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“Orphan Black” recap (3.01): Wicked Sister

WELCOME BACK, CLONESBIANS! It’s my favorite time of year, Orphan Black time! And like last year, I went into this season with this tiny nugget of fear; how could it possibly get better? But once again, my fear dissipated within the first 30 seconds. The first episode was full of all the things we love most about this show. It felt like coming home. And, as usual, they crammed a LOT of information and action into 42 minutes, so let’s get started, yeah?

Previously on Orphan Black…oh man where do I even begin? A grifter named Sarah Manning saw a girl who looked like her kill herself, assumed her identity, and found out that she was part of an illegal cloning experiment. Each clone had a monitor, but only Sarah had a biological child, Kira, who might use more of her brain than the rest of us, since she seems to have a sixth sense and a dash of indestructibility. When we last left each of the clones, Alison and her husband/monitor Donnie buried Leekie’s body and were hell-bent on having a normal suburban life, Helena was impregnated by a Neolutionist and then kidnapped by someone else entirely, Cosima almost died but Kira woke her up and asked her to read a story that ended up being Professor Duncan’s cipher, and Sarah found out that while Project Leda made female clones, Project Castor made male clones.

Phew! On to this week’s episode!

We begin at a baby shower for Helena. She’s super preggo and sitting pretty in a pink dress. Sarah, clad all in leather, plops down next to her and calls her a meathead. Kira flits about in a fairy costume. Alison brings out piles of homemade cupcakes while Felix, dressed like a British schoolboy, cooks ox liver on the grill. Cosima is dressed in traditional Ukrainian garb and is feeling better, because science.

Cosima hands Helena a basket of her favorite food and tells her to dig in. (She’s eating for two, after all.) But as soon as Helena shoves some of that bread into her mouth and closes her eyes, the dream shatters and instead of having a basket of food on her pregnant belly with her sestras around her, all she sees is a scorpion climbing on her chest.

It was all Helena’s dream. Her sestras were all the way she imagined them, sort of caricatures of their true selves. And more importantly, they’re all together. With tons of food. I imagine Cosima got the garb because it’s an outfit Helena considers beautiful, and Cosima was probably the first person in Helena’s whole life to call her beautiful.

When Helena wakes up, she finds herself in a box with a real scorpion. But she knows this scorpion, it’s called Pupok (which means ‘belly button’ in Ukrainian), and it gives her a pep talk, telling her she was being tested. Most of us have had imaginary friends or pets…and, of course, Helena’s is a scorpion.

Sarah, Felix and Kira are sitting by the river, enjoying a rare moment of quiet. Felix sends Kira off to play (but stay in sight; they’re not dumb) and Felix warns Sarah not to rest on her laurels just because everything seems fine right now. Sarah says that Marion is going to take care of them, but as if the universe overheard that they were feeling calm and decided to change it, a car speeds up and screeches to a halt not too far from where they are sitting. And out struts Delphine.

Felix channels all of us and says, “God, she looks good.”

Delphine tells Sarah that Castor was a myth until now, and that there are going to be repercussions to Project Castor and Project Leda crossing paths. Delphine also says that Sarah is in danger, because she crossed Rachel, and that they have to stay safe. Sarah retorts by asking, since she cares sooo much, if she’s even talked to her girlfriend yet, but Delphine can’t talk about Cosima right now. She plays Sarah a video to show how they caught the ScarClone in Marion’s basement. In this video, ScarClone is flirting with a face Sarah is all too familiar with.

The new clone’s name is Krystal, and her and Scarclone get up close and personal. Sarah gets a little wigged out watching the creep she saw in Marion’s cell making out with someone who looks so much like herself and her sestras, but Delphine says the next part’s important. Because next, another boyclone is spotted slinking up a staircase. Delphine says they caught ScarClone and his brother trying to shove Krystal into the trunk. Luckily, Krystal is alive, but the second boyclone is MIA. Sarah asks what they wanted with her, but ScarClone won’t give them any information, and is now asking to talk to Sarah.

When Sarah is seated before him, ScarClone says she is a legend, that she’s made of the “good stuff.” He says Krystal didn’t know what she was made of, but Sarah says she doesn’t know Krystal. ScarClone knows exactly which of her sestras she has met, and even says something French to the camera, because he knows who Delphine is and that she’s watching. (And in case you were curious, like I was, he said, “And the rest, as they say at DYAD, is c’est l’histoire.” which just means ‘is history’ so it wasn’t so much what he said that mattered as much as to prove he knew Delphine was there and in charge now.) ScarClone asks Sarah why the ‘wild one’ is working with DYAD, but she only trusts her sisters. He adds that she also seems to trust Felix, and Mrs. Sadler, and of course little Kira.

