Orphan Black – To Right the Wrongs of Many

By: Michelle Lopez

We open on a flashback of Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) and Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy) outside a Planned Parenthood. Siobhan is doing her best to support Sarah, but the last thing she thinks she needs is help from her mom. Mrs. S explains that it’s Sarah’s choice and those words are what Sarah needed to hear because she makes her decision. She’s going to keep the baby.

In present day, Sarah and Helena (Tatiana Maslany) are forced to abandon their trek to the elevator when Maddy (Elyse Levesque) and a minion show up. Sarah wants to keep searching for another exit, but Helena’s bebes are ready to see what all the ruckus is about. Sarah uses some cardboard and her jacket to make Helena a makeshift bed and lets her know that their people are on the way to help them. Unfortunately, it’s not looking like there is enough time for them to escape before Helena’s babies come so Sarah hands her sestra a screwdriver for protection and heads out in search of medical supplies.

Elsewhere, Westmorland (Stephen McHattie) is going off on Coady (Kyra Harper) for letting Helena and Sarah get away. He’s angry, dying and on the verge of completely losing it so Coady does her best to calm him. Helena’s water broke before they scampered off so they couldn’t have gotten far. Coady radios Maddy for an update, but before she can reply Art (Kevin Hanchard) knocks her out, handcuffs her to the stair railing and steals her radio. Since their sterilized setup has been ruined by rogue clones, they’ll need to take the babies somewhere clean. Their new plan is for Coady to track down Helena, for Westmorland to sit still and not die and for their minions to prepare the helicopter.

Sarah’s rummaging through a room full of equipment covered in plastic sheeting when Coady shows up. She maneuvers around the room hiding behind stuff trying to avoid Coady’s flashlight beam until Coady moves on to the next room. Art finds Sarah and she fills him in on what’s going on. She sends him to go help Helena while she absconds with the medical supplies they’ll need.

Coady calls for radio silence when a minion finds Maddy unconscious and without a radio. With the help of a few drops of blood, she manages to find Helena so she calls Westmorland to give him the good news. He wants her to bring Helena to the helicopter, but she’s going to start pushing any minute now so they’ll have to wait a bit. Westmorland, now hopped up on meth, isn’t happy about waiting so he wants to head to the basement to assist her. Since he’s running purely on stimulants Coady tells him to stay put and hangs up. This annoys him further and when the doctor who shot him up agrees with Coady, he shoots him.

Art follows Sarah’s directions and finds Helena on her cardboard bed. Coady heard his approach so she hid and got the drop on him when he saw Helena. She kicks over a medical kit and tells Art to glove up because he’s going to deliver the babies since she’s not keen on getting near Helena again anytime soon. While he prepares to check how dilated she is, Helena suffers another contraction and makes sure Art sees that she’s got a weapon. Helena begins to panic because she feels like pushing but doesn’t want to have her babies right now so she tries to get up. Art tells Coady that Helena’s hemorrhaging blood and when she comes near he grabs the gun from her hands while Helena stabs her with the screwdriver. RIP Coady (but not really).

Sara, now armed with Art’s spare gun, hides in the hall outside the operating room while some minions pack it up. When they finally leave she heads inside and finds that they took damn near everything. Westmorland’s disembodied voice menaces Sarah from outside the curtained off area, calling her and Helena lab rats and fertile freaks. She reminds him that they never had their claws in them because they grew up outside Neolution. He continues to harass Sarah until she gets a good enough idea of where he is and takes a few shots at him, one of which hits. After a few moments of complete silence, Sarah figures he’s dead. However, he’s somehow made his way behind her and tackles her with some plastic sheeting. Using his Hulk-like meth strength, Westmorland is able to hold the sheet over her face for a long time but Sarah’s a survivor and manages to kick him off her and halfway across the room. He’s down for the count, but still continues to spew nonsense at Sarah. She and her sestras have survived all his bullshit and now they’re on top because that’s how evolution works. Then, she grabs a metal canister and smashes him in the face shutting him up once and for all.

Sarah rushes back to Helena just in time to help with the delivery. We cut back and forth between Sarah in labor with Kira (Skyler Wexler) and Helena. Sarah repeats the words Siobhan had for her when she was in labor with the addition of a few “meatheads.” There on the floor of the basement of their enemies’ secret hideout, a few feet from the body of one of those enemies, Helena gives birth to two tiny humans.

The Future Starts Slow
In Helena’s garage apartment, Donnie (Kristian Bruun) stops in to say good morning and gladly spend a little time with the baby codenamed “orange” while Helena feeds the baby codenamed “purple.” Helena adorably describes the babies keeping her up all night as them “exercising their cries.” Donnie takes “orange” outside to spend some time with Alison (Tatiana Maslany) while he goes to work. Alison’s still rocking her new hair, but is acting more like herself as she criticizes Helena for not officially naming the babies yet.  

