Category: Tv Show Reviews

This category is specifically for TV show reviews posted on my blog.

Orphan Black S3 Ep 8 “Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method” | Review

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Weekly Episode Poster (Image thanks to BBC America’s Orphan Black Website)

Wow–Talk about a delayed post!! Welcome back, Clone Club members for another enticing Orphan Black episode review. (If you do not find them enticing, humor me a little, please?)

This week’s episode,  “Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method,” written by Gemme Manson and Chris Roberts, brought back a few familiar faces, Dr. Coady, Benchman, and Rudy, laid the ground work for a trip back to London in the search for the Castor clone original while setting up an ingenious triple-double cross resulting in surprising clone swap.

Was that as nail biting and hook reeling as it felt? If yes, great! If no, stick around for jaw dropping details.  This week’s episode seemed to be about following the ball (aka the plot) as it shuffles back and forth under the cups.

Dr. Coady & Benchman

With Dr. Coady’s brief appearance we learned that she was still recovering from the explosion on the military base two episodes back. However, in her short scene we were privy to a short hint in regards to a possible puppet master behind LEDA and CASTOR in her conversation with Benchman.

Delphine & Krystal (Image thanks to BBC America’s Orphan Black’s website)

Substitute Dyad Queen Bee, Delphine paid a visit to Krystal Goderitch, the poor Leda clone who we saw briefly at the beginning of the season. In an attempt to check in on the naive clone, Delphine determines that since her run in with the Castor boys; Krystal had not put two-and-two together.

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Orphan Black S3 Ep7 “Community Of Dreadful Fear And Hate” | Review

Weekly Episode Poster from BBC America’s Orphan Black website.

Good to finally be back with a review.  It has been a bit of an adjustment the past few days finishing up my final assignment for grad school and finally catching up on some zzzzz ^___^

Also, glad to be back this week with a different atmosphere than last week’s Orphan Black episode after such a major character loss. This week’s episode, titled “Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate,” gave us some really interesting plot points to cover: Alison & Her Mother, Helena & Ms. S, Scott & Rachel and my favorite, Donnie & Pouchie.

Episode seven was mainly centered around our every astute and spear-headed sister/clone, Alison who was preparing to officially enter into the candidacy for School Trustee while she and Donnie simultaneously purchased her mother’s Bubbles store and officiate their new line of work as drug dealers with Jason by buying a large supply of drugs from the notorious Pouchie.

Helena & Sarah come face to face with Ms. S in Mexico.

Meanwhile, Sarah & Helena find themselves in a small Mexican bar/cantina suddenly surprised by the arrival of Ms. S, whom Helena is more than unenthusiastic to see.

Still on the outs with her ex-lover/girlfriend, Cosima remains reluctant to cooperate with Delphine who shows up at Shay’s apartment with a pee-cup asking Cosima for a sample to run emergency tests.

ALLISON+ DONNIE

Allison sends Donnie off with Jason for the drug deal (Image thanks to BBC America’s Orphan Black website).

Mrs. & Mr. drug dealer-sleuths, Allison and Donnie, seemed to have all of their eggs placed into all of the right baskets, but as it turns out there were a few rotten eggs stinking up the bunch. Two major examples: the campaign envelope getting switched with the drug money envelope meant for Pouchie and Allison’s mother’s reluctance to hand over her Bubbles store to them.

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Orphan Black S3 Ep6 “Certain Agony Of The Battlefield” | Review (Spoilers)

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Orphan Black’s Weekly Episode Poster (From BBC America’s Orphan Black site) ;-(

I have watched this week’s Orphan Black episode, “Certain Agony Of The Battlefield,” written by Aubrey Nealon and I am still not ready. I do not think I ever will be. Since this is still fresh in my mind and in the minds of all the Clone Club members, I want to first mention Continue reading →

Orphan Black S3 Ep 5 “Scarred By Many Past Frustrations” | Review

Weekly Orphan Black Poster (Image thanks to BBC America’s Orphan Black Website)

In this week’s Orphan Black episode, “Scarred By Many Past Frustrations” written by Alex Levine we unexpectedly saw the roles reverse for Helena and Sarah after Sarah awakens in the Castor clones’ military camp in a cell next to her sister/twin clone, Helena (whom showed her no love upon seeing Sarah).

