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“Orphan Black” recap (3.06): Exes, Exits and Explosions

Previously on Orphan Black, Mrs. S turned Helena into Castor, Sarah got taken by Castor in her hunt for Helena, Gracie got shunned from the Proletheans for not being able to bring her father’s baby to term, Alison became a soap-wielding drug dealer, and Cosima went on her first internet date, where she met the beautiful and charming Shay.

Sarah wakes up in her Castor cell to find the door ajar. She’s wisely hesitant, but also smart enough to walk as far outside as the open doors will let her. When she gets outside, she finds the camp abandoned, until she hears a little giggle. She follows the giggle to Kira, who ribbon dances away, leading her to a blanket fort. Sarah is getting desperate to catch up to her daughter now, so she scurries through the fort.

Of course Kira has mastered astral-projection.

But when she gets out the other side, it’s not Kira she sees, but herself, hooked up to Rudy, their blood flowing into one another. It’s not unlike the time in Season 1 when she dreamed she was being tested on and woke up with a probe in her mouth.

Paul meets with a man and gives him the rape log he found at camp, saying that he’s worried they’re doing unsanctioned testing on civilians-unsanctioned and non-consensual, as I doubt most of those girls offered up a lock of their hair willingly. The man tells Paul to get more proof so they can shut it down, and says he hopes it isn’t as twisted as it seems.

Mrs. S and Felix Skype Kira, who is sad her mummy isn’t there, and when they hang up, Mrs. S and Felix are sad she isn’t there, too. She’s been MIA for five days, and all they know about Camp Castor so far is that it may or may not be in Mexico. Felix is getting antsy without his sestra. Gracie serves them tea, even though Mrs. S is very confused, because the other two kids she fostered were more likely to throw tea in her face, but is glad at least that Gracie is feeling better. Cosima is trying to figure out what’s wrong with Gracie in her lab.

Of course, not RIGHT now.

Armporn.

Cosima is woken up by her phone going off, and is informed it has been blowing up all morning. Informed by a half-naked Shay.

Abporn.

Shay brings her some juice-complete with a little something for “that cough” she has (sob) and teases her a bit, telling her she’ll have to earn it.

Swoonporn.

Then the whole room spontaneously combusts from all the sexy. Okay, fine, it doesn’t, but it WOULD have, if Shay hadn’t killed the mood by asking who Sarah was. Cosima rightly panics-Sarah who? Why do you ask? WHO TOLD YOU THE NAME SARAH?! and Shay’s eyes bug a little and is like, “You said her name in your sleep so I figured it was an ex but maybe it’s a person you killed based on your reaction??” Cosima says Sarah is a friend, someone who is like a sister to her, a wilder version of her. Though why she wouldn’t just say she was triplets for the inevitable day Shay meets Sarah and Helena is beyond me.

Cosima isn’t the only one doing sexy things these days. Alison is in her underwear, making it rain money and glitter (dollar sign glitter, that you know she purchased for this occasion, because not even rollin-in-dough dance parties are spontaneous for Alison Hendrix), thrusting and gyrating and twerking like she is up in the club. Donnie is there, too.

via orphanblack.tumblr.com

Little Gemma comes in to complain about her brother, and is promptly scarred for life and will needs years more therapy than just having an alcoholic mother and oaf of a father would have granted her. The moment over, Alison says she’s going to meet with JimmySteve and ask him to take their drug dealing to the next level. Donnie wants to be there, but Alison absolutely does not need him there thank you very much.

Cosima gets to her DYAD lab, smirking to herself at the memory of Shay aligning her chakras, and comes face to face with Scott. Scott is mad she’s late, but Cosima floats her little cloud nine right past him, ignoring his attempts to warn her about what she’ll find behind her lab door.

“Surprise, bitch.”

Things are tense between the two of them, as Cosima talks to her as Topside, and Delphine takes on a bit of a sharp, condescending tone. Delphine is back because Sarah is missing, and asks Cosima and Scott how they got their hands on a Castor brain, and also why they’re studying Gracie Johansson. Cosima doesn’t know how much to tell HBIC Delphine, so Delphine continues, asking if, while they were “sneaking around” they noticed that the same protein was found in the Castor brain and in Gracie’s samples. “Warrants a follow-up, don’t you think?” is literally what she says, like a Seattle Grace Mercy West Grey Sloan Memorial resident talking to an intern.

“Do I look like Princess Hobo to you?!”

At Camp Castor, Paul finds Sarah and she is not okay. She’s shaking and feverish and just not looking great in general. Mother isn’t worried, but Sarah knows she was experimented on. Through her pain, Sarah sneers, and says Helena got away, didn’t she? Mother isn’t worried about that, either. She shows little concern for her niece and says if the desert doesn’t get her, Rudy will.

And the desert just might get her. Helena is trudging along and falls flat face first into the sand. Pupok teases her, saying it’s not exhaustion that’s getting her down, but abandoning her sestra. Tired of his constant needling, Helena says she’s not anything but hungry and eats Pupok right up. Which probably did nothing for her hunger, but I imagine is the equivalent of telling your nightmare demons you’re not afraid of them. I have a feeling that was truly the end of Pupok. RIP, little asshole scorpion. You shall be missed.

