Orphan Black: History Yet To Be Written Recap

Synopsis:  The Leda team negotiates with Ferdinand to eliminate Castor’s people, only to find that an old enemy has been pulling the puppet strings all along. Delphine does her best to hold Dyad together in the midst of corporate betrayal, only to (possibly) meet her demise at the end of the episode.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on the plotlines in this show, (especially because I have to take notes each episode for these recaps!) but I had an unusually difficult time keeping up with all the scheming in this episode. The last few episodes of this season’s arc were really quality – and significantly less convoluted – which is partially why the season finale was a bit disappointing.

This week, we pick up on the creepy ‘I consumed my own twin in the womb’ storyline with the Castor/Leda original, Kendall Malone. Besides being so cliche it physically pains me, I’m kinda over the animosity between Mrs. S and her mother.

Ever since Delphine kicked Cosima and Scott out of the lab, Scott’s been prepping the new digs to study Kendall’s DNA. Kendall decides to be crotchety and refuse to provide genetic samples to the team until Cosima talks her down with stories of family and #sisterhood.

Always the problem solver, Mrs. S threatens her mother with a sulfuric acid bath if Castor’s people discover their location. Who’s to say which negotiation method works better, really?

In the meantime, Rachel wakes up in some new swanky digs with a cybertronic eye. She doesn’t know who put her there, and she spends the rest of the episode aimlessly wheeling around in her chair yelling for answers and looking at displays of Darwin’s finches.

Castor’s people (including the miraculously grenade-proof Dr. Virginia Coady) know about the original, and spend the episode tracking down Sarah’s people – through Alison – to get to Kendall.

At Dyad, Ferdinand (from Topside) drops in to visit Delphine – after a few thinly-veiled threats and a few obvious power plays, Delphine brings Sarah in to broker a deal to make Ferdinand get rid of Castor (and Dr. Coady). Frankly, this scene was so poorly written that I’m not sure exactly what Ferdinand gets out of this arrangement (just original DNA for his bosses), because Sarah also threatens to kill the Castor/Leda original if he doesn’t help, but hey. He’s on board.

What follows is the execution of the plan which all goes flawlessly well. Weirdly well. First, Sarah and Felix tracked down Gracie and Mark. Sarah bloodied Mark’s face a bit and had him send a video message to Dr. Coady telling her he found the original and took care of Helena. This lured Coady out in the open for Ferdinand to hold her hostage and kill her bodyguard.

Meanwhile, Rudy has been tailing Alison on election day. Alison, aware that she’s being followed, ducks into a garage where Helena’s waiting to fight Rudy in her place. Helena duct tapes screwdrivers to her arms and proposes prison rules: two come in, but only one leaves alive.

Rudy scoffs at her tape and pulls a knife, a move Helena says he’ll regret once she severs his bicep. Helena wins, but just before Rudy dies, he tries to compare the clone sets. He claims they both had their purposes. Helena isn’t having it; she calls him a rapist and lets him die beside her while they’re both laying on the concrete floor.

After all this, Delphine discovers cosmetology clone Krystal is in Rachel’s place in the recovery room at Dyad (#sloppy work with the anesthesia there, Doctor Creepy). Delphine confronts the good doctor and learns that the Neolutionists have been running the entire Leda/Castor operation. The doctor then attacks Delphine, trying to vomit a weird worm/maggot thing into her mouth.

Delphine shoots and kills the doctor and his weird parasite, but not before he tells her she’ll be dead by morning.

You cut one head off the hydra, man.

Ferdinand is back at the lair collecting on his end of the bargain with Sarah when she gets a phone call from Delphine warning them not to give Ferdinand any of the samples. Delphine tells Sarah to tell Ferdinand that Rachel is still alive and the Neolutionists have her.

Sarah does precisely that, and Ferdinand kills his Neolutionist bodyguard in a fit of rage. Turns out Leda and Ferdinand are new BFFs, ’cause Ferd hates these creeps.

The rest of this episode consists of relationship plotlines: Donnie brings Helena’s boyfriend Jesse (hellooo, Mike from Suits) t0 town for a visit (they hook up. It’s nice); Alison wins the school trustee election; Kendall reveals that she arranged for S to hide Duncan and bring Sarah to S for safekeeping; Cosima and Shay talk, but Cosima can’t tell her about Clone Club; Delphine and Cosima kiss and make up; Delphine tells Shay she won’t stand in the way of Cosima’s relationship anymore, and tells Shay that Cosima is allowed to tell her everything; the clones have a family dinner and toast to Beth.

Then on the way back from making up with Cosima, Delphine gets shot. We cut away as she’s bleeding out on the floor of a parking garage.

Side note: I will be so upset if we say goodbye so unceremoniously to Delphine this way.

Especially because the episode doesn’t end with her death – Rachel runs into Charlotte, the little girl from a season ago, and learns her captor is none other than her mother, the female Professor Duncan.

The episode ends with a Kira/Sarah reunion, which is emotionally satisfying, but not as a fitting cap to the thrill of this season, especially if the writers do decide to kill Delphine. Tell me what you thought of the season finale down in the comments – see you next year, Clone Club!