Sarah goes, “NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH” but before she can Avada Kedavra him, Delphine has her pulled out. Before she goes, ScarClone tells her to count her sisters and smiles creepily.

The first thing Sarah does is hop on a Clone Call (like a party line but with all your sestras and brother sestras) to check in. Alison is fine and coaching soccer and far too skilled in the art of macing and murder to fear any boyclones. Felix is with Cosima and Kira and they’re all fine, and in fact Cosima’s temperature is back to normal.

Cosima tells Felix to tell Sarah that Helena hasn’t come back yet and also is she with Delphine? Has she seen Delphine? Has she talked to Delphine? Remember her, Delphine? Felix only passes on the first half of the message and Sarah asks Felix to meet her at Mrs. S’s house.

Sarah tells Delphine that her priorities are her sisters, and speaking of which, she’s going to see Cosima or Sarah will tie her up and bring her there herself. Delphine says she understands how she feels but there is a man coming, a Cleaner, who is coming to spot-check the DYAD. If he finds out what they did to Rachel-and she says “we” because she is entwined with them, body and soul – and that in order to keep him placated, Sarah is going to have to dress up as Rachel. Sarah thinks that’s hilarious because no thank you. Delphine tries to stop her from leaving, but even though Delphine has used the Hair Straightener of Badassery, Sarah cannot be stopped.

Meanwhile, Alison has her own suburban nightmares to contend with, because the local representative Marci has come to passive aggressively insult her about her “recovery” but Alison “I’m a bitch, I’m a lover” Hendrix says she doesn’t approve of Marci’s plans for the school district, and says she’s thinking of running against her. Donnie shows up with a box and excitedly declares he quit his job, finally telling his boss off. Alison looks at him like he just shouted “big boob blowies” out loud in front of the other soccer moms and shuffles him onto the school bus.

Across town, Mrs. S comes home and hears a noise, so she tosses her Katniss braid over her shoulder, grabs a knife and slashes it at the first thing she sees, which luckily wasn’t Felix, but instead is a boyclone with a pornstache. He ties her to a chair, making her guess who he is by saying he’s “one…of a kind.” When she realizes he’s Castor, she mentions Paul, but StacheClone doesn’t take orders from Big Dick Paul. StacheClone demands to know where Duncan and/or his research is, and Mrs. S says they both went into DYAD and never came out, and the former never will. She insults his intelligence and he glitches a little; something not quite right behind that pedophile mustache of his.

At the hospital, Dr. Nealon tells Delphine that Rachel lost an eye and might have some frontal lobe damage. In exchange, she tells him that Topside is sending Ferdinand and he warns her that they have to be careful, because Topside has taken action against Project Leda before. Delphine knows about that, and that it was called Helsinki. Nealon warns her that the clones cannot know about Helsinki, but that they have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. She tells him to put Leda above the individuals and he looks at her pointedly and says he agrees, they can’t play favorites.

Mrs. S wakes up to find Sarah and Felix in her house, and the StacheClone long gone. Knowing things are more complicated than she anticipated, she tells Sarah she had to mediate between Castor and Leda, and Leda wanted Castor information, but Leda wanted something different. Sarah knows immediately Mrs. S means Helena. Mrs. S swears she was doing it for Kira, but Sarah doesn’t want to hear it. A second ago, when she was worried about her, Sarah called her “mum,” but now as she shouts at her foster mother, she calls her simply “S.” Sarah storms off, her heart broken all over again.

At Felix’s Loft, Cosima tries to ask Kira about what happened when she had a hard time waking her auntie up. Kira kind of shrugs in that way kids do when they’re not entirely sure what a grown-up wants them to say, but then says Cosima had to wake up so that Delphine could make her better with her stem cells. Cosima gapes at the kid, wracking her brain to try to figure out when Kira could have overheard that term, but before she can question her niece, she hears a knock at the door; it’s Delphine.