Do poba?ennja.

Paul finds the Soldier Nurse and asks him what happened to Sarah, but he doesn’t know, which is troubling in itself, since he’s usually involved in all things medical. But Solider Nurse says when Paul was gone, things changed. Rudy came back from leave with a sick girl once, and that’s when things took a turn, when the journals began, when new, secret studies started stemming off the original.

At DYAD, Cosima and Delphine stand tensely side by side as they wait for the elevator.

Where’s the awkward turtle when you need him?

Delphine tells Cosima that she heard that she’s been missing work and coming in late recently, and asks if she’s been sick. Cosima says she feels great. Like, really great. Delphine asks Cosima, pointedly, if there’s anything she should know, but Cosima says, “No.” Because, quite frankly, there isn’t anything Delphine should know. Not as far as Cosima is concerned.

The elevator opens and it’s Felix, in full sass pose, with Gracie in tow. Delphine and Cosima both turn on their soft smiles and kind voices for Gracie, trying to make her feel less like a rabbit in a foxhole. Felix lets the ladies do their science (not crazy, sadly) and asks Scott to take him to Rachel. Scott isn’t authorized for such things, but Felix is desperate. He needs to find his sestra.

Meanwhile, still off on her very own trajectory, Alison meets up with JimmySteve and gives him all the money she promised him. She starts to tell him that she wants to take the business to the next level when a car screeches up beside them and they start to scurry. But before they can get into the car, they realize the asshat in the sports car is just Donnie. Alison yells at Donnie because he’s obviously not ready to be part of organized crime considering there’s a bumper sticker on his new car that says, “I sell illegal prescription drugs, ask me how!” but Alison promises JimmySteve she can keep her dope of a husband in line. JimmySteve tells them they’ll need a front, that their garage soap situation won’t cut it, but Alison says not to worry, she has a business plan. Because of course she does. It’s probably color coded.

More like FEARmuffs, amiright?

At Camp Castor, Paul convinces Mark that it’s in his and Gracie’s best interest if he help Paul out, so he gives Paul a key and five minutes in Coady’s office. Paul shuffles around and finds a report about atrophied ovaries and realizes that the Castor clones’ defect is sexually transmitted.

Meanwhile, at DYAD, Cosima and Delphine are coming to the same conclusion while they test Gracie.

Will science [covalent] bond them?

Paul bursts into the room where Virginia Coady is watching Sarah deteriorate and arrests her for illegally sterilizing women without their knowledge or consent. He also realizes that she must have done something similar to Sarah, but luckily she didn’t let one of her Castor clones rape his sister. Instead, they gave Sarah two units of Rudy’s blood.

While this is going on, a little clone calls to Sarah in her haze. The little clone tells Sarah to take her hand, and then LITERALLY LEADS HER TO A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. I’m shouting at Sarah to not even dare go toward the light, but she doesn’t listen.

This whole episode was visually stunning, by the way.

As Sarah passes through the light, pieces of Beth’s old running video start splicing before Sarah’s eyes, back from her “Your damn right” days. When she comes out the other side of the light, she’s in Mrs. S’s house. When she gets to the kitchen, Beth Childs turns around and offers her tea.

Beth tells Sarah about the day Paul moved in, about how she should have been suspicious that he only had two bags to his name, but she convinced herself he was just an immaterial person. Beth starts to get agitated then, saying Sarah and Paul were a good match, liars and grifters the both of them. Beth pops a pill to calm down. Sarah says she misses Beth, but Beth won’t have any of that. Sarah didn’t know Beth, she doesn’t get to miss her.

Sarah says she’s been trying to help their sisters, but Helena left and Cosima’s still sick. And she let Beth jump. That one little word. “Let.” All this time we thought Sarah just saw Beth jump, but she’s been holding onto guilt about it. But Beth assuages her guilt, saying Beth jumped, she’s the one responsible. She let the clone business consume her. While she’s talking, she puts her shoes on the table the way she did on the tracks that day. Beth asks why Sarah took over her life that day, and Sarah says it was for Kira. Beth smiles sadly and says, “We do terrible things for the people we love.” She then gives Sarah advice: Stop asking why, start asking who.

I loved this scene so much.

[Side note: In rewatching this scene for screenshots, I noticed drawings all over the fridge, Helena’s drawings, of her, Sarah and Kira, and one with all the sestras.]

Beth then turns to the light and steps into it, and it turns out to be the light of the train, and Sarah has to watch her get hit all over again.

Sarah wakes up at Castor, free from her fever dream.

Paul calls his dude (who is either Topside or the Castor equivalent) and says he has cleared the base of everyone except the men he trusts, and also Rudy’s team who is still out looking for Helena. Paul’s dude says he’s sending an extraction team, all Paul has to do is stay put.

