Jello, Clone Club! Last week's episode was a wonderful breeze after episode 6's edge of your seat thrill. We needed a lighter episode after that, so thank you, Orphan Black! Check out the must-read items from the past week as you get ready for tonight's new episode, "Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method."
Is some kind of Castor and Leda team up coming this episode? If I've learned anything from these promo posters, you're never going to guess what actually happens!
An Alison episode is coming! As one of my favorite cones, I'm excited to see more of her. We know she'll be wearing this from the previews, but what's the significance?
Holy doodle, Clone Club! What an emotional and mind blowing episode! This is a spoiler fest from this point forward, so if you haven't watched episode 6 "Certain Agony of the Battlefield," what the heck are you doing here? Go! Now! Prepare to live on the edge of your seat then come back and read. It will help your heart return to a normal pace. Believe me, you'll need it.
Revelations we've been waiting for. A quick answer, for once, about the Castor clones. Scenes that could make a stone wall cry. "Certain Agony of the Battlefield" had it all. It's hard to know where to start, so we'll begin with the most pleasant of the emotional range: laughter. Alison and Donnie were classic. The tease about seeing them as we've never seen them before? Yeah, but it was so much more:
Rap music, making it rain money, twerking on the wall. Oh, I love these two! Donnie isn't happy when Alison goes to meet Jason by herself, so he shows up in a new car he dropped 10 grand cash on. Alison was trying to convince Jason to expand his business with them, so to fix her husband's mess, she pitches that they would buy her mother's store and use it as the business front of their drug business. Hittin' the big time, these two.
Cosmia seems to be settling in nicely with Shay. She's spending the night at her apartment, but she is still keeping her in the dark about her scientific research. When Shay brings up the name Sarah, Cosima immediately gets defensive. Who can blame her? Although Shay says that she mentioned the name in her sleep, it still gives an uneasy feeling that perhaps she's someone to watch carefully. On the other hand, we find out Delphine was having Cosima followed, so what do we really have against
Shay now? The theory that she's having Cosima photographed is out the window. I guess we'll have to see.
Delphine is back in town once she hears of Sarah's disappearance. She looks at Cosima's research and finds out two things: they had a Castor brain and they were studying Gracie. Apparently, it only takes a short time for her time find that Cosima and Scott overlooked Gracie and the Castor sample sharing a protein. Turns out this protein makes females infertile by destroying their ovaries. Gracie is actually relieved that she cannot have children, and I certainly don't blame her after all she'd been through. Of course, all this is overshadowed for cophine shippers because before Cosima walks out of the lab, Delphine makes a simple and powerful statement that she misses her. The look on Cosima's face says it all, and you can't help but pull for these two to make it in the end.
In the meantime, Felix grabs Scott and finds Rachel. He is completely on it in this episode, providing some of the best lines: "Nut up and lead me to Cyclops." He tries to torture her for information, by playing on the fact that she has no one who cares about her. Felix even goes as far as to paint on her "eye patch" and make her look at herself to humiliate her. You can see his desperation, but in the end, you see Rachel's pain more.
She asks him to take her out of there and for a moment you see Felix react. I wouldn't be surprised if she winds up with her sisters, especially since Scott discovered through her paintings that Rachel knows the symbols from Duncan's book and must know the key to decoding it, whether she's aware or not. At this point I am really rooting for her to make a change. You see her looking at a photo of herself as a child with Duncan and you know that she's in a lot of pain, tears sliding down her face. Damn you, Orphan Black! You're making us get the feels for Rachel!
Paul is visiting his superiors in Arlington at the start of the episode, showing what Dr. Coady's been doing to unsuspecting women. When he returns to the compound, he is both looking for proof of her actions and looking to save Sarah who is now sick from a transfusion of Rudy's blood. While Paul enlists Mark to uncover the hidden information, Sarah has an out of body experience that we will never forget: she meets Beth. Holy smokes, guys! Who saw that coming? Her mind flashes between
scenes of when she first saw Beth and scenes of Beth's home videos all while Beth's speaking her mind.