Cosima is so happy and relieved to see her science girlfriend, but Delphine can only stay for a minute. She’s only here to look for Sarah, but Sarah isn’t at the Loft. Delphine tells Cosima that she’s taking over some of Rachel’s duties and that she won’t be able to work with Cosima and Scott like they planned. Cosima looks a little startled, and Delphine takes her hands. She says she promised to love all her sisters equally, but in order to be the New Rachel, she can’t be Cosima’s girlfriend. Cosima’s lip quivers in that way it does when she’s trying to be stronger than she feels and she tells Delphine she should probably go. Delphine explains that they all have their part to play in this, and that Cosima’s role is to find a cure. Cosima knows this is hard for Delphine, so she simply responds, “I love you.”

Delphine can’t say it back, she can’t say anything sweet or reassuring, she can’t even kiss her goodbye, because she knows she’ll break down. So instead she tells Cosima that Scott will be by later for a check-up. Cosima chokes out an, “Okay,” before rushing back inside, and as soon as there’s a wall between them, both of them break down and cry.

Because they both know it’s the right thing to do, so there was no need for a fight, but neither one of them wants this, not now, now after all they’ve been through, not with the future so unclear.

Kira sees Auntie Cosima crying and looks at Helena’s nitrogen tank. She tucks it into her blanket fort and says, “Not now, little cousins who share half my DNA, and likely the half that was a match to Auntie Cosima, because she’s crying. I’ll tell her that you guys can probably cure her when she’s in a better mood.”

Sarah and Felix are back by the river again, trying to figure out what to do when you find out your foster mother sold your long lost twin sister to a corrupt military faction, when she gets a call from Delphine. Felix thinks it’s hilarious that so many people are relying on her to save the world when she didn’t finish high school, but she answers the phone anyway.

In Rachel’s room, Delphine promises to help with Helena if Sarah goes along with this plan to act as Rachel. But this has to go smoothly, and they cannot screw this up. Sarah says Delphine should be the one to make sure she doesn’t screw up, in the tone of a protective sister, because whether or not she knows Delphine broke up with Cosima, she’s never entirely trusted that her sister’s girlfriend wouldn’t break her heart again.

In the Loft, Scott takes Cosima’s vitals, and asks how her heart is. She says she’s done with the French, hiding behind her humor, not wanting to burden sweet Scott with the depth of her pain. Scott tells her that with the boyclones and the “lesbian drama” he’s not sure he wants to work on secret projects anymore and Cosima says that’s fine, but first she has something to show him. She shows him the Island of Dr. Moreau and he immediately sees that it could be Duncan’s cipher. She tells him she hasn’t told anyone, and they can’t, not until they figure out what it means.

And I don’t think she planned on bringing him in on that. I think she wanted to work on it herself until she was sure it really was the cipher. Possibly bring Delphine in. But I think when Scott suggested he might want to quit, she panicked; her heart couldn’t take another loss, not today. So she decided to tempt him with science, so she’d still have someone from her science world on her side. So she wouldn’t be such a lonely geek monkey.

Sarah, dressed as Rachel, walks into DYAD with Delphine. And let me tell you, there is nothing I love more than watching Tatiana Maslany play Tatiana Maslany playing Tatiana Maslany. When they first get out of the elevator, besides being dressed like Rachel to the T, you can immediately tell it’s Sarah, just based on the way she’s walking and holding herself. It’s astounding. When they get into the office with Ferdinand, Sarah tries to excuse herself immediately, but that doesn’t work out so well. Once they’re in there, since she’s already roped into the conversation, she goes off book and tells Ferdinand that Castor kidnapped Helena. Luckily, Delphine is quick on her feet and the two of them improv their way through the meeting. That is, until Ferdinand wants to interview Sarah.

But of course, Delphine anticipated this as a potential problem, and Alison is waiting, dressed as Sarah, saying “Holy doodle” to prepare herself.

The first thing Alison as Sarah says is “Oi oi, Rachel” to which a silently-panicking-Sarah-as-Rachel tells her to shut up. What’s great about this, too, is that throughout the interview, Alison loses the accent a few times, because of course Alison wouldn’t be as good at keeping a fake accent under duress as Sarah would be. And because Tatiana Maslany is an actual genius.

Ferdinand interrogates Sarah, including a bit of inappropriate touching to “see how she’s recovering from surgery” aka get more wank fodder for his clone fetish. While he’s touching her is when Alison really starts to lose the accent, so Sarah-as-Rachel slaps her and Delphine asks for a word outside. Delphine tells him the science reasons they’re postponing the surgery, and Ferdinand asks for a word alone with “Rachel”. He says he wants to talk about Helsinki, but she wants to talk about Helena. He tells her he’ll come to her apartment tonight.