Helena revels in seeing Sarah trying to adjust to the all too familiar confinement conditions that she grew up in. In true bickering siblings form, Sarah pretends that she isn’t hurt by Helena’s rejection and tells her that she hopes she rots in her cell. Ever the sharp knife in the display case Helena replies with, what I think is the best quote in the episode:

Helena talks about her time in convent

“In the convent, I survived in a broom closet for four months. I do not rot.” –Helena

Although seeing Helena and Sarah interact with one another is always great, I am sad that my prediction about Helena rejecting Sarah was so spot on. Our #cloneclub sisters have to stick together against these Castor punks. Falling apart at the seams will not help up win this clone war, am I right?

Meanwhile, a rejected and alone Gracie finds her way to Art’s front door who takes her to stay with Ms. S despite Felix’s protest, Ms. S tries to make Gracie feel at home. As the baby clone bones  (believed to hold the key to saving the Castor clones lives) are examined, ‘Mother’ sends Rudy off to ‘have fun’ so that he and the Major, aka Paul do not clash when he arrives and discovers Rudy and Mark have brought Sarah to the camp.

Paul confronts Sarah

“All you had to do was stay away.” -Paul to Sarah when he sees her in her cell.

When Paul does return to the camp he is more than pissed to see Sarah there, which is understandable considering the lengths he went through to make sure Sarah was able to escape Dyad and be with Kira.  Even under the circumstances, Paul continues on to defend his actions and alignment with the Castor brothers because he, like Sarah, is only trying to help and protect her “genetic siblings” who too are sick and dying. The only upside to their interaction was that Helena is that she heard Paul admit that he traded Helena for Sarah.

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Orphan Black S3 Ep 4 “Newer Elements of Our Defense” | Review

Orphan Black’s Weekly Episode poster. (From BBC America’ Orphan Black’s website)

Prolethean mother hen, Bonnie Johanssen guns down Mark out in the open. (Photo from BBC America’s Orphan Black website).

In last week’s episode, we witnessed Mark being gunned down by Mrs. Johanssen (Bonnie) in the cornfield of the deceased William Finch’s farm as a terrified Sarah watched from the barn. This week’s episode, “Newer Elements of Our Defense,” written by: Russ Cochrane, opened with Bonnie emerging from the field like a huntress sensing another big kill near by as she stalked her way over to the barn.

Sarah makes her way out of the barn and takes cover beside Mark’s truck; she finds Mark’s discarded handgun on the ground and slips into the cornfield. Sarah does not get far in when she comes across a badly wounded, but still very much alive Mark.

Sarah outside of Finch’s barn. (Photo from Orphan Black’s wiki page).

She manages to get Mark to an abandoned house a few miles away from Finch’s farm where she helps him remove a bullet stuck in his leg once the two come to a natural truce—in terms of Mark answering Sarah’s questions in exchange for her help. It is not long, though before the loss of blood causes Mark to pass out and with the discovery of his hotel key, Sarah calls an ambulance for Mark and leaves.

Whilst Bonnie has taken Gracie to their new Prolethean home run by Mr. Appleyard where she and the rest from her ‘fleet’, (perhaps the better term is flock) have taken up residence after the fire at their home. Mr. Appleyard examines Gracie and seems to sense something is off either with Gracie or the baby she is carrying. I should mention that Mr. Appleyard is blind, so perhaps he has heightened senses (I am not a hundred percent on this). Later that day, however, Gracie looses the baby. Convinced that the miscarriage was punishment for Gracie running away with Mark, her mother (Bonnie) shuns Gracie and banishes her.

Else where, Helena cleverly plans to out smart her captors by stashing (what looks like a pork chop) bone away and staging an outburst to be taken from her cell in an attempt to plan her escape, (with her trusted talking scorpion) only to discover Dr. Coady doing tests on one of her own Castor clones, Parsons. This affects Helena’s actions later when she chews up the bone into a makeshift key and gets out of her cell, but more on that a little later.

Meanwhile, Mother Alison and Donnie attempt to close up shop, or at least put a pin in their operation until they can figure out if they are being watched by the cops when it turns out the true owner of the pharmaceuticals they bought from Ramon wants answers from them. As luck would have it, Alison and Donnie are summoned to meet with drug boss, Jason Kellerman whom turns out to be an ex-boyfriend of Alison’s’. Impressed with Alison’s homemade-soap cover for selling the drugs, Jason agrees to let Alison and Donnie continue their operation.

Jason Kellerman, Alison’s ex-boyfriend from high school and neighborhood drug boss (Photo from BBC America’s Orphan Black’s website).

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Orphan Black S3 Ep3 “Formalized, Complex And Costly,” | Review

Orphan Black’s weekly episode poster. (Image courtesy of BBC America’s Orphan Black Page.)

Well, who knew a dead castor clone could bring so many people together?

