Previously: Crazy Clone got crazier, Alison pretended to be Sarah and Sarah quit Beth’s job.
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Conditions of Existence
Lorraine: We open in a dirty-looking room with some of that murder lighting Helena seems to carry around with her. She’s passed out and a man whose face we cannot see is cleaning up her wound. Helena stirs just in time to name this man Tomas. The camera is doing all kind of unfocused zooming in and out just so we’re clear that we’re in the crazy part of town.
Sweeney: The part of town where they drug our friend the Zoomy Cameraman. Not even he knows what he’s trying to tell us now.
Lor: Sarah’s at Beth’s house, video chatting with Alison, who is nervous about the fact that Helena is still out there. Plus, Alison doesn’t see how Sarah quitting Beth’s job is beneficial at all. Sarah cuts her off, because she didn’t call to talk about any of that. She just called to thank Alison for standing in for her with Kira. Alison is a bit taken aback but says that Kira is a special girl and Sarah is lucky.
Sarah showers and the Zoomy Cameraman takes us to the front door. He brings his buddy the Making Regular Things Creepy with Ominous Music Man. Someone opens the door and walks in. It’s Paul, and he startles Sarah, but going back, I thought it was going to be Crazy Clone because the boots looked small and girly. (S: Same.) What’s up Big Dick Paul? You are going against everything I learned in middle school about the correlation of feet and penis.
Anyway, Sarah confronts Paul with a nail file and when she realizes it’s him, her natural accent slips in as she calls him an asshole. Paul either doesn’t notice or is more entertained by the fact that Sarah came at him with a nail file. Paul apologizes for sneaking up on her and Sarah wants to know how sorry he is. He’s sorry enough for a round of uncomfortable shower sex! EVERYONE LOOK AWAY.
Sweeney: SARAH. STOP IT. Continuing to have sex with a man because he believes you are his dead ex-girlfriend is about a thousand kinds of unacceptable.
Lor: Later, Paul and Sarah are in bed. He tells her that since she quit her job and he hates his, they should pack their bags and leave town. She tells him they will talk about it in the morning. We cut to a shot of the two of them sleeping. We close in on Sarah’s face and next cut to a dream. The scene is lit by black light. There are men in white coveralls around her, hooking her up to machines, attaching electrodes to her body. There is one in her mouth, and she chokes on it, as she rolls slightly from side to side. We cut out of the dream and back to Beth’s room. It’s day time now, and Sarah wakes up.
In the bathroom, Sarah brushes her teeth and suddenly get nauseous. She coughs up an electrode, and in case we forgot that thing we saw two seconds ago, we get a handy flash back to that scene from two seconds ago. Sarah examines the electrode and I can stop pretending I thought that scene was a dream. ‘CAUSE IT WASN’T.
DNA and SCIENCE and a NEAT-O SCREEN SAVER.
After the credits, Sarah examines more of her body and finds a puncture wound in the crook of her arm. Paul knocks on the bathroom door and offers her coffee. She refuses and once he’s gone, she goes back into the bedroom. She hurries into the closet, but isn’t alone for along, as Shirtless Paul comes in with his cup of coffee, mentioning again the idea of leaving town. Sarah is super frazzled and says she can’t just leave, all while making her way to the door to, well, leave. Paul notices that she’s shaking. Sarah claims to need air and skedaddles.
Felix’s Frisky Flat. Sarah is holding up the electrode for Cosima, who is examining it via video chat. She identifies it as an electrode for an electroencephalogram array, a thing-y that monitors electrical activity in the brain. Alison is also there, and she gives a big, fat, “I told you so,” because she’s been pushing the experiment/lab rat angle since the beginning.
Sweeney: I know one of them is in a computer, but any scenes where these three hang out are crazy. THERE ARE FOUR CHARACTERS IN THIS SCENE AND TATIANA IS PLAYING THREE OF THEM.
Lor: Cosima asks where Paul was during this, and Sarah non-answers that there were 2 or 3 men in the room with her. Fee thinks Paul was involved. Alison is carefully laying out a gun on a nearby table. She thinks someone has to be watching them if they’re part of an experiment. Cosima agrees. From a scientific perspective, she’d want someone observing the subjects. Sarah continues to freak out about what they’ve done to her, and Cosima tries to comfort her by pointing out that she’d know if they did anything super invasive. Yeah, not particularly comforting.
