Orphan Black: Formalized, Complex, and Costly Recap

Synopsis: Cosima discovers the Castor clones are the Leda girls’ brothers. Art and Sarah try to track down Mark in the hopes that he’ll lead them to Helena.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I like how Orphan Black doesn’t do convenient. Where other shows would have had Seth, the creepy Castor clone’s corpse conveniently disappear, our girl Sarah and Felix start this episode up to their rubber-gloved elbows in body disposal.

‘Do we go with the bathtub? How do we get rid of the body? Let’s call Mrs. S. No, I don’t want any help from her.’ It’s all glorious. Until Detective Art knocks on the door.

Art barges into Felix’s flat, sees the body, and wistfully wishes for his past blissful days of plausible deniability. Sarah tells him that he can get out if he needs to, but Art tells her that he’s invested in the female clone’s safety.

Later in the episode when Sarah and Art try to track down Mark, we learn that he was in love with Beth, hence why he’s so devoted to keeping her sisters alive. I feel like this came out of nowhere – he always seemed antagonistic toward Sarah when he thought she was Beth, but okay. I’ll buy.

Sarah talks to Cosima about the dead body in her bathtub, and she decides to haul herself and her lab assistant Scott to take a look at the glitchy clone’s brain to see what kind of genetic defect the boys have.

What follows is the single best line from Felix in recent memory. While Cosima and crew are bloodily extricating Castor-clone’s brain, Cosima starts waxing poetic on the nature of life. As she’s holding his brain, she starts asking about what constitutes human life and the existence of souls. It’s fantastic – the violence and the philosophy are so discordant and it just works.

Scott’s not into the discussion, which prompts Felix to say my new favorite line: “A good lab partner should be metaphysically sympathetic.” Truer words. Especially when you’ve spent a few weeks of prepping and staining tissue samples to find your antibodies are nonspecific and you’re quietly contemplating the meaninglessness of your existence at 10 PM on a weekday. Not that I’ve had experience with that kind of thing.

Anyway, in other news, Alison’s business is taking off. So much so that Marcy offers to get her a sweet deal on a house outside of her educational district to eliminate the school board election competition. Alison doesn’t buckle – she knows she’s got Marcy on the ropes.

Rachel is in neurological therapy for her brain injury – she still has considerable aphasia, and even though she’s the token corporate evil clone, I feel bad for the character. She was so powerful, and now she can’t even identify the shape of a key on a flashcard.

Helena’s still being held hostage by Dr. Virginia. Paul swings by to get orders – he’s to stall the Director of the military project long enough for Virginia to find the cure for the glitching clones.

In creepy Prolethian cult news, Gracie and Mark are on their creepy honeymoon. Gracie’s still pregnant with Helena and Gracie’s father’s baby. It’s very not okay.

Mark tells Gracie that he’s from the army and his mission was to get some biological samples her father stole. Gracie helps him out and goes to a friend of her father’s, Mr. Finch, to see if he has the samples. After some sexually predatory behavior from Finch, he gives Gracie the box. Unfortunately, it’s full of journals and not test tubes.

Mark ditches Gracie for an hour so he can look for the samples.

In the meantime, Sarah and Art track down a Prolethian midwife, who reveals that Helena is preggers and then gives them a lead to see Mr. Finch, who doesn’t give them anything helpful. Later, Sarah finds Gracie eating alone at a diner and tells her about Mark’s Castor clone heritage. Feeling betrayed, Gracie freaks out and tells Sarah where to find Mark.

Meanwhile, Mark searches for the biological samples before he runs into Sarah. When he threatens to kill her, she tells him what Cosima just told her: the Castor clones are the Leda clone’s brothers. Mark doesn’t believe her and flees, only to be hunted down and shot by Gracie’s mother.