Orphan Black: Instinct Recap

There’s a dead German in the backseat and Beth’s phone won’t stop ringing. Whatever’s going on, it’s safe to say that Sarah’s in pretty deep at this point.

When she’s out of range of gunfire, Sarah pulls over and answers the phone as Beth. She doesn’t really understand what the woman on the other end is talking about, but it’s fairly clear that she’s another “twin,” someone is killing them off, and they need Katja’s briefcase.

You’ve got to hand it to Sarah for being so resourceful and quick on her feet under such strange circumstances. She buries Katja and manages to wash the blood out of her car before heading back to Felix’s to deal with the aftermath of her wake. She sends Felix to tell Mrs. S. that the funeral was staged to allow Sarah to get away from Vic.

It’s a testament to Felix’s love for his foster sister that he agrees, even after Sarah trashes his apartment in a fit of rage upon finding that Art has taken her money, and left her the files on Beth’s line-of-duty shooting. The only way Art will return the money is if she goes to her hearing and gets reinstated. So Sarah gets down to studying the files and statements until she can recite the facts as if she was there.

It’s all a little too convincing to Art, and that’s how Sarah learns that Beth had called Art first after shooting Maggie Chen, and Art had planted the cell phone in Maggie’s hand to cover the fact that Beth had been on medication at the time. This knowledge works to Sarah’s advantage when Beth’s psychologist doesn’t recommend her for duty – Sarah changes her decision by threatening to blame her for prescribing too many drugs. Beth’s history of drug use also gets Paul out of the house, to Sarah’s relief, because he chalks her strange behavior up to meds.

With the hearing out of the way, Sarah gets back to her twin mystery. She poses as Katja and goes to the hotel where Katja had been staying. She finds the room trashed, but the briefcase had been left with the hotel’s management, so she is able to get it and leave. Once she breaks it open, she finds papers for several other women in other countries, and blood samples. One of the women, Alison, is local, so Sarah tracks her down.

I’d be disturbed too if I found that there was a soccer mom version of me. Sarah finds tightly-wound, pious Alison at a soccer field with her kids. Alison is clearly unhappy with what Sarah still thinks is a twin situation, and doesn’t want to believe Sarah when she says Beth killed herself. Alison tells her to leave and wait for a call.

When the call comes, Sarah is instructed to come to Alison’s house at night. She brings Felix (who is not a fan of Alison’s suburban neighborhood) as backup. When Sarah comes in, Alison holds a gun on her and tells her to be quiet so as not to disturb her sleeping children. That’s when Cosima, a much more light-hearted lookalike, pops into the room. It had actually been Cosima who had been calling Sarah.

Just so we have a head count, we’ve now seen five lookalikes on screen – Sarah, Beth, Katja, Alison, and Cosima. The papers in the briefcase and Cosima’s comment on the phone indicate that there are more, and at least some of them are now dead. On next week’s episode, Alison and Cosima will bring Sarah up to speed. If you’re not watching this show yet, I’m going to go ahead and say it: You should be watching this show.