Orphan Black Season 4 recap – “From Dancing Mice to Psychopaths”

My introductory post

Season 1 Overview

Season 2 Overview

Season 3 Overview

“From Dancing Mice to Psychopaths”

(Spoilers)

We start with a flashback to the end of last season.  Krystal is following Delphine and sees her get shot by Duko.  Before he can finish the job, Krystal’s phone rings and he goes to investigate.  But then he hears traffic and leaves.  Krystal goes to help Delphine when Evie’s doctor/right hand Ian Van Lier – who I don’t think was named before – shows up and sends Krystal away and gets Delphine medical help.  She ends up in a cabin with the old guy from Rachel’s visions.

In the present, Cosima and Susan have succeeded in making their stem cells and are well on their way to having a cure.  Cosima calls Sarah to share the news, but then she sees that she is locked out of the computer and then her connection freezes. 

Krystal is having lunch with a friend and sees a news report on the BrightBorn stuff and sees Ian announce he is interim CEO.  She calls Felix with news about what happened to Delphine, but wants to be told everything.

Ira can’t get in touch with Susan so arranges a helicopter to take them back to the island.  Sarah calls Rachel wondering what is going on, but Rachel says they are having trouble getting in touch with Susan as well.  Sarah and Rachel start arguing over Ian and why things are still going on, when Felix hangs up to tell them that Krystal has info on Ian.  They figure there are two branches of Neolution – clones vs bots – and they need all the info they can get.

Cosima is talking with Charlotte when her nose starts bleeding.  She then has a dizzy spell.

Ferdinand shows up at Rachel’s hotel room.  He’s ready to get back to the top of Neolution with her holding his leash.  But she says she doesn’t feel anything now.  But he pushes her and she starts canning him.  She talks about neolution and he seems worried she’s gone over to them, but she kind of forces him to back her.  They’re interrupted when Ira comes back saying Susan will call.

Evie is talking to the Neolution Board, saying that this is all just a minor setback.  They want her to sign everything over so that the technology won’t be tainted by her scandal.  She refuses, and Ian activates her maggotbot and she dies.

Helena, Alison, and Donnie are hiding out in Helena’s shack.

Krystal shows up at the Rabbit Hole.  Felix tries to talk her out of knowing everything, but she refuses.  He takes her downstairs where she sees Art and Sarah introduces herself as Krystal’s clone.  But Krystal doesn’t buy it, thinking they look nothing alike.  But she tells them what Ian did.

Cosima goes looking for Susan and finds her in Rachel’s room talking to Rachel.  She says that they can now restart human cloning.  Cosima confronts her, and Susan locks her in the room so she doesn’t interfere.

Ferdinand ties Ira up so he and Rachel can go to the board, behind Susan’s back.

Ian is talking to the press when Krystal shows up asking about Delphine and neolution.  He ditches the press and asks if she wants to talk, but she says to meet around the corner.  He goes and Mrs. S. takes him to a car where we see it was Sarah, not Krystal.  He tells them about the Board and how Rachel is cutting Susan out of everything.

Rachel talks to the Board saying Susan is out of touch.  She wants to restart human cloning – in countries where the clones would have no legal rights – and implant them with the maggotbots to turn them fully into lab rats.  So they can do whatever tests they want to further the technology.

Rachel then goes back to the island to get the cloning stuff, leaving Ira behind.  Sarah talks him into giving her the helicopter he had planned to use.  They put him with Mrs. S. and Kira.

Cosima is going around the room and knocks over some paintings Charlotte had done.  One is of the island showing a boat and a group of huts on the other side.  Charlotte then breaks Cosima out saying Susan told them to leave and go to the boat.  Cosima asks if there are other people on the island, and Charlotte says they can’t go there.  Cosima makes a small detour to the lab.

Rachel arrives on the island and finds the man from her visions in the house.  He tells her not to waver.  She goes in to talk to Susan and asks who that was.  Susan called him The Messenger.  They talk and Susan says she’s disappointed by Rachel who – sees an image of the swan’s head – so she grabs a knife and stabs Susan.

Sarah arrives at the island and goes in the house.  She follows the bloodtrail to Susan, bandaging herself in the lab.  She puts down her gun to help, but Rachel was waiting and starts beating on Sarah with her cane.  She also takes the knife and stabs Sarah in the leg.  Susan grabs the gun and threatens to shoot Rachel, but Rachel calls her bluff.  But Sarah manages to escape.