When Scott finally leads Felix to Rachel, she’s painting, quietly and serenely. She tries to say his name but is still having a hard time forming words. Felix takes advantage of her weakened state and starts making demands, needing to know where Castor is. When mentioning that Sarah got kidnapped elicits almost a giggle from Rachel, Felix loses it. He starts tormenting her, painting her eye patch and grabbing her face.

Not very brothersestraly, Fee.

When Rachel finally gets words out, she asks him to save her, to get her out, her eyes filled with desperate tears.

Felix storms out, but before he leaves, Scott notices one of Rachel’s paintings has symbols on it so he nabs it. Once the boys are gone, Rachel cries in earnest.

In the suburbs, Alison has decided to use her mother’s shop, Bubbles, as the drug front. JimmySteve looks around the store with wallpaper that looks like a Victoria’s Secret box and deems it perfect for the task at hand.

Happiest drug dealer in all the land.

At DYAD, Cosima helps Gracie get her coat on, telling her to take some time to really process the news, but Gracie confesses that since she was basically used as a broodmare, so part of her is relieved that she will never be able to be pregnant again. She asks if that makes her a monster, but Cosima promises her it most definitely does not. As Gracie steps out into the hallway, Delphine asks Cosima to hang back for a second.

Delphine’s face drops the Topside expression, and she tells Cosima that she misses her. Which is highly unfair, because though I know she was doing it for selfless reasons, she was the one to end things with Cosima. She’s the one that said she “can’t” do it. So she has no right to scratch at Cosima’s wounds like that. As someone who has been on the receiving end of those kinds of “I miss you”s, I can attest to the flood of emotions Cosima felt in that moment. Cosima doesn’t trust herself to speak, what with her lip quivering in that heartwrenching way it does, so she stays silent.

NOTHING’S FINE I’M TORN.

Delphine goes back to her office and flips through the surveillance photos and videos (!) she has of Cosima on her dates with Shay, scowling and sipping straight liquor from a highball glass like an evil villain.

Stroking her imaginary evil beard.

Cosima goes to Shay’s and admits that she originally came over to tell Shay they should take things slow, that things have been burning too hot and too bright too quickly, but as soon as she saw that flawless face and heard that sexy voice she doesn’t want to do anything but make out.

I WANT TO TRUST THIS.

Shay asks if Cosima wants to talk about what brought her to want to slow things down in the first place, but Cosima thinks that can wait until they burn hot and bright one more time. But Cosima’s phone interrupts them, and it’s Scott, ever the twatswat, who tells Cosima that he thinks Rachel knows the key to Professor Duncan’s code.

Sarah, feeling better, asks Paul if he loved Beth. Paul says he feels responsible for her death in lieu of answering the question directly. Paul says Castor thought DYAD held the answers for the cure, hence the infiltration. Sarah storms into where Coady is handcuffed, and Mother Dearest is impressed by Sarah’s recovery. Just like Leda’s illness, Sarah somehow defied Castor’s disorder, too. Paul realizes then that Coady had planned to weaponize the disorder, to use it to essentially commit delayed genocide. Sarah takes Beth’s advice then, and instead of asking why, asks who she’s weaponizing it for.

Rudy’s team is back early (supposedly without Mark, but he’s slinking around in secret, killing randos and freeing one of his brothers), and Mark tells Paul that their sat phone got a call, which might account for their return. Paul calls his man, and realized he’s been double crossed. Paul tells Mark to keep quiet about everything and slips off with Sarah. But they get stopped and Paul tussles with a clone and gets stabbed right good. Paul uses what strength he has left and shoves Sarah in a grate, telling her to run, take a Jeep, and be free.

No, seriously, go.

He pauses only to say, “It was never Beth I loved” before limping away, which is equal parts a sweet and an asshole thing to say, which pretty much sums up Paul Dierden.

Rudy and Virginia gets Paul in Coady’s office and Paul tries to turn Rudy against her, but he would follow his mother blindly into any fire. Virginia commends Paul for his devotion to her boys, but says the science in the room they stand in could change humanity as they know it, so she can’t risk him destroying it. Coady shoots Paul in the chest far more times than is necessary, saying she will never turn her back on her boys. Paul’s eyes say, “Good luck doing anything with your back when it’s in pieces” as a grenade falls from his lap. Dammit, Paul.

Goodbye, Paul.

Sarah, after staring after Paul for far too long, is scurrying through the tunnels when she is knocked down by the force of the blast. Her life, Kira, and her dream of Beth all flash before her eyes before an angry angel appears to help her. Sarah is surprised Helena came back for her, but Helena just says, “Come, sestra. People miss us.”

Okay I was wrong last week but this time I mean it: NO SESTRA LEFT BEHIND.

Meanwhile, at DYAD, Rachel is still crying and painting while looking at a picture of her and her father, probably unlocking the mysteries of the universe, definitely breaking my heart in a way I never thought it would for Rachel “ProClone” Duncan.

What did you think of “Certain Agony of the Battlefield”? (Certain agony, indeed!)

Here are some of our favorite #clonesbians tweets from this week:

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