At Dyad, Nealon is pretending to rehabilitate Rachel by showing her flash cards and waiting patiently as she verbalizes what she’s seeing. Cat. Hat. Bat. But really what he’s doing is giving her a Rorschach test. Like, are these ponies, or are they the call sign of the fleet of male clones we used to keep locked up in the basement? Is this a calculator, or is it the keypad that controls the launch sequence of our armada of privately owned intercontinental ballistic missiles, the launch codes of which you alone have been storing in your brain? He shows her a rainbow flag and she’s like “rainbow flag,” but then she goes, “Delphine? Is me now?” He nods, and her face is like, MOTHERFUCKER. And that’s when you know she’s going to will her brain to work properly again and regenerate her own eyeball like a starfish.
I hear your womb is magical.
You would know. You were in your Mother’s until you were 15.
At Castor HQ, Rudy and Mother meet to talk about his time in the field. In addition to murdering his brother, he also filled up five Moleskines with his feelings and stole one girl’s hair. Mother tells him he’s she’s sending him back out to find Mark and either deal with his treachery or extract him back to HQ with the information he nicked from the Proletheans. But first Rudy wants to rest his head on Mother’s tummy and suck his thumb. Mother pats his wittle head and thinks about crushing his skull for giggles, but changes her mind and smokes one of her fresh ciggies from Paul. The impulse passes.
Rudy wanders over to the holding cell, where Helena is singing lullabies to her buns in the oven. She hops up and peers at him through the bars on her window and legit calls him “the ugliest Mark yet.” It’s amazing. Helena is so amazing. Her eyes light up even more when Paul walks in. She licks her hand and tells him to come on in there and make it an even four sestras he’s boned.
Mother says you’ve been playing with your food.
Yes, the Hungry Games. May the odds be ever in your favor, Paul.
Paul: I know you don’t believe me, but I’m sorry it played out this way.
Helena: V. excited for the day I kill you and Mother and all the Marks.
Alison and Donnie are making soap in their garage, happy as some homicidal kittens, when Marcie shows up to try to bully and then bribe Alison into quitting the school board race. First of all, Allison has never met a challenge she was afraid to let a garbage disposal strangle. And second of all, she’s well on her way to being a millionaire. She is not backing down. Marcie is like, “Does it smell like the skeleton of a mad scientist in here, or…” And Donnie is like, “THAT’S VEGAN SEA SALT, BITCH.” And so she leaves, which is a good choice. There’s room for a lot more bodies under this floor.
Art and Sarah drive out to the Confederate farm to chat with the good ol’ boy, and he confirms that Gracie did stop by a little earlier, but he didn’t give her any super secret information or clues or anything like that, no boxes of genetic research or maps to Topside hideouts, no Ziploc bags full of DNA. She just came to share the news about her dad getting well and truly murdered to death, and they had a nice prayer for his soul and a quick shot of moonshine, and then she went on her way.
Lord, the Muggles.
Art and Sarah leave and are discouraged, so they stop for a cheeseburger, and lo! Gracie is at the same diner, praying over a milkshake like, “And Lord, please keep Mark safe as he goes back out to that farm to get even more information than what we just got, including the key to the mystery to these clones and the coordinates of the place where Topside is keeping Helena, whose babies I have inside my womb right now, amen.” Well, Sarah slides right into her booth while she’s praying and when she opens up her eyes, Sarah goes, “Boo!”
Sarah: Well, your milkshake sure does bring all the clones to the yard.
Gracie: What.
Sarah: You got some clone babies in that belly, you got me, you got a clone husband.
Gracie: NO.
Sarah: Uh-huh, honey.
Gracie zooms back to the motel to pack up her shit and make a run for it, but guess who shows up carrying a sawed-off shotgun and looking pissed as balls? Oh, it’s her mom, all right. She tells Gracie she’s an idiot but that she still loves her because the Lord has a plan for them and where is Mark?
Marco!
No Polo.
Mark is at the Confederate farm, duh. And so is Sarah. She creeps in to find that he tied up Farmer Joe to torture him, but the old codger went ahead and died of a heart attack. Mark’s not sorry. He needs that basket of DNA! Cosima picks a fine time to call and talk to Sarah about science. Specifically Castor science. Specifically-specifically, Castor clones are Leda clones’ brothers, in terms of genetics if not emotions. Sarah and Cosima seem very shocked by this for some reason, and Mark just straight up doesn’t believe either one of them. But there’s no time to convince him, because as soon as Cosima and Sarah hang up, bullets start flying through the window.
You think it’s Seth come to bring his brother home, right? Or Topside come to shut the whole thing down? Or Rachel has healed herself with her own willpower and bought a gun at a pawn shop and now here she is to settle some scores? But no. It is Gracie’s mom and she’s wielding a shotgun. She follows Mark into a cornfield where she’s trying to escape and shoots him dead in the head.
This episode is kind of what I was afraid of when the Castor guys were introduced. Way too much of them. But at least they’re the expendable ones and not the women, like the normal way stories go. (Especially sci-fi and fantasy ones.)
Sarah peeks out of one of the barn’s windows and wishes she had a protector with her right now, a hardcore motherfucker who wouldn’t mind killing someone else to save the person they love. Someone like Alison Hendrix, for example.
