Hi there and welcome back to Orphan Black, we’re just in time for the season one finale! Let’s find out how many Tatianas make it oot alive. Rolling Endless Forms Most Beautiful after the break.
Last time we met Amelia (Melanie Nicholls-King), the woman who was Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) and Helena’s (Tatiana Maslany as a homicidal albino raised by nuns) surrogate mother, they’re twins! Twin clones! How does THAT work?? Let’s see if we can find out.
Amelia wants to see Helena, then she has information to share with them both about the in-vitro treatments she was subjected to. Helena is slightly confused as to how Amelia can be her mom.
I had no reason to do anything other than quietly weep when I saw Amelia the first time (stahp!! It was very affecting!) but now I’m suspicious and so is Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy), who starts going through Amelia’s luggage until she’s interrupted by Kira (Skyler Wexler) who thinks something bad is about to happen again.
Helena’s seized on the most important part of Amelia’s story
But Sarah is not interested, she just wanted Helena to know she isn’t the OG after all, so THERE. Now I believe they’re sisters. A loud banging from above kicks everything into high gear, it’s Art (Kevin Hanchard) and an entire S.W.A.T team. Helena does her own kicking (for real, we’re supposed to believe she breaks a basement support beam???) and gets free, leaving a bloody trail through a broken window.
Art’s got Sarah in interview screaming at her about looting a dead woman’s wallet, that was kinda stone-cold, Sarah, come on.
Alison (Tatiana Maslany with bangs and extreme amounts of anxiety) is working out to a hip-hop DVD when Dr. Leekie (Matt Frewer) rings her doorbell. He has a deal all drawn up for her! It guarantees her and her family’s safety and privacy (no monitor) and all she has to do is agree to twice-yearly non-invasive medical testing. He brings up Helena’s mental illness and Katya’s respiratory condition as examples of why medical testing is in her best interest, let’s see if she bites. She better call Cosima first! He does offer a sweetener; her monitor has already been removed. I wonder if Aynsley (Natalie Lisinka) really WAS her monitor?
The police also picked up Felix (Jordan Gavaris) and Angie (Inga Cadranel) is going at him hard for mis-identifying Beth’s body as Sarah – honest mistake though, amirite? Felix thinks so and even pretends to flirt with the detective, who shuts him down hard.
Cosima (Tatiana Maslany as a genius scientist with dreadlocks – my FAVE!) ahhhh is coughing up blood, what? Dr. Leekie stops her outside the bus terminal, he has something for her to consider!
Sarah recorded a message on Beth’s phone that is confusing Art, how can she be Sarah AND why did Beth kill herself and how did he not notice and how is she related to everyone else and just as she’s about to spill about the Clone Club, a group of men walk in and shut the interview down. One claims to be her lawyer, Daniel Rosen (Matthew Bennett) and he’s taking her out of there.
Dr. Leekie is going a slightly different route with Cosima; he’s offering her an employment contract with lotsa money and unfettered research, she can study her and the other clones’ DNA.
Daniel Rosen brings Sarah to see Dr. Leekie too, man, this guy gets around! First she gets a face-to-face with Paul (Dylan Bruce) who sold her out and then oh! It’s not Dr, Leekie that Sarah is meeting but rather Rachel Duncan (Tatiana Maslany), an entirely new clone with a clipped English accent and a short blonde bob. They’re going to come to terms.
This must have been who Dr. Leekie was talking with at the end of the last episode! Her role is to transition Sarah to self-awareness, a “clone fixer” as Sarah thinks but NO! I think she’s their MOM!
Sarah tries a little arm-twisting by threatening to go public, but I don’t think Rachel bought it.
Everyone’s meeting back at Felix’s place, even Cosima shows up! Sarah didn’t think the contract was a nice, safe way to transition, it felt like a gun to her head.
Sometimes I forget these are all played by the same person, lookit this tiny shot which probably took HOURS to set up.
Alison wants to take the deal, she wants to protect her kiddos. The other clones take it fairly well, but then everyone is distracted by the news that Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) is ALSO in town. Sarah goes to see Mrs. S.
Art and Angie are trying to figure out how Katya Obinger (Tatiana Maslany with a German accent and a bad respiratory problem) fits in, they don’t have much to go on without Sarah, but hey! They do have a Known Associate.
