Orphan Black Season 2 recap – “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”

My introductory post

Season 1 Overview

“By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”

(Spoilers)

With Kira kidnapped by Rachel, Sarah decides to surrender herself to Dyad to keep Kira safe.  She goes in and meets with Dr. Nealon and agrees to be impregnated, whatever, to let her be with Kira.

Dr. Nealon also takes over all the stuff with Cosima.  Rachel sends Delphine to Germany, but she manages to send some information to Cosima.

Kira – being a smart girl – steals a phone from a nurse and calls the number Cal gave her and sends him to Mrs. S.  Cal explains that while he dug around on the internet about Dyad, he was contacted by some high placed insider.  So Mrs. S. arranges a meeting between the insider and the military through Paul who has gone back to them.

Helena shows up at Art’s and wants to see Sarah.  Art doesn’t tell her what happened, and just feeds her.  Felix shows up and she tells them her adventures, with some omissions.

Rachel has also taken Ethan into custody.  But he takes his own life – and the key to his clone code – so that all Dyad can do is help Cosima.

Cal’s Insider turns out to be Marion who agrees to help get Sarah and Kira out of Dyad for some information from the military on Project Castor.  Paul and Mrs. S. also make a deal.

Meanwhile, Cosima and Scott A-Team a fire extinguisher to fire a pencil, and hide it in the operating room where Dr. Nealon is planning on taking out one of Sarah’s ovaries.  Scott manages to loosen one of Sarah’s restrains before Rachel comes in.  Cosima had been allowed to visit with Kira and they drew a picture for Sarah with a fire extinguisher.  Rachel shows it to her and demands to know Ethan’s code, which she assumes he had given to her.  When Sarah – honestly – replies she doesn’t know what it is, Rachel smashes the vials of Kira’s bone marrow that was to go to Cosima.  Sarah triggers the fire extinguisher and shoots Rachel in the eye with the pencil.

Sarah escapes the operating room to find Marion with Kira.  She tells Sarah that if she wants to know everything, she needs to see Marion the next day.

There is then a clone party at Felix’s with Sarah, Cosima, Alison, and Helena. The next morning, Sarah leaves for her meeting with Marion.

Helena also sneaks out – after leaving behind her jar of frozen babies – and is kidnapped by some guys, dropping Jesse’s hat.  They take her to the military, which apparently was the deal Mrs. S. made with Paul.

Cosima is not doing well and has a vision of Delphine.  Kira wakes her up to read her a story.  She then brings out the copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau and she sees all the notes he made.

Sarah arrives at Marion’s mansion to discover Charlotte, her eight year old sister who has a leg brace, the only survivor of 400 attempts to recreate the clones.  Marion is her adoptive mother.  Marion is part of Topside, which is a group that is trying to steer the laws and stuff for this grand scifi future.  And for money.

Marion also explains that the military split Project Leda.  Dyad kept the female clones, while the military – with Project Castor – kept the male clones.  Somehow, Marion has one of these male clones – who we later learn is Rudy – who turns out to be a copy of Mark, who just married Gracie.

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Don’t worry, Helena will be fine.

The first time I watched this, it felt like I had missed something.  There were ten plots all crammed together.  Which, after thinking about it, I realized was realistic.  And it made you want to watch it again to catch everything.  It I was a bit confused, but it was an intrigued confusion.

I’ll have some thoughts up on the Second Season tomorrow.

Movie Monday – Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

My introductory post.  

Mad Max: Fury Road on IMDB  

 (Spoilers)

The movie starts with Max being captured by Immortal Joe’s War Boys and is taken to the Citadel.  Here Joe rules because he pumps underground water up for the parched masses.  Max is used as a blood bag – he’s a Universal Donor – and is hooked up to transfuse the War Boy Nux, who is slowly dying from … in reality probably a combination of post-apocalyptic diseases.

Meanwhile, Furiosa sets off in a rig to a nearby town for gasoline, or something.  But she turns off the road.  This confuses her escort at first, but she tells them it’s a raiding mission, or something.  Joe figures out that Furiosa has “stolen” his “wives.” So he sets out to reclaim them. 

At first Nux was to stay behind, but he has them hook Max up to his car so he can go and have a glorious death and be reborn.  There’s a chase and battle, and Furiosa goes into a sandstorm with Nux right behind.  He wrecks and Max has a chance to escape, except he’s still chained to Nux. 

Furiosa’s rig is plugged with sand, and while she’s fixing it the wives are cutting off their chastity belts.  Max shows up with Nux, and has them cut him loose.  He tries to steal the rig, but Furiosa has it set so only she can drive it.  Max, Furiosa, and the wives come to a bit of a truce.

Furiosa had made a deal with a rival gang, but they hadn’t planned on fighting all of Joe’s army, so they turn on them and there’s a big fight.  Most of Joe’s army is delayed, but Joe’s car is still in the chase.  Nux is onboard and has a chance to stop the rig, but flops right in front of Joe.  One of the wives dies, and Joe is delayed.

Max learns that they are heading to the “Green Place” which Furiosa remembers as a child.  One of the wives finds Nux hiding on the back of the rig, and comforts him saying that perhaps he has an even grander death waiting for him.  When the rig gets stuck in mud, Nux helps them out.

They finally make it to the Green Place and Furiosa is reunited with her people.  But the Green Place is no longer green.  At first, everyone but Max was going to try to cross this vast desert in the hopes of finding someplace new.  But Max realizes that the Citadel – with all its water – is now undefended.  So they all turn around to go back.

There’s a lot of chasing and fighting, Nux dies blocking the road, Furiosa is hurt and loses a lot of blood but Max is a Universal Donor, and Immortal Joe is killed.  Furiosa returns with Joe’s body, and there’s a big celebration.  She’s a hero, and Max slips away in the crowd.

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Of the four Mad Max movies, this is my favorite.  The reason is for something some people had an issue with the movie: Furiosa.  If the movie had just been Max shows up, the wives hire him to help them escape, explosions, I would have thought it just an okay movie, probably tied with Mad Max 2 as my favorite of the series.  Because, I’ve figured out, I’m not a fan of Max.  He’s an interesting character, but I don’t think he can hold a movie on his own.  Furiosa is more interesting.  (I don’t know if it’s just because Beyond Thunderdome was the only other Max movie I had seen, but when I think of interesting characters from the Max Universe, Master Blaster is near the top.  I’ll have to think who I find more interesting; Furiosa or Master Blaster.)  If it wasn’t for the fact that Furiosa is now just administering the Citadel, I’d be interested in a sequel with her.

As to my thoughts about a modern post-apocalypse movie.  Um, it was good.  It wasn’t cheesy with decaying ruins, or anything like that.  It fits with what I would expect from a modern post-apocalypse movie, if that makes any sense.