Next week: Alison and Donnie get busted a little bit, Seth smashes Sarah’s head into a pole, Helena meets another Castor, and a bunch of awful old white guys put their hands all over Gracie’s blessed uterus like it’s the goddamn Republican National Convention.
Pages: 1 2See entire article on one page
“This episode is kind of what I was afraid of when the Castor guys were introduced. Way too much of them.”
Yeah, I feel bad for not being that invested in this season yet, but I am so tired of Castor and it’s only episode 3.
Yeah, I’m gonna need them to go away pretty soon. All of them. All the way away.
AGREE. I could definitely stand for less (or zero!) Castor plot, but I would also watch if the whole show was just a Helena dreamland babyshower garden party.
I also have a hard time following any Paul dialogue because I do not care.
Kathryn Alexandre is Tatiana’s double, period. LOL Not stunt double. She’s who Tat is acting against every time there’s more than one clone in a scene. She’s crucial to the show. I love whenever they give her screen time. :)
Why has EVERY recap I’ve seen call the gun Gracie’s mom has a shotgun? It’s a hunting rifle with a scope. Shotguns and hunting rifles don’t look much alike at all. What would your Georgia relatives say Heather? For shame. ;D
Right, yeah! That’s what I meant. Just double-double.
Also, the only thing I know about guns is that there are ones you hold in one hand, and ones you hold in two hands! I’ve never even seen a gun in real life!
Honestly, I was super worried about the Castor clones too, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I think they’ve been handled very well. They are not overtaking the Leda clones’ story, and they are clearly dispensable (though I don’t think Mark is as dead as you think he is. Remember the rules of television – we never saw a body). And even better, the show is using the Castor clones to really comment on the destructive aspects of hyper-masculinity.
The “big reveal” about the Castor and Leda clones being siblings however, that was super obvious from the very first time Sarah saw Rudy in Marion’s basement. I don’t know why Cosima seemed so shocked by it. It’ll be interesting to see how the Leda clones react to the Castor clones from here on out. Will they embrace the Castor clones as siblings the way Cosima, Sarah, Alison and Helena have embraced each other? Or will they remain in opposition to each other, like with Rachel? From her initial reaction, it seems for Sarah at least, shared genetics is enough for her to call them brothers. They may be murders and rapists, but then again, Helena and Alison are both murders, and Rachel raped Paul, so.
I keep thinking about that scene in season one when Sarah seduces Paul pretending to be Beth so he’ll stop asking her questions and I’m like, “… but we never called that rape, did we?” Have you thought about that? Where do you land on it? It just made me think of it because you mentioned Rachel.
Jesus. I forgot about that. I guess yeah, because the conditions under which he consented to sex changed. So that makes Sarah a rapist too. There are no moral black and whites in the world of Orphan Black.
THOUGH, from what we learn about Paul AFTER that scene – maybe he DID know she wasn’t Beth all along? And he was just playing along with Sara’s con? It’s so hard to tell with Paul, because the actor is so terrible and wooden.
My sister thinks Paul is playing the character that way on purpose, but I agree with you. I think he’s just pretty and wooden.
Even if Dylan Bruce is playing Paul that way on purpose and isn’t actually as terrible an actor as I think he is (and to be fair, he probably only comes off so badly because he’s always acting against Tatiana, and that’s just not fair to anybody)Paul is still super boring and I don’t care about him at all. The worst thing about the Castor clones is it means more Paul. I’d so much rather more Ari Millen than more Dylan Bruce.
Technically then wasn’t Paul raping Beth the whole time they were together? or is spy-banging something different, like it was on Lost Girl?
I agree about the Castor clones. Interesting yet obviously dispensable (though I admit to becoming weirdly attached to Mark. He still creeps the fuck out of me, but I was actually sad at his death)
Huh, I read that as more “Sarah needs something to make him not murder her immediately. Throw this new information at him!” but that might just be OBspec affecting my character interpretations.
The “No Polo” thing had me in stitches Heather, I feel bad you’re having to recap this season because I think it’s going to get progressively violent.
Oh progressive and violent in the same sentence sweet irony.
I watched this episode with two geneticists and we were all so fucking confused as to how Cosima suddenly knows how to perfectly dissect a brain, and then do histological analysis on neurological tissue. Like. What the fuck is Cosima’s education? Did she go to the same school as Wren from PLL?? I think this was the episode where the science went from “ehhh close enough” to “this is fucking ridiculous even by TV standards”.
Yeah I found that really strange too. And wasn’t the initial reason she enlisted Scott because his particular specialization was relevant to the science-ing they were doing so they needed his help and his skill-set? But then now we’ve just got Cosima being able to do any/everything at all scientific. And Scott’s role seems to have shifted more toward idk awkwardly flirting with Felix maybe?
I KNOW. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves in sci-fi shows. Orphan Black hadn’t been *too* bad up until this episode, so it was super disappointing. This is relevant:
theupturnedmicroscope.com/comic/real-vs-movie-scientist/
All I can say is that I hope Delphine comes back from Europe in the fifth episode. This show is great, but they’re leaving out one of their best assets for way too long. Hair-straightener or kinky curls, don’t care, just get her back.
Am I the only one who is a bit upset about Seth’s death? I mean… Yeah he’s a castor clone and he was glitching.. but I wanted so bad to call him Clonestache, cuz you know… Orphan’s the new Black.