“This season is rapidly coming to a close with only three episodes left, and we have no clear endgame in sight. Anything could happen.” – Jonathan Raeder
As great as this season of Orphan Black has been, at times it’s been bogged down by sheer confusion; most of is the good kind of confusion, the lingering mysteries, but sometimes it’s of the “I have no idea what’s going at all” variety. The show works best when it throws the clones together for emotional and sometimes comedic purposes while also directly answering some questions and throwing out new ones, and “Knowledge of Causes, and Secret Motion of Things” hits the sweet spot in that ratio.
The big reveal of the episode and last episode is that Kira’s stem cells, taken from a tooth lost in her car accident, seem to be the only potential cure for Cosima’s (and possibly all the clones’) mysterious illness. Sarah now has to choose between her daughter’s freedom and the lives of her clones/sisters. At the end of the episode, it looks like she’ll offer up another of Kira’s teeth, or possibly Kira herself, with strict regulations and rules, of course. That doesn’t bode well for anyone, except maybe Cosima.
Cosima’s in an especially difficult place here, dealing with a probably imminent death and the mounting pile of evidence that her lover has and continues to lie to her. Delphine has always been suspicious, but never more so than in this episode. Most likely her feelings for Cosima are legitimate, but they evidently don’t stop her from keeping Cosima in the dark and continuing to work for Leakey and the Dyad Institute. The second bit of well-placed eavesdropping (the first being Alison hearing Vic) reveals to Cosima that Delphine is intentionally lying to her. It’s a bit heartbreaking the way Cosima, her boiling anger at being treated like an experiment and not a person, finally lashes out at Delphine with a venomous “This is my lab, my body. I’m the science!”
Sarah’s attempts to be left alone aren’t going to succeed anytime soon, so she’ll stay in this ambiguous city (that’s probably Toronto?) and cause mischief for Dyad at every chance she can. This time, with Mrs. S’s help, she puts into action a plan that could actually inflict some damage on the infrastructure of the Neolutionists. They arrange for Professor Duncan to meet with Rachel and drop the narrative bomb that his wife and her adoptive mother was killed by Leakey. Rachel is calm and composed as usual, but its impossible to miss the tears in her eyes both when she meets with her father and when she spares Leakey’s life. Rachel tells Marion that she’s working for her now (implicitly by ratting on Leakey), but defies her authority by letting him go. She won’t go back to being a pawn. Could she end up on the side of Clone Club?
Yet this episode belongs to Alison, who quite unfortunately has revealed her sin to Vic, the only man she knows is despicable enough to relate. Realizing her mistake and the hovering threat of prison, she recruits Sarah (who’s busy enough as it is) to placate Vic. Of course, shenanigans ensue when Felix spikes Vic’s tea and sends him tumbling into a pile of glitter and crafts supplies. Much of this episode serves as a parallel to the episode in last season where Alison and Sarah had to switch places to keep her party from careening into chaos. Sarah’s hilarious attempts to portray Alison are a nice touch amidst the darkness and lies that have so obscured this season.
Finally, Alison reveals to Donny that she knows he’s her monitor, but as many fans have suspected, it turns out that Donny is pretty much clueless and didn’t know anything about clones or the Dyad’s midnight probing of Alison. He’s broken down, realizing that Alison’s alcohol problem is not just a difficult roadblock in their marriage, but rather a death knell for it. Thankfully he doesn’t turn his rage on Alison and instead turns to the man responsible for much evil in the series: Doctor Leakey.
Leakey narrowly avoids Marion’s death traps, but karmic justice is too crafty to let him off the hook. Donny finds him but Leakey won’t take the time to take him seriously. Big mistake, Doctor, big mistake. Just like his wife, Donny’s ineptitude with the seedier aspects of life ends with an accidental killing. It’s a bit contrived, just like Aynsley’s death was, but it’s rather poetic that despite Rachel’s gift of mercy, Leakey can’t escape. Orphan Black just continues to set up characters as potential Big Bads only to wipe them off the table. We first that Olivier was the mastermind, only to realize Leakey was in charge, only to realize that Rachel might be in charge of him, only to realize again that it was probably Leakey all along. Now there’s another wrench in the gears: Marion, a mysterious woman whose cool command of the conversation makes it all the more evident that she’s Leakey’s superior. Now that Rachel knows Leakey killed her adoptive mother, coupled with Leakey’s failure to rein in Sarah, it’s the end of the line for our favorite smirking evil scientist.
One last nugget of plot information to chew over: Leakey is, or was, developing an artificial womb, yet another example of the men in this show reducing women to objects for their own gain. It’s a seemingly throwaway line yet probably means much for the future of this series. The Proletheans have already succeeded in at least the conception of a half-clone child, and of course Kira is the only living example, but now the Neolutionists may be attempting to make another person. It’s possible that Kira will have some playmates soon. In the worst way possible.
This season is rapidly coming to a close with only three episodes left, and we have no clear endgame in sight. Anything could happen. Will Cosima actually die? What will happen with Helena’s potential child? Will the show do a time jump to show that baby being born? The dice are in the air and there’s no telling where they’ll fall.
Tidbits:
· Marion is played by Michelle Forbes, who also played Helena Cain in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series. This marks the second BSG alumnus on Orphan Black – the first was Daniel. Personally I’m hoping for more.
· I actually sort of sympathize with Donnie now. His impression of Alison, his real hurt and anger at being betrayed, and finally…killing Leakey?!? Hopefully he stays in the show.
· Paul’s bit about pottery was a tiny speck of emotion from the usually completely emotionless character. I’m sorry if I harp on Paul’s blandness too much, but c’mon, he’s really, really bland.
· “If they touch me I will cut them.”
· Vick’s “for the love of Buddha” really got me.
· Too many good Felix quotes to list, but I’ll try: “He looks like he was molested by elves,” “I’m done with glitter,” and “He’s the kind of clueless that can’t be faked.”
