Review: 'Orphan Black' Season 3, Episode 2, 'Transitory Sacrifices of Crisis': Things Get Personal

PREVIOUSLY: ‘Orphan Black’ Season 3, Episode 1, ‘The Weight of This Combination’: Let’s Get It Started

Cloning Around

With

Sarah desperate to track down Helena and refusing to blow Dodge until she can

figure out a way to keep everyone in her life safe, she relapsed into something

of a fantasy world with Cal this week. Although the dream to settle down and be

a happy little family with their daughter was swell, the Castor clones had

other thoughts on the subject when they became equally desperate for a whole

new set of reasons. Watching Sarah and Rudy strive for the same things — to

keep those in their lives safe—while treating each other as the enemy was

frustrating, but it also started laying down the foundation for the ultimate

clone-on-clone-on-clones scene we just know is coming up at some point this

season.

Science Class

With Cosima on the mend and Scott attempting to

figure out what is making the clones sick in the first place, the illness from

Season 1 is no longer as threatening to these characters as it once was. Still,

we were reminded through this new duo’s sleuthing that the search for the

original genetic make-ups of Castor and Leda continues to be a priority in

everyone being able to live happily ever after. Turns out, that’s something the

male clones need too, thanks to what looks like some faulty wiring.

A Little Dance

Party

We’ve had a lot of sex scenes to date for a series

about clones, but none of them have been quite as disturbing as the borderline

rape scene involving Rudy and Seth in the hotel room. Thankfully the scene shut

down before things grew out of hand, and we later learned that they didn’t

actually have sex with that girl, they just took some of her hair and scared

her. It said more about how close those “brothers” are than anything else. The

real question now is, were they physical twins like Helena and Sarah? Or just

clones like everyone else?

Power Move

Over in suburbia, Alison and Donnie were faced with

serious financial problems, which of course led them to make yet another rash

#TeamHendrix decision: to take over Ramon’s drug business and sell prescription

pills to the other soccer moms. In their heads, not only does the move give

Alison the voter base she needs to run against Marci Coates (guest star Amanda

Brugel), but it also guarantees income for the couple. Apparently they were

secure enough to spend their entire retirement savings on it, which clearly

won’t work out so well in the long run. Not to mention the fact that Alison was

an addict in the first place and probably shouldn’t even be around that stuff.

We’re Drowning

Just

when we thought the stuff between Rudy and Seth was as terrible as the episode

was going to get, John Fawcett and Graeme Manson introduced us to

water-boarding, “Orphan Black” style. As Helena was put through the

military “stress test,” her mental decline continued. That much was proven when

the talking scorpion returned, spouting wisdom about mangos. On the bright side

it led to audiences meeting a new ruthless leader, one Dr. Coady (Kyra Harper).

The doc displayed plenty of maternal instincts (including stopping the

aforementioned water-boarding upon learning of Helena’s pregnancy), and showed

that she’s playing a dangerous mind game with the unstable clone. How much of

those crazy hypnotizing machine tests she’s behind remains to be seen, but it’s

pretty obvious we shouldn’t trust her.

A Male’s

Perspective

While killing Seth ensures that the “glitching”

mystery remains a secret for now, his sudden death also feels like a missed

opportunity. It would have been fun to see more of that Rudy/Seth dynamic going

forward and explore their relationship rather than having it end so abruptly.

Instead, we’ll now see how that death affects Rudy going forward, and whether

he’ll actually kill someone from the #CloneClub like Cal who gets in his way

next time. No wonder Sarah finally sent Kira away. We all know that should have

been the mum’s immediate response when this first all went down.

Tatiana Who?

Sure, Ari Millen and Tatiana Maslany did more than

their share of this week’s heavy lifting, but there was something comforting

about watching Felix play nurse to a broken Mrs. S. The scene was an episodic

highlight; not only did it remind us of the show’s first season roots but it

reminded us that sometimes the show’s best scenes are the ones in which there

is no clone camera work at all.

Running on Empty

Oh Paul. We almost forgot about you. He was also

back in fine force, showcasing his ability to use that lie-detector, glitching,

brain-washing machine thingamajig. Speaking to the aforementioned point,

another highlight was the scene between Paul and Cal, in which it became clear

that both her former and current lovers have Sarah’s best interests at heart.

And here we thought Paul was just a bad guy that we loved to hate. Naturally

it’s more complicated than that when sex is involved.

Lab Results

With two episodes down there is still a lot of

ground to cover and characters to explore, and only eight episodes left in

which to cover it all. Although we were treated to another fast-paced episode

this week, the clone conspiracy world is rapidly expanding and more questions

are being raised than answers given. With the return of Mark and Gracie next

week, Cal on the run and an “in the wild” standoff between Castor and Leda

under our belts, hopefully we can get back to answering some origin questions

next week.

Quote of the Week

“We’re brothers. We were taught to share.” – Scar

Runner Up:

“You don’t get to sit this one out. None of us do.”

– Felix

Runner, Runner Up:

“Now we find Helena and we finish this shit.” –

Sarah

Grade: B

“Orphan Black” airs Saturday at 9pm ET on Space and

BBC America. Next time: Mark returns and truths emerge.

READ MORE: ‘Orphan Black’ Origin Story: Co-Creator John Fawcett On How the Show Nearly Never Happened



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