Cosima and Charlotte get lost in the woods.  When night falls, they sit down to rest and fall asleep.  They are found by The Messenger, who takes them to the huts where Cosima is reunited with Delphine.

Rachel patches Susan up, and ties her to a wheelchair.  Rachel asks about who made her eye and the visions.  Susan says it’s the man behind the curtain, Westmoreland, who is still alive well over a century after writing his book.  Rachel says that’s impossible, but Susan says not for him.  Rachel then locks her in the room.

Cosima wakes up hearing Delphine talking with The Messenger.  Westmoreland apparently isn’t happy with the situation and Delphine won’t be allowed to stay with Cosima.  But for now she is her patient.  After he leaves, Cosima gives her the cell line she stole from the lab so Delphine could cure her.  Delphine tells her not to tell anyone.

Sarah calls Mrs. S., but Ferdinand is there holding them at gunpoint.

Rachel talks with Ian who says that Westmoreland will see her now.  There is then a ring at the door.

#

At the end of last season we saw Nealon take some worm out of his mouth and try to force it on Delphine.  I was a tad worried that things were going a little too sci-fantasy for my tastes.  But this season they explained the maggotbots and I no longer have an issue with that.  With that in mind, I’m cautiously optimistic that the “immortal” Westmoreland or whatever will be satisfactorily explained next season.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  I’m still concerned about the psychic Kira and am still waiting for a good explanation of that.

One question I have is if Ferdinand has gone over to the Neolution side.  It looks that way with him holding Mrs. S. and Kira hostage, but it could also be him just getting their attention as he explains that he thinks Rachel has gone off the deep end.  I guess we’ll have to wait until next season.

My plan is to rewatch this season, then write up my thoughts on it and any predictions I have for the fifth season.  I should hopefully have that out by the end of the week.

Orphan Black Season 4 recap – “The Mitigation of Competition”

My introductory post

Season 1 Overview

Season 2 Overview

Season 3 Overview

“The Mitigation of Competition”

(Spoilers)

Rachel and Ira are in a hotel room.  She is having more visions of a group of armed people in a camp in the woods.  The old man she saw before is with them.  She believes they are on the island.  Ira shows her the news which is interviewing Evie leading up to her big press conference later that day.

Sarah and Felix show up.  Rachel explains that the new maggotbots will be sold as gene therapy, but they will also alter the patients DNA – as well as their children’s – without any consent.  There’s probably something about it buried in the tons of legalese, but nobody will find it.

Rachel and Ira learned that two carriers from BrightBorn had escaped.  But Sarah and Felix don’t want to really work with them, so they take the information and leave Rachel and Ira at the hotel.

One of the escapees has video of one of the BrightBorn doctor’s euthanizing a deformed baby.  They sent it to Evie to leave them be, or the video will go public.  Her right-hand man sends the two fake EMTs out on jobs.

Art gets a lead on the women at a shelter.  He and Sarah go, but there are cops there.  She stays in the car and gets a call from Helena, who has a camp in the woods where she fishes and hunts deer with a bow.  She’s also wearing some skins.  Sarah doesn’t tell her all of what is going on, but Helena knows something is going on.

One of the women is dead from a “suicide,” a hanging.  Trina was friends with them and had gotten a call and had showed up to meet.  After she leaves, Sarah spots her and talks to her as Beth.  Trina says that the other woman – Kendra, who has a son – knew of an empty house. 

Art talks to the detective on the scene – who is the one going after Donnie – and after Art leaves the detective calls Evie to let her know Sarah is searching for Kendra.

Donnie gets out of jail and is really happy to see Alison.  They meet with Adele but a few things slip that there is more stuff going on than they are telling her.  This is only further expanded when Adele and Felix go back to his place, and the “triplet” Helena shows up.  She and Adele snap at each other, and Felix tells Helena to go and they’ll talk later.  Adele then leaves because she can’t handle all the secrets Felix is keeping from her.

Evie has the latest version of the maggotbot implanted. 

Art and Sarah go searching for the empty house.  At one point, Ira calls her with information about Kendra’s son.  But it was all so he can trace her phone to know where they are.  Rachel sends him after them as a contingency plan.

Cosima and Susan fertilize an egg.  Susan then gives Cosima Westmorland’s book.  As she reads, Charlotte shows up and they talk about being sick.  Cosima doesn’t like Westmoreland that much.  She talks with Susan and they argue about the ethics of all this.  Susan says that she was under pressure to continue Leda when she made Charlotte.