You remember Vic (Michael Mando), right? Sarah’s ex that she played dead for? He’s in recovery now, dealing with the loss of Sarah and also one of his fingers due to the coke she stole. Angie and Art watch from the back.
Aynsley’s packing, oh ho! She and Chad have split up and she got a great offer on her house, hmm. Alison wants Aynsley to admit she was monitoring her, though, so when Aynsley is trying to garburate the felt Christmas angel Alison made for her (don’t ask) and her scarf gets caught, Alison doesn’t help right away. In fact, she lets Aynsley (datname) get dragged down into unconsciousness, what happens when it turns out that CHAD is the monitor or something?
The detectives approach Vic during break; they don’t get Sarah but he gives them Alison, who they didn’t know about previously, so not bad all around.
They watch the corner of Black Oak Drive and White River Drive as a day-dranking Alison steps out to stare at Aysley’s house. They can’t BELIEVE there’s another one!
Sarah and Felix are kinda sorta explaining to Kira what’s happening and having her pack to sneak her out from under Mrs. S’s nose. Dang, she’s not going to like that, but I definitely understand.
Delphine shows up at Felix’s apartment, NOW he gets it. She claims to be on Cosima’s side now, she’s realised that Leekie is a liar. He’s done something with the genome he gave Cosima, but Cosima thinks she knows what. It’s related to watermarking human DNA?
Amelia has come to share her information with Sarah, only it’s not Sarah at all, it’s Helena dressed as Sarah and she kills Amelia before she can spit anything out.
Sarah arrives to Beth’s apartment, shocked by all the carnage and scared by a phone call from Helena. “They” are waiting for her.
Alison is sitting at home, half-drunk and crying over allowing Aynsley to presumably die, when Donnie (Kristian Bruun) finds her. That’s it, they’re going to make it all better! Is this before or after they discuss his long-term affair and porn collection that he’s bogarting?
Delphine and Cosima are working on the DNA sequencing, each of the clones is tagged differently and that’s how they tell them apart. Delphine doesn’t know the coding, but she does know Cosima’s code – 324B21, so they can start from there! Something something “coding in ASCII!”
Sarah finds Amelia dying and covered in blood, Amelia tries to warn her about Mrs. S (really?? Mrs. S??) showing her the picture of a man and a woman from long ago marked “Profs. _____ and _____ Project LEDA. July 22, 1977”
Helena comes in just then with a flare, I feel as though she might try to get rid of her “sestra” as well. She killed Amelia for separating them and now she could really be the Original.
A fight ensues, but stronger Helena easily takes Sarah down. She can’t kill her, though, just as Sarah couldn’t kill her. Oh but Sarah has a gun and she doesn’t listen to Helena’s pleas that they are family: she already has a family. She shoots Helena and then calls Rachel; she’s coming in because she wants to know her daughter won’t have to live like this.
Cosima and Delphine have cracked the code! Now let’s see what else there is.
Alison signs her agreement and scans it to Rachel while watching the police and paramedics across the street at Aynsley’s house. Donnie’s heading out for a jog, she needs better.
Apparently Paul just hangs out at Rachel’s office tower by the elevator; Sarah meets him as she’s on her way back in. He tells her what Leekie had over him about Afghanistan: as a private contractor he killed 6 marines in a friendly-fire incident that they covered up. Just then Cosima calls; they can’t agree to ANYTHING: the DNA tagging? It’s a patent. They’re owned. Neolution can do anything they want with the clones, they’re property. And that includes Kira.
Donnie goes out for his jog…right over to Leekie’s car, where he gives an update. So he was her monitor after all, just as she thought. And he very much hasn’t been dismissed, either.
Sarah’s bailed to go find Kira, Rachel gives the order: you know what to do. To whom?? And it’s too late, Kira and Mrs. S are gone, baby, gone and the house is trashed. Sarah’s screaming takes us out of season one.
Well hey. I was actually feeling all warm and cozy about Leekie for a second there, what was I thinking? I’m sad about Helena, I know she was dangerous AF, but she was also endearing, like a large homicidal toddler. Until next time, you guys! Cheers
