’ And she can go home and get on with her life. Sarah tells her to ‘shove it up her bleed-sharse’ (or something… but we get the picture), but when Kira and S turn up and they both appear to be on board with it all, Sarah seems to relent somewhat. Now I don’t know if you’ve seen “The Truman Show”, but the scene at the end (SPOILER ALERT) where Truman has finally overcome his fear of the water and is sailing to freedom – it’s the same music playing! Or at least very similar. The hero music, the ‘I am saved” music… It seemed significant to me at the time.
That was such a nice cup of tea – I brewed it myself.
You should have just drunk the tea, Sarah.
Cut to Alison listening to a message from her mother. Kids want to hear from her, Norma Whosherwhatsit is taking over the organisation at the Fall Fair, and Alison crosses into Action-Mom, “I have a thousand things to do, I need to stop an insurrection at the Church Fall Fair.” Art’s Neo partner Matty isn’t prepared to let Alison out of her sight until her ‘prego sister’ turns up.
The Church Fete needs me.
Art needs you more.
But right at this moment, the prego sister is lying in a hospital bed, after having a large stick removed from one of her ‘bebbies’, the one she was impaled with fighting off a Neo. The operation was a success, says Donnie, but Helena kind of freaks out when she finds out a Neonatal specialist is going to come in and check on her. “Not that kind of Neo,” Donnie assures her, but Helena is far from convinced. The docs want a C-Section, but Helena is dead-against this idea. A scan shows that the wound in the baby has healed which confuses and confounds the doctors, but Helena is totally cool with it as she knows her “bebbies are miracles, like Kira.” She tells Donnie she’s leaving, and that “on pain of your juicy heart, devoured by Baba Yaga” only Sarah can know where she’s going. When the poor doc returns (and I thought at that point she was going to be that other kind of Neo) to do an amniocentesis, the old “reee-rawww” scary Helena music starts, and Helena grabs the fricken needle and stabs the doc through the cheek with it, pinning her to the bed! Grue-some! Then, as Helena does, with little concerns for social niceties, wanders of down the hallway, bare bum showing as her hospital gown flaps open and closed. Donnie hightails it out of there before copping the blame for the behaviour of his recalcitrant ‘wife’.
On pain of your juicy heart , devoured by Baba Yaga…
Oh stop making noise, is only a flesh wound.
Is necessary in this country to wear underwear?
Sarah gets home from Dyad, delivered by Freaky Ferdie, and finds Felix and a bunch of Dyad guys outside guarding the house. Her instructions are clear – Rachel will pick up Kira after school. S tells him to “choke on his own vomit” (if only), and then turns on the vacuum cleaner so they can make the plans to NOT do what Rachel wants after all. So Sarah Manning is definitely not ready to behave. Felix dashes off to look at possible escape routes, while S instructs Sarah to make it look like she’s toeing the Dyad line. Kira’s excited to be going back to school, despite on the walk there being tailed by the Dyad-apes.
Choking on your own vomit is too good for Freaky Ferdie.
Yeah I’ll do as I’m told (you can see my fingers crossed behind my back, but, can you?).
Felix meets with Scott to get the newly encrypted clone phones, and the gets good news that Scott has found MK, who’s waiting in his loft. On a call to Sarah, MK tells Sarah she’s been sick for a long time, and Sarah is all like, “Oh my god, why didn’t you tell us, there’s a treatment on the way.” MK is more concerned with the fact that through her surveillance of Dyad, she’s found out they’re recruiting naïve surrogates, and that Rachel plans to start up human cloning again. MK has “been hiding a long time Sarah”, and tells her that if she can get Kira out from under Dyad surveillance, then she can get them away today. But that also means NEVER GOING BACK. As in DISAPPEARING PERMANENTLY. Frightening dilemma.
They’re recruiting surrogates – it’s all about to start again.
Cosima can fix you, MK! Come and be one of us!