Rachel has more visions of the people in the camp beheading a swan.

Alison and Donnie are worried that everything is going wrong, so they decide to leave the country.  They’re packing things when Alison goes downstairs and finds the one EMT guy has him tied up. 

He wants to know where Duko is, and will implant one of the early maggotbots – that’s really glitchy – into Alison.  But she won’t talk and just before he can implant it, Helena shows up with her bow and kills the guy.

Art and Sarah find the house and break in.  They find the baby – who is blind – and Kendra, who points a gun at them.  She finally believes them that they are going after BrightBorn.  She shows them the video of the doctor she shot in BrightBorn.  She wants to just give them the video, but they point out that they need her to collaborate it. 

Sarah calls Rachel who suggests a more devious way to get Kendra to go with them.  Sarah won’t do that and hangs up.  Rachel calls Ira and has him get ready. 

The one EMT lady – and another goon – show up at the house.  While Art is arresting them, Rachel calls Kendra on the land line, and tells her to get in Ira’s car or something will happen to her other son.

Rachel walks in to Evie’s press conference, before it begins.  She gives Evie Kendra’s phone with the video, and tells her where Kendra is.  In return, she wants a seat at the table.  Evie agrees.  Rachel then asks, why Evie killed the babies, and Evie says that euthanizing them was the only humane thing to do.  She then starts her press conference.

Sarah and Art show up at the hotel room and are ready to kick Ira’s butt.  But he points out that Rachel is wearing a hidden camera.  During Evie’s press conference, all the reporters get the doctor video as well as Evie’s confession.  They start asking questions and ruin her shining moment.

Rachel has more visions, and realizes that someone is trying to tell her something.  We then see the inside of a cabin at the camp, and we see Delphine.

#

What’s Latin for “Helena at the door,” as the new deus ex machina?

How long have Sarah and her people been fighting Evie?  Rachel takes her down in an afternoon.  I’m not ready to jump on the reformed Rachel train just yet.  She too often has schemes within schemes, so I’m just waiting to see what she really does.  Of course, I guess at the end of Season Two I had predicted that an injured Rachel may be the way towards turning her around, like an injured Helena.  It’s just taking a lot longer.

I was a little surprised that Evie was basically defeated this episode.  I expected that to be more of a season ender.  It was great nonetheless, just surprising.  Although, I guess her story isn’t completely over, but I doubt there will be much of a resurgence for her.

Now, the stuff with Delphine.  After last season I suspected that she was dead.  And then there were reports that the creators said she was dead.  So I expected a scene early this season of Cosima standing at her grave.  But when this season started, and Delphine had just disappeared, the odds were turning that she was alive, somewhere.  But I didn’t expect to see her until next season.  I guess, how I feel about her being back will depend on what she’s been doing.

Now, who are the people on the island?  My theory is that they are the Bird Watchers.  What if Westmorland – perhaps in his later years – became worried about what his secret society might do, so he started a second, secret society to keep tabs on the first one?  It would be run in cells, so not everybody would know what is all going on.  But I think Mrs. S. is not the leader, but high up.  She’s always seemed to know more than she lets on.  For example, at the beginning of the second season when Mrs. S. takes Kira to her people and then Sarah shows up only to find that group had sold them out to the Proleathens, when the lady ask Mrs. S. who Sarah and Kira were, she replied that they were Leda.  The lady didn’t know what that was, and Mrs. S. said good, then shot her.  I can’t remember if it was explained, but how did Mrs. S. know about Leda?  All she had seen was the photo of the Duncan’s Sarah and Helena’s birth mother had.  Was Mrs. S. fishing for information, or did she know what Leda was?

In my theory, it was Mrs. S. who picked up the injured Delphine.  She was at the Bubbles party, but that was before Delphine was shot.  This would add weight to the scene early this season where Cosima was distraught and Mrs. S. was talking to her and Cosima asked Mrs. S. to tell her that Delphine was alive.  I believe Mrs. S. response was, “I can’t do that.” Hmm. 

Of course, if this is true and Orphan Black continues its policy of people who we don’t actually see die are just faking their deaths, then could the old man in Rachel’s visions be Mr. S., the one Kendall went to prison for killing?  That would be too big of a coincidence.  Yes, it would tie a whole bunch of plot threads together, but it would be a tangled mess, not the smooth elegance we expect from Orphan Black.