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Orphan Black Recap: Here With Us

Orphan Black

Governed As It Were by Chance
Season 2 Episode 4
Editor’s Rating 5 stars

Orphan Black

Governed As It Were by Chance
Season 2 Episode 4
Editor’s Rating 5 stars
Photo: BBC

As someone who has spent a most of her time fighting to get back to Kira, you’d think Sarah would be slightly more discerning about who she leaves the kid with. But she has bigger problems to worry about this week, all of them in the shape of a newly returned, freshly homicidal Helena.

After she survives last week’s car crash, Sarah ditches Kira with Cal, her biological father and Avett Brothers’ Pinterest board sprung to life. Her plan is to figure out how Mrs. S is connected to the Project LEDA picture she’s been flashing around town, and with a little digging she finds out that the Project LEDA scientists were Susan and Ethan Duncan — also known as uptight bitch clone Rachel Duncan’s parents. Cosima guesses that Rachel thinks she’s elite, having been raised as a self-aware clone, but the video Sarah finds in Rachel’s apartment shows a very different story of a well-loved kid crunching through the leaves in Cambridge. What happened to derail her? Aside from the fact that her parents got blown up in a lab.

For her part, Mrs. S wastes no time reconnecting with Carlton, the human-trafficking guy who brought Sarah to her in London all those years ago. She mostly reconnects with him through her lady parts after she corners him in a bar and they start to get down to boning. They both hint at something much bigger than Project LEDA in the works, and then get back to the business of high-fiving about their superior sex skills.

I’m weirdly enthusiastic about Alison waking up in rehab. She’s the most interesting clone (or the least one-dimensional), and it’s funny to me that they’ve given her an amplified 1950s housewife issue to contend with. Maybe it takes her too far off course; she has a tenuous connection to the other clones right now. But I think that’s the point — by signing Rachel’s agreement her life has quietly become more and more of a shambles. She agrees to stay for a week only after Donnie threatens her with the possibility of losing her kids if she leaves early. How does Donnie, the most inept monitor that ever monitored, keep getting a leg up on her?

Art is still a police officer, right? Because he seemed really comfortable letting a wigged-out Helena run past him in her escape from Pastor Henrik’s creepy farm. Sure, he stopped Mark and the crew from going after her and he’s not really supposed to be investigating the clone case anymore, but you’d think that basic training would cover the fact that it’s okay to insert yourself (and your gun) into any situation where a girl is running away from, like, seven dudes. Helena flashed back to a plastic-covered room and a bunch of instruments dripping with lubricants during her escape, and in the end it turns out that Pastor Henrik has indeed stolen some of her eggs and successfully fertilized at least one of them. I’m glad it’s not as creepy as him forcing himself on her, which is where I thought they were going, but somehow that’s MUCH grosser. The memory combined with the fact that Grace tried to smother her to death flips her murder switch, and she grabs a knife before running back to the city.

Daniel is alive, and makes his way to Rachel’s apartment only to run into Sarah, who he punches in the face and ties up. He does some mild torture on her earlobe with a straight razor before Helena, resplendent in her blood-soaked Miss Havisham dress, stabs him right in the neck. Sarah is completely freaked out to see the person she shot and left for dead coming at her with a knife coated in blood, while Helena creeps up to her and tells her, “I think he took something from inside of me.” Sarah whimpers and tries to figure out if she’s about to get murked in what has to be the creepiest episode ending I’ve ever seen on this show.

Unanswered Questions

  • Is Daniel actually dead this time? Or is he going to show up in the next episode with a Hello Kitty Band-Aid over a crater in his neck, meaner than ever and down two more of his nine lives?
  • What caused the explosion that killed Rachel’s parents?
  • Where can we get a copy of Cold Bitch Digest?
  • Was all the blood on Helena at the end Daniel’s, or did she do some more damage on her way into town?
  • If Rachel wasn’t raised self-aware, what happened to her?
  • Is Alison saying, “I don’t think I’ve EVER done the nasty” the funniest thing she’s said all season, or all series?

See you in the comments, and next week!

Orphan Black Recap: Here With Us