(Image from: BBC America‘s Orphan Black website.)

Episode Review

Last night’s Orphan Black episode “Transitory Sacrifices of Crisis” Written by: Audrey Nelson, felt really dark, mainly because the uncertainty that looms over the Castor boys and how close they are getting to Sarah and her sister clones.

The episode opened with the Castor clone, Rudy bringing a girl into his hotel room. As if the Castor clones weren’t already pushing the extremely creepy button, when Rudy and the girl become intimate, Rudy’s brother, Seth, creeps into bed with them and I’m not trying to be funny. He literally creeps in and suddenly it was like watching Dead Ringers with Jeremy Irons as the identical Mentle twins.

The next morning Rudy and Seth get a visit from Paul who gives them each an examination, which resembled the voight-kampt test in Blade Runner given to ‘individuals’ to distinguish if they are human or a replicate. During Seth’s test, Paul notices when Seth has difficulty answering one of the last questions. Rudy chalks it up to a hang over and pushes Paul to drop it. After the test, Paul surprises the Castor boys with new of their planned extractions later that night and Rudy questions,“ Is that Mother’s orders or yours?” I feel that this was Rudy’s way of stating that he believes Paul hasn’t been 100% as loyal or as truthful as he is pretending and Rudy could suspect that Paul still has a thing for Sarah.

Sarah, on the other hand, is surprised when Cal reveals he has bought a place and seemingly wants to put down some roots. And for a brief sixty seconds, Kira, Sarah, and Cal enjoy a splash of ‘normalcy’ playing hockey in their socks until Sarah gets a call from Art and tells her that a woman showed up and told him about a disturbing encounter she had with these twin brothers—Rudy and Seth.

Over at #teamHendricks, Donnie and Alison talk over Alison’s decision to run for school trustee as they are still in a financial bind when Roman, aka the locate drug (mostly) dealer shows up and informs Alison that he will be ‘closing’ his business soon as he prepares to go off to college. And as classic Alison, tells her husband that and ‘opportunity’ has just opened up for them. The concept of Alison becoming a drug dealer is absolutely perfect. Out of all of the sister clones, I find her to be the funniest because her personality is so far detached from all things science related. She is so normal and stepfordy that when I watch her scenes, I know that she is going to surprise me. It is almost like watching an improve show.

She loves her life and her rules and her structure and when you tamper with that or remove her from that, it’s hard to tell what she will do or say next. I find that Sarah gets like that when she is ‘playing’ another clone. (We are all in a box, inside another box, inside another box, you know? (Hint: I was referencing Helena’s scorpion friend from last week’s episode.) Speaking of Helena, when we finally do see her we learn that the military has been putting her through “stress test,” (it looked like tortures to me) until Dr. Coady or Mother to the Castor clones, stops the test after discovering Helena is pregnant.

The Helena scenes were brief, but I feel that it is a far assumption to say that Dr. Coady intends to manipulate Helena to join her so that she can use her against the other Leda clones. Rudy, aware of his brother’s declining health refuse to leave without a way to help his brother and breaks into Felix’s apartment.

Over at Cal’s new place we see he gets a visit from Paul who warns him to get Sarah and Kira away before it is too late, but Sarah and Kira arrive back at Felix’s unaware that Rudy is hiding in the apartment. Cal quickly heads over to Felix’s place to check in on Sarah but comes across Seth instead.

Before the two are able to get into a serious rowel, Seth begins to ‘glitch’ and starts to talk about places he has been and done. As if recalling old memories, (and this it just a wild speculation) the Castor clones’ ‘glitches’ could be meant to mean other versions or clones that have died whose memories surface when a clone begins to deteriorate.

Once Rudy gets Kira in his grasps and demands Sarah tell him where the original genome sample is, it truly looks like the impulsive/deadly clone is going to hurt poor Kira. That is until hears his brother, Seth’s pained cries downstairs. Rudy goes to his suffering brother’s side and puts two bullets in his chest. Rudy stays until Seth is gone and makes haste escape.

Closing Thoughts:

It seems now that Sarah is starting to realize that unlike the last two years when she has managed to get out of the situations that have been thrown, with these guys, or Rudy, she is out of her depth. It is never easy watching a parent being terrified for their child’s safety, but Tatiana Maslany was fantastic. As always. With Paul’s reappearance this week, I am hoping am interested in seeing him and Sarah come face to face again. He’s not perfect, but it’s clear his still really cares about her despite his actions.

I’m beginning to get the feeling that the show is referencing itself with the Castor Clones in terms of the Leda cones.

Rudy is clearly a variation of Helena ie: Unhinged, unpredictable and scar.

Seth is (or was) a variation of Cosima ie: Both Sick and treated as the babies of the bunch.

Mark is a variation of Alison ie: Married and want to keep their lives the way that they are.

Miller is a variation of Sarah ie: stubborn, straight forward, a leader.

And with the ending scene of Mark in the bathroom burning away his tattoo, it still makes me think that the Castor boys are some how psychicly linked. In the back of my mind, I feel he did that because he knew Seth was dead and it was going to give everyone even more reason to track him down.

Episode rating: 7.5 I liked the episode and in the last fifteen or so minutes I was worried about what Rudy would do after he grabbed Kira. However, at the same time I feel as though this episode was filled a slow build up plot for the next episode. Any one else excited to see Alison start her drug ring/ election campaign?

Until next week’s episode,

Gia.