Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Orphan Black Season 3 recap – “The Weight of This Combination”




“The Weight of This Combination”

(Spoilers)

This season starts with Helena dreaming about all her sestras having a suburban, backyard party.  But then she wakes up in a box with an imaginary scorpion she calls Pupok – Ukrainian for bellybutton – who talks to her about being tested again.  At the end of the episode, one of the Castor clones unlocks her from the box after an older woman – who we later learn is Dr. Virginia Coady – tells him to.

Sarah is talking with Felix about her meeting with Marion and the Castor clones.  But Marion has gone off to Europe to smooth things over.  Marion sends Delphine back to take over for Rachel.  However, Topside is sending a “cleaner” named Ferdinand to check everything over to make sure the clones aren’t a threat to Topside.  He can’t know that Rachel has been injured.  Delphine wants Sarah to impersonate her, but she doesn’t want to.

Delphine shows Sarah security camera footage of Rudy and his brother Seth – neither named in this episode – trying to abduct another Leda clone, Krystal Goderitch.  They were able to save Krystal, but Seth escaped and Rudy killed a couple of guards.  Now he’ll only talk to Sarah.  She goes into his cell and they talk a bit and he says that they have all sorts of information on her sisters and her family.  Sarah doesn’t take that well.  As she leaves, he tells her to “count her sisters.” She calls and Alison is fine and Cosima is looking better.  But there’s no sign of Helena.

Mrs. S. returns home and is jumped by Seth.  She tells him that she and Paul had a deal, but he tells her he’s not working for Paul.  He’s looking for Ethan, and isn’t happy to hear that he’s dead.  He then wants to know about his research, but Mrs. S. figures that’s at Dyad.  Seth seems to be having some issues.  He leaves before Sarah and Felix show up, and Mrs. S. tells them about her deal with Paul, which really upsets Sarah.

Amongst all this, Alison decides to run for school board.  The incumbent Marci Coats is apparently planning on changing the district boundaries making Alison’s kids have to go to another school.  Alison’s plans on running are complicated when Donnie tells off his boss and is fired.  He suggests she go work for her mom at her store Bubbles, but Alison really does not like that idea.

Dr. Nealon removed the pencil from Rachel’s eye.  He later tells Delphine that there was some damage.  Part of why Marion sent Delphine back was to avoid a Helsinki situation, and she’ll need Nealon’s help.  Later, once Rachel wakes up, Delphine tortures her to find out what she and Ferdinand are up to and learns that she knows about Helsinki, even though she isn’t supposed to.

Sarah will impersonate Rachel for Delphine as long as Delphine promises to help look for Helena.  They think that all she needs to do is say hi to Ferdinand and then let Delphine handle matters, but Ferdinand wants to talk to them both, and then go see “Sarah.” He sees Alison impersonating Sarah, and then wants to discuss matters privately with “Rachel.”

Ferdinand goes over to Rachel’s apartment, and we learn that he and Rachel have some sort of relationship.  We also learn that Helsinki refers to a time when Topside killed a group of clones who were aware.  Another Helsinki is in progress.  The plan is that after they take Sarah’s ovary, they’ll just kill her, they’ll stop treating Cosima and she’ll die, and Ferdinand’s goon is on his way to kill Alison and her family with a fire.  Sarah tries to call Alison, but only leaves a message. 

She ends up spanking, and then choking Ferdinand with his own belt – which he likes – before Delphine comes in.  She points out that Topside would blame him for the Helsinki – they wouldn’t blame Rachel – so they blackmail him into calling off his goon and telling Topside that everything is fine at Dyad.

Seth then manages to kill the guards around Rudy and freeing him.

Some other things happen as well.  Delphine – having to take over for Rachel and loving all the Leda clones – breaks up with Cosima.  Scott is ready to quit because of military clones, but then Cosima shows him Ethan’s Island of Dr. Moreau with all the notes, so he’s ready to stay.  Until they crack it, they won’t tell anyone about it.  Kira has Helena’s container of frozen embryos.  Also, Cosima is a bit confused about how Kira “saved” her last season.

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When I first saw this episode, I wasn’t sure about it, it seemed to shake everything up and I wasn’t sure it would all work.  Then I remembered that was how I felt about the first episode of the Second Season, and the Second Season worked out pretty good.  And the Third Season worked out great. 

Since Virginia wasn’t named this episode, I also wondered if she might be Susan Duncan, Rachel’s mother that Leekie reportedly killed.  But it turns out she’s just a Castor Doc.

Delphine torturing Rachel made me wonder if they were trying to get the audience to feel sorry for her.  Well, that probably was the idea, but I wondered if it was to set up Rachel’s turn to the good side like Helena being shot.  I guess that still remains to be seen.

There are a series of Orphan Black comic books dealing with the Helsinki storyline.  I haven’t read them, but I did start looking up information on them on Wikipedia, and discovered a spoiler for Season Four.  So if you’re really interested, I’d say check them out at your own risk.

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