It's emotionally taxing because Beth is dealing with the fact that Paul was her monitor and that he never loved her. Sarah states that she misses Beth, and Beth responds in fury: "You don't get to miss me!" Sarah appeals to her by explaining that she's trying to pick up her work and help their sisters and Beth reveals that she killed herself because she couldn't handle everything she was finding. She then asks Sarah bluntly why she took over her life. Sarah's response was simple, "for Kira." "We do terrible things for the people we love," Beth responds, foreshadowing the end of the episode. She leaves Sarah with an important tip to ponder: "Stop asking why. Start asking who." The scene is so cohesive from Beth's badge and placing her shoes on the table to Beth popping pills to deal with her pain. Personally, I believe we needed to see this from Beth. It makes her story even more captivating and lets us inside her mind.
Meanwhile, Paul and Mark are in Dr. Coady's office searching for evidence. Paul finds files on all the women and the finds out exactly what Cosima and Gracie found, that Castor has a sexually transmitted protein that makes women infertile. Mark is obviously upset, especially when he sees a
file on Gracie. Mark walks in to Dr. Coady by Sarah's bed and places her under arrest, then reports his findings to his superiors who, surprise, wind up turning on him. They tell him that they're sending an extraction team but in reality they're sending Rudy back from his Helena hunt to take care of the situation.
Paul grabs Sarah, who insists on confronting Dr. Coady. Turns out that Sarah showed none of the other symptoms, so she is immune to the protein. Coady reveals that they were going to use the Castor protein to prevent world wars. Combined with the fact that Paul's on the losing side and the government is helping Coady, we now know that the government is even deeper in this which means Sarah is going to have even more people to fight against. Sarah and Paul begin their escape after Mark reveals the double cross, leaving him behind so he is not caught up in the trouble and implicated.
Sneaking through the compound, Paul and Sarah find themselves face to face with one of the Castor clones. He and Paul fight and before Paul is able to snap his neck, he stabs Paul in the stomach multiple times. Sarah grabs him up and helps him along their route. He leads her to a grate and once she steps in, he closes it and locks it. Freaking out, Sarah tells him she is not leaving without him. Paul ignores her and tells her where the tunnel will take her. As he's walking away, he turns and we see the humanity in Paul:
The plot is now set and we know what Paul is determined to do. After Rudy has killed the others on the compound, he and Dr. Coady go straight to the research to find Paul sitting, holding his stab wound with a towel. He implores her to give up the experimentation and just save the Castors. She winds up shooting him, and just when you think it's over, the grenade from this week's promo poster pops up. Paul lets his towel drop and drops the grenade.
Dr. Coady and Rudy make a run for it as Paul sets all of Castor's research up in flame. Paul is dead. He sacrificed himself for the greater good and for the woman he loved. I really feel for Paul, being trapped in the middle of the clone mess, but despite all the bad things he did for the sake of the Castors, he redeemed himself in my eyes. RIP Big Dick Paul.
Sarah's making her way through the tunnel as the grenade explodes and the blast knocks her to the ground. Ahead an opening appears in the roof and our favorite wild clone, Helena, drops down. "Come sestra. People miss us." And if that isn't enough to make you an emotional mess so far, the episode leaves you with one final scene.
I never thought I'd say this, but someone save Rachel please!
A few questions and final thoughts:
If the Castor protein destroys a woman's ovaries, will it destroy those of the infertile clones to stop their disease?
How much of Duncan's key does Rachel know? I have this image of Cosima, Scott, and Felix busting Rachel out and her winding up in Fe's apartment like everyone does.
After watching the scene with Beth, I wonder if Sarah should have told her that Art loved her.
Is Mark going to escape the military and come for Gracie now that he knows what he possibly did to her? Or is Mark going to take his time and get revenge?
We don't know for sure that Coady and Rudy made it out from the blast, but we can assume they most likely did. Me thinks Sarah is going to have a whole new crew after her and her sisters. Will it come down to the government versus TopSide?
Don't forget to watch next week's promo. Until then, chickens!