While she’s waiting for Ferdinand, Sarah has a Clone Call to check on her sestras; Alison is shaken up but she’s fine, and Cosima says they can’t rely on anyone. They give Sarah words of encouragement, Cosima adding that she loves them both, which filled my heart to bursting.

Delphine goes to the hospital to visit Rachel, and tries to get her to speak (with less than gentle bedside manner), but Rachel is having a hard time. Delphine figures she needs a little push so she puts her thumb on Rachel’s bandaged eye and presses down in some kind of twisted Caleb/Xander moment. And yet…it’s kind of sexy. Delphine tells Rachel that she is her now, and that she will entirely eliminate Rachel if she doesn’t tell her what the plans are. Rachel mentions Helsinki, and Delphine calls her a ‘wicked sister’ because she’s not supposed to know about that. Determined to find out everything Rachel knows, Delphine returns her thumb to Rachel’s eye socket, like the boss ass bitch she has become.

Ferdinand comes to see Rachel and seems to have his suspicions about her, which he tries to ferret out by asking for the drink they had together last time, but Sarah has been cloneplaying for a while now-and grifting long before that – so she’s not easily thrown. She also picks up on cues he gives and realizes that whatever game he and Rachel had going on was a rough one.

(What I want to know is, when working with clones knowingly, why wouldn’t you have codes? Like the clones did; “I am not one, I am a few, no family too, who am I?”)

Sarah-as-Rachel suggests a prisoner swap; ScarClone for Helena, but Ferdinand wants to talk about Helsinki, reminding her that it was Rachel’s idea, that she had said Marion didn’t have to balls to go through with it. He said it was necessary, because her sisters were being too mischievous and smart for their own good. He reminds them how successful Helsinki is, and finally reveals what exactly this mysterious mission was: Six clones, 32 collateral, 24 hours. Gone. Also, earlier it was mentioned that this happened in 2006. So I would like to break Helsinki down for a second.

First of all, we have no idea how many Project Leda clones were brought to full term and actually born (I don’t think) but we do know that another round of attempts was made that resulted in only Charlotte, and that number was 400. So it’s possible there are hundreds of Sarah’s sisters running around out there, though the number has been dwindling rapidly. However, assuming Helsinki happened to Sarah’s batch of Leda clones, that means in 2006, Topside felt it had enough clones to continue research if they eliminated six of them. It also means that they were approximately 22 years old. So whether there were a bunch of fresh-out-of-college Finnish clones working together like Sarah and her sisters are now, or a bunch of monitors grew attached to their young targets and started to revolt, this project is even bigger than we knew.

Ferdinand tells “Rachel” that “Helsinki” is already underway, with plans for Sarah and Cosima lined up, and someone on their way to Alison’s house right now to start a house fire. Sarah excuses herself and tries to call Alison to warn her, but she’s too busy working out on the elliptical in her pajamas to notice her phone ringing.

Ferdinand interrupts her attempts for help and asks what’s going on with her. She tries to explain that she wants her sister back, but he says he knows it’s really about the girl, about Kira. Sarah then takes advantage of Rachel’s kinky side and rips off Ferdinand’s belt under the guise of sex play, whipping him onto the bed and strangling him with the belt. Before she can take things too far, Delphine shows up, calm, cool, and collected, and scolds Ferdinand for “screwing our products” (because there’s no need for him to know she did the very same). They get him to abort the Helsinki mission just in time, and detain him.

Sarah pulls off her wig, shocked that this was Rachel’s plan all along, killing everyone. Delphine tells Sarah she’s working on finding Helena, and then tells her to stand down, as if Sarah Manning has ever been one to take orders.

Helena wakes up in her box, and a woman monitoring the box tells a man he can let her out. When the lid lifts off the box, Helena’s scorpion buddy congratulates her on escaping her first box, and SoliderClone peers in.

Meanwhile, StacheClone shoots a guard to rescue the weirdly omniscient ScarClone from his cell.

What did you think of “The Weight of this Combination”? Could you breathe the whole time? Because I had a hard time doing it.

Can I just say, of all the shows I recap #clonesbians are the most active year-round, despite having the shortest season (or maybe due to) and I always love reading your tweets. You guys really brought your A-game for the premiere; here are some of our favorites:

And we had some special guest star #clonesbians tweeters this week, including Victoria Cartagena (who plays Montoya on Gotham) and Evelyne Brochu herself:

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

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