Monday, 2 November 2015

Orphan Black: Certain Agony of the Battlefield




Back in Series One, Beth Childs was quite an important character. Her suicide was what led Sarah Manning into the whole clone conspiracy in the first place, and Beth's relationships with Art and Paul were the focus of many of those early episodes. As the series has progressed, Beth has gradually faded into the background as other clones have appeared and taken the limelight. This episode sees her return as one of Sarah's dreams. It's nice to see her back, and it also ties in with Sarah's relationship with Paul. 

Paul's loyalty to the Castor project takes a turn here when he finds that Dr Cody is transferring Castor blood into Sarah. As a result, he becomes the driving force in this episode, taking over the military base, arresting Dr Cody and discovering the conspiracy to use the Castor pathogen to create a weapon. Things take a turn for him when Rudy returns to the base and Paul is wounded. His final action is to sacrifices himself. It's nice to see evidence that Paul liked Sarah and that his heart was at least in part in the right place. The character may not have been the most likable but his death is still somewhat touching. 

Assisting Paul is the castor clone, Mark. It was amusing how the writers covered up the possible inconsistency with the second series. Just as Paul feels for Sarah, Mark's discovery about the sexually transmitted defect makes him feel bad about Gracie. He is easily the most likable of the clones and will hopefully not be killed off too soon.

Int he midst of all this action Sarah starts to feel dragged down by the clone conspiracy. This is really Paul's episode and Sarah is rescued by him and has little agency. At the end she is rescued by a guilty Helena. But this is allowed for once since she is usually so active.

Helena only appears in a couple of scenes in this episode. Pupok, the embodiment of her self preservation, tells her to move on. Her eating Pupok is symbolic of the fact that she is getting rid of her selfish side.

Back in America, Felix goes to Rachel to find out more about Castor. The scene of Felix trying to interrogate Rachel is not a particularly convincing since Jordan Gavaris can’t quite make Felix seem menacing. Scott, manages to be more observant and discover that the symbols are similar tot he ones on the book. Rachel evidently knows more about the Doctor Moreau situation.

Things get a bit more complex for Cosima when Delphine returns. Shae seems nice but seems to know Sarah's name. She claims this is sleepwalking but knowing how Orphan Black works it's probably a sign that she's a spy. It still seems all too obvious and I'm hoping there's a twist that Shae is *not* a spy.

Alison and Donnie make a reappearance this week, although this plot is continuing to move at a very slow pace. Alison wants to expand operations so she hatches a scheme with Donnie and Jason to get hold of her mother's store. We get more hints that Alison and Jason are getting closer. It's still the weak link in this series though. Alison and Donnie do get one of the best scenes in the episode when they do their money dance.

With Paul dead and the military base blown to pieces, Sarah and Helena's plot may be put on hold for a while. With Delphine back the story may be focusing on the Leda side of things again. That will be good. 

8/10

No comments:

Post a Comment