Sarah’s starting her day off with some last-minute studying for the GED over video call with Cosima (Tatiana Maslany) and Scott (Josh Vokey) until Kira comes downstairs ready for school. Sarah is embarrassed to fork over lunch money because she forgot to go grocery shopping again. Kira tells her not to worry about it and wishes her good luck on her test. With Kira gone, Sarah gets to work on packing up the house. While she reads the card Mrs. S gave her for her ninth birthday, Felix (Jordan Gavaris) returns from his trip to New York. He’s confused about Sarah having put the house up for sale and already started going through everything. They’d discussed doing it, but he figured they’d do it together and she’d have a plan for where she and Kira are going to go. Sarah shelves the discussion for after her test and heads out.

In the comic shop basement Cosima, Scott and Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) are working on creating more cure for the clones they’re hunting down with Art’s help. Cosima’s frustrated because they’ve only cured a few and they don’t know how many clones there are.

At the high school, Sarah gets a call from Helena while she waits outside the room of her test. Helena wants to confirm Sarah will be at the baby shower after the test. She confirms and apologizes for being MIA lately as she blames the test, but it’s clear she’s struggling with more. The instructor for the test opens the room and before Sarah goes in she flashes back to Mrs. S and her in that car outside Planned Parenthood. Siobhan voices her concern about Sarah taking care of another person when she struggles to take care of herself and she offers to support her. Sarah’s pig-headed and wants to believe that she doesn’t need anything from her mom. Sarah remembers that day and decides to walk away from the test.

At the baby shower, Helena’s opening presents with Kira, Felix, Colin (Nicholas Rose) and Adele (Lauren Hammersley) while Josh and Hell Wizard (Calwyn Shurgold) grill and Donnie prepares some special jam burgers for Helena. When Cosima and Delphine arrive, Felix hands “purple” to Cosima who adorably freaks out and hands him over to Delphine.

Sarah makes a quiet entrance with a box of baby things from her house and beelines to the fridge for a beer. Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) interrupts her moment of quiet with a hug and apology about Siobhan. Slowly everyone trickles into the kitchen and asks Sarah about her test, which gets her more and more annoyed. The conversation shifts from Sarah’s test to Helena and the babies. Alison hopes that since Sarah’s done with her test she’ll be around a bit more for sestras, especially Helena since she thinks rocks are good toys for babies. She asks Sarah what’s the deal with the for sale sign on the house because they just won their freedom to be sestras and now Sarah, the one who led the charge, is running away. Sarah goes off because she doesn’t want Kira growing up in the house Siobhan was killed in, meaning she can’t handle living in the house where her mom was killed.

In the backyard, Sarah’s brooding alone after her outburst when each of her sestras trickles in for from family time. Helena looks at Sarah with the most earnest eyes and asks her what’s going on with her. Sarah breaks down and unloads the weight she’s being crushed by. She skipped her test, can’t let herself off the hook for anything and is struggling because she doesn’t know how to be happy. She’s spent her entire life jumping from one fight to the next. She fought against Siobhan, she fought the problems being around guys like Vic brought and she fought against Neolution. She’s never given herself a moment to breathe because those moments are when you have time to reflect and feel which Sarah doesn’t want to do. She’s used her constant fight as an excuse for not being the mom she thinks she needs to be and she can’t hide from the truth that she’s not living up to her expectations. Her sestras all jump in with stories of them messing up. Alison scared her daughter in a moment of anger. Cosima freaked out when she was handed the baby earlier. And Helena can’t seem to stop her babies from eating sand so just let’s them do it. Nobody’s perfect and we’re all hot messes more often than not, but every once in awhile it helps to be reminded of it.

After receiving mysterious texts all afternoon from someone, Felix heads out front to meet them. The person in question is, of course, Rachel (Tatiana Maslany). They share some awkward hellos and Felix assumes the guy driving her is her new man servant, but she’s on the run so she’s stuck using Uber like the rest of us. She asks about the family and babies which is sad to see because she could have been part of the family. Felix tells here they’re happy but reminds her that she can’t go inside. That’s the last thing Rachel wants after spending her entire life comparing herself to LEDAs. If she could go the rest of her life without seeing another face like hers she’d be content. She hands Felix a folder and they say goodbye for the last time.

Felix brings the folder to the yard and gives it to his sestras. It’s the complete list of all 274 LEDA sisters including all information they’d need to cure them. They’re all overjoyed to have this and a bit overwhelmed to know that there are that many sisters out there. Helena takes this moment to share her now finished memoirs, titled “Orphan Black,” with her family: “My story is an embroidery with many beginnings and no end. But I will start with the thread of my sestra, Sarah, who stepped off a train one day and met herself.”

Epilogue
We catch up with Alison working on her music when Donnie returns home from a run. He turns laundry into a strip tease and they share some “I love you”s as they enjoy their freedom.

In Columbia, Delphine is curing a LEDA who can’t help but hit on her while Cosima watches from the waiting room. No need to drop the clone bomb on folks for no reason. “Cophine” share some kisses as they plan on heading to Brazil to cure the 14 clones over there.

In the backyard, Helena’s enjoying motherhood and finally naming her babies. She names them after the two men who mean the most to her, Donnie and Arthur.

At Siobhan’s house, Sarah, Felix, and Kira are busy rushing out the door grabbing everything they need for a relaxing day at the beach. Sarah takes one lingering glance around the house before she shuts the door and heads off to live a happy life.