This week’s Orphan Black episode, “Formalized, Complex and Costly,” written by: Chris Roberts, set in motion a much needed Sarah and Art reunion as well as an interesting three-person-dissection teamed between Cosima, Scott and Felix over the dead Castor clone’s, Seth, brain and the secrets it possibly holds.

Art reaches out to Sarah after he gets a lead on the Proletheans, (Mark and Gracie.) This sets Art and Sarah off to track the two down. While following up on the lead, Sarah discovers from Alexis, the Proletheans’ former mid-wife, that Johanssen harvested Helena’s eggs and implanted Helena as well as his daughter, Gracie with an embryo. (To breakdown, or attempt to understand Henrik Johanssen’s clearly ego driven actions behind this would take too much time, so for now I will just say that it turns my stomach that he did this not only to Helena, but to his daughter as well. Not to mention the Proletheans belief in this act as being ridiculous endeavor.)

Moving on–When Art and Sarah’s chat with Alexis leads them to follow up a lead on Johanssen’s car, it seemed as though Art was sad and something was troubling him. Art reveals to Sarah that his last encounter/contact with Beth was on the day that she died and I got the impression that he was not only missing Beth in that moment, but also Sarah/Beth as his partner. He comments on how similar they are to one another.

Art talks to Sarah about Beth.

Art talks to Sarah about Beth. (Screencap property of BBC America).

Else where with newlyweds Gracie and Mark, Mark reveals his secret (or half of his secret), to Gracie and tells her that he was a plant for the military in the Prolethean community and that for him to “get out,” he needs to find something for them. Mark believes that Gracie’s father, Henrik, may have given the original samples (donor samples) to a former business associate, William Finch. Gracie offers to visit Finch on her own in order to protect Mark from Finch, but unsuccessfully returns with a box full of note books and old papers.

I say unsuccessfully, but in actuality I have a feeling that the dismissal of the note books and papers was a mistake on Mark’s part as, like with Cosima’s The Island of Dr. Moreau book, they  could hold the key or at least some information on how to solve some of the genetic deteriorating/glitches that the Castor and Leda clones are facing.

As Scott and Cosima cut into Seth’s skull for his brain, with the calm and collected help of Felix, Cosima goes on a cosmos/’what if’ rant about death that worried me. She is usually the most positive and put together one among the clone club. Even though she is up on her feet and back in the lab, her personality seems darker and sad this season. After coming so close to death and still being at risk, it makes me worry about her mental state through out the rest of the season. I also hope, Scott and/or Felix pick up on it, like soon.

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Orphan Black S3 Ep2: “Transitory Sacrifices Of Crisis”| Review (With Spoilers)

Castor Clones Tattoo(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 and Cal

Sarah and Cal have a moment in his new place.

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.

#Teamhendricks “Down, but not out.” -Donnie Hendricks played by Kristian Bruun.

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.

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Orphan Black: S3 Ep1 – “The Weight Of This Combination” | Review (With Spoilers)

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Orphan Black Season 3 Weekly Poster From BBC America's website(Image from: BBC America‘s Orphan Black website.)

The third season of BBC America’s science fiction drama, Orphan Black premiered on Saturday, April, 18th, 2015 with an episode titled, “The Weight Of This Combination.”  Written by: Graeme Manson.

Loose Episode Synopsis & (SISTER CLONE) Plot line:

When a Castor clone stirs up trouble in Sarah’s life, she soon learns that Helena is missing. Taken by the military (and Paul) thanks to Mrs. S and she actively begins her pursuit to bring her home. With Rachel out of commission, Delphine returns to take over her position at Dyad, but realizes that the position requires her to break things off with Cosima. However, things at Dyad for Delphine grow tense with the approaching arrival of Dyad’s cleaner, Ferdinand, played by the awesome James Frain. Ferdinand, as it turns out, happens to be close with Rachel, so Delphine proposes Sarah impersonate Rachel for his visit. Reluctant at first, Sarah finally agrees to do it on the condition that Delphine does all that she can to find Helena.

Meanwhile, Alison deals with mortgage payments and a snooty mom, Marcy, who is running for the school trustee. Classic, competitive Alison soon decides that she wants to run for school trustee to protect her children’s placement in the Glendale School District. When Ferdinand arrives at Dyad, Sarah/Rachel is dressed to impress (and intimidate) the sinisterly suave “cleaner.”

Sarah does such a good job at impersonating Rachel that the two agree to meet that evening at Rachel’s apartment to discuss Helena’s disappearance. Sarah/Rachel continues to push Ferdinand on tracking down Helena who grows suspicious of her intentions and questions her sudden interest in her sister clones when she was the one who wanted to get rid of them in the first place.

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