Cosima is still at the camp with Charlotte, and manages a meeting with Aisha, the little Afghan girl. She wants to unravel the mystery that Delphine left her with of the girl somehow being a major part of it all. But so far not much is making sense (apart from just how adorably delightful and gorgeous Cosima is… *sigh*). The Messenger arrives with Mudd (although I think it’s just Mud, but I’m sticking with the two-ds because for some reason it appeals to me)… and tells her that “He wants to see you.” This can only mean old PT himself. Mudd walks her up the stairs and tells her all sorts of things about PT, prompting Cosima to ask, “Who are you Mudd?” She doesn’t reply, just urges Cos not to be nervous. So… who is she exactly?
Cosima enters the “Big House” and wanders through PT’s collection of artifacts, including a photo of him with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from 1894. PT walks in and he’s a whole lot less creepy than I expected. He’s also not who I expected, in that I didn’t know his face at all, as I had completely and totally believed we were going to find out that PT was someone we’d already met, I just didn’t know who. Maybe Rachel’s dear old dad wasn’t dead after all and he was PT, or one of the BrightBot scientists… or someone. But not, PT appears to be a completely new (well, actually a very, very old) character altogether. And he wants Cosima on board. He also tells her the first part of her treatment looks to have been a great success, which is the great news. Cosima replies, “No disrespect – I know you created me, but I have no interest in being part of your collection.” She wants to know what’s the point, and he tells her of a poem about cheese mites – and I really, really LIKED his analogy of why bother doing anything really… and said, the lab and everything in it is yours, maybe one day you might look in “my” direction (ot at least that’s how I interpreted it – that he was the cow, ie the creator of the cheese…; if anyone wants to correct me, please do! I welcome it.
Nice place.
So wait – I’m the cheese mite? No, I’m the cheese… I’m definitely not the cow, and you’re definitely not the mite. So are you the cheese or the cow? Oh wait I get it… the cheese is the earth; I’m the mite and you’re the cow! Wait! Why do I have to be the mite??
Freaky Ferdie and Rachel are sitting in some strange sex/meditation/Buddha in the background pose on the floor, and Ferdie is begging for Rachel to hit him, but she’s found her life’s purpose through old PT, and no longer needs to dominate him to feel good about herself. This is all a great big bummer to Ferdie, who wants to be dominated, but when he realises his nasty little Rachel is a changed woman, he skulks off in a sulk.
No comment (other than yuck, can we please move on?)
The next part of the “Save Kira” plan goes into action. Sarah, S and Felix have something set up with MK, and with MK having hacked into Dyad’s security cameras they have a bit of an idea where Rachel and Freaky Ferdie are. Sarah does her best Rachel impersonation and turns up at the school to collect Kira- who looks MIGHTY pissed off about it, even though she knows immediately it’s her mother! Sarah knows they have minimal time before the real Rachel turns up and sets the Dyad goons onto them, so with a quick switch down the hallway with S, and Uncle Felix waiting in the wings, Sarah and Kira are whisked away. Kira isn’t so sure it’s a good idea, but Sarah is adamant that she’s not letting Rachel get her hands on her daughter. When Sarah hears that MK didn’t go to the lab, she hightails it to Felix’s loft to talk some sense into her, having no clue that Freaky Ferdie is following her.
Sarah as Rachel hiding from Freaky Ferdie (or of you prefer Tatiana as Tatiana hiding from FF).
MK doesn’t want to go, she’s tired, but Sarah tells her they’re all tired, and they need each other. MK is adamant she’s not leaving, so she swaps clothes with Sarah to buy more time for Sarah to get away. She’s frantic that something doesn’t add up with old PT, his data is so deeply encrypted he’s impossible to reach, even for someone with the hacking expertise that she has. She’s talking at a million miles an hour until Sarah finally calms her down, saying, “I just want to save my daughter.” Ominously she replies, “I know, but this is bigger than that.” Ferdie has found the loft, as, costume swap complete, Sarah as Mika runs off down the back way, and Mika as Sarah as Rachel waits for Ferdinand to bash his way in.
Sarah (as Mika) and Mika (as Sarah as Rachel) saying goodbye. Come on MK, don’t you know Sarah is almost superhuman – go with her, she’ll save you!
Mika arms herself with a knife hoping (as I was) that she could slice Freaky Ferdie’s belly open with it, and have his entrails spread all over the floor like the wolf in ep1, but sadly, things took a horrible turn. The outfit inspires a desire in Ferdinand to get revenge on all the times Rachel has demeaned and used him, not least of all earlier today when he wanted to be demeaned, but she refused, because she doesn’t need to anymore. She is ALWAYS laying down the rule, and he must play by them. Despite him knowing full well that the woman in front of him is nor Rachel, he intends to get revenge against Rachel, just because he can. This representation of Rachel is as close as she’s going to get to actually taking her down, and he intends to make a good job of it. As MK spins ready to stab Ferdinand, he sees the facial scar and realises that it’s not Sarah, but in fact MK (Veera Suominem appears to be her real name), and he sneers, “this is like two revenge fantasies in one”, referring to the money she stole from him, and that she was a clone who escaped ‘Helsinki’ (Suominem is also a common Finnish family name). While she’s down, Fucking Freakie Ferdie gets up and starts stomping on her chest, over and over, over and over yelling, “you hurt me Rachel”, stomping, stomping until MK is dead… It’s horrid, it’s gruesome, it’s devastating. MK sacrificed her life to save Kira and her sisters, and right when she was finally on the brink of finding her family and being brought into the fold. If there’s a TV character I’ve hated – right in that moment I HATED Ferdinand.
Choke slowly and painfully on your own vomit Mr Chevallier, for doing this to precious, gentle Mika.
Sarah arrives at the meeting place alone, and despite telling the others MK is going to be fine, Kira insists she’s not. Screaming, “I can’t feel her anymore,” we learn the extent of Kira’s connections with Sarah’s sisters as she tells them MK is dead. Sarah tries in vain to get Kira into the van telling her, “shes not dead,” but Kira fights her way away from her mother and runs to Felix screaming she wants to know why she’s like this. Time to let go Sarah – as both Kira and S told you in your dream at the beginning of the ep. S agrees – you need to let her go… and Sarah breaks down. All this time trying to protect Kira and her sisters and in the space of a few minutes MK is dead, and Kira makes the decision she wants to go with Rachel.
She has a right to know Sarah.
Meanwhile back at Dyad, Rachel is steaming with anger at Ferdinand for disobeying her orders, and in the process killing MK. He seems to think Sarah and crew giving up was helped because of this action, but Rachel glares at him as only Rachel can (well they all could, but only that character truly does), and has him escorted from the building.
Your time is up Mr Chevallier. Now in the parlance of the lower classes, “piss off”.
Rachel turns up at S’s house to collect Kira, who walks away from Rachel and towards Sarah without a backward glance. This kid wants answers and “Aunty” Rachel, in her eyes, is the only one who can give them to her. Rachel’s evil little smirk back at Sarah, and the way she slams the car door after Kira gets into the car, suggests that she’s nowhere near a fully redeemed character yet, and is delighting in Sarah’s heartbreak.
I told you the war was over.
Oh no. You win this battle, but the war is FAR from over.
Later, as S is relaxing (or trying to) with a whiskey (she’s Irish – of course it was whiskey), there’s a knock on the door. Gun behind her back, she opens the door. WTF??? It’s Delphine! “No I’m not a ghost” (and I’m clearly not on Sardegna either!). Neither knows if they can trust the other, and Sarah mustn’t know, but Delphine has to tell someone… S is listening.
Gratuitous picture of Evelyne Brochu, because EVELYNE BROCHU!
Back for more next week!