Sarah can’t quite buy that Paul was involved and Felix, bless his heart, is all, “WHY BECAUSE YOU SLEPT WITH HIM?” Sarah objects but it’s out. Sarah looks between her clones, taking in their reactions, before admitting that she did indeed shag him.
Sweeney: It’s annoying that the show came THISCLOSE to acknowledging how problematic the Sarah/Paul sex was but dropped the ball. It would have been so easy to have Alison actually say something to that effect, but no. Just a pointed look, which seems more like she’s upset on Beth’s behalf than concerned with how not cool this is.
…but all my annoyance aside, Cosima’s reaction makes me giggle. Especially on a loop in gif form.
Lor: Alison has to go, and she points out that she left the gun Sarah asked for. Sarah asks where the money is and Alison sighs. You just know she was trying to pull an, “OKAY SEE YOU LATER, BYE!” before Sarah remembered about the money. No such luck.
Alison asks what the requested 20k is for. Sarah: It’s a self defense fund, yeah? Last time I checked, I’m the only one defending us. Interesting point. Alison pulls out the money and tells her to use it wisely. Sarah sarcastically asks if she wants receipts too. Don’t joke about that stuff with Alison, girl. Her heart probably swelled at the mention of receipts.
Sarah says she’s going to shoot Paul’s balls off, but Cosima reigns her in and says she should probably just squeeze them a bit. Paul is their in to whatever behind the scenes experimentation stuff is happening. Plus, if her subject became aware, there’s a possibility she would terminate. Sarah freaks and Felix hangs up the call. Beth’s phone rings and she picks up, thinking it’s Art. It’s Raj, saying he heard Beth quit, which means he’ll need the surveillance equipment he lent her back. Sarah promises to give it back to him in a few days and hangs up, filling Felix in on the development. They want to know what Beth found.
Alison’s Abode. Donnie’s on the phone, telling whoever is on the other line that one minute “she” is fine and the next, it’s Armageddon. Donnie asks what his options are if things get worse. This whole time, he’s been rifling through drawers. Alison walks in and immediately questions why he’s going through her drawer. Donnie claims to be looking for scissors. There are scissors right on top of the vanity. She asks him what that call was about and he claims it was a work call about work people. Donnie sees that Alison has the scissors and he asks her to cut the tag off his shirt before hurrying off downstairs. If you’re like me during my first watch, you now highly suspect Donnie, but also think it’s all a little too obvious.
Sweeney: YES. Strong feelings of, “How is it possible that this bumbling idiot kept this hardcore secret for so long?”
Lor: Sarah and Felix are back at Beth’s place. Sarah’s going through her laptop while Fee prepares to search the townhouse. This includes pulling on some leather gloves because he doesn’t leave prints when he burgles. Felix examines some of Paul’s business cards for TREXCOM consulting. If Paul was watching Beth, Felix wonders if someone was watching Sarah. She asks who exactly that would be since she hasn’t seen Mrs. S in a year and she’s giving Felix the benefit of the doubt. Felix would be the best monitor, though. Because you don’t even suspect him, do you? Donnie on the other hand…
In the bedroom closet, Felix finds a box that has a pistol, several pictures of Paul in a military uniform and a Purple Heart. There are also letters in there from Beth to Paul, which Sarah won’t read because they are private. I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m forced to remember how his penis didn’t seem very private when it was being… well, you know. Since they’ve found nothing else, Sarah decides it’s time to check out Paul’s probably fake company.
TREXCOM Probably Fake Consulting. Sarah enters the building to find an empty office space. She starts to leave but is called back by a blonde lady IMDB tells me is a Degrassi alum. Because Canada. (S: EMMA!) She reminds Beth!Sarah that Paul’s office moved after they downsized. Sarah says she forgot and is there to deliver him lunch since they had a fight. Degrassi Blonde is very helpful, and leads Sarah to Paul’s office and then leaves her there unattended.
Alison spies on Donnie and watches him as he suspiciously walks into the garage to do suspicious things, I’m sure. Upstairs, she rummages through his drawers and discovers his porn stash. RANDOM ASIDE: My best friend once told me a story about how her brother offered to lend her a movie and even sent her into his room to go fetch it. She did, innocently, and of course stumbled across his porn stash, which was a thing we were both surprised to discover existed in this day. Though it could be a vintage stash. ANYWAY, she says she saw, “Lesbians Licking” and that was all, because she quickly aborted the mission. Now, if I want to bother her or make her throw up in her mouth a little, I just yell, “lesbians licking!” and she remembers her brother’s porn.
Sweeney: You’re such a good friend.
Lor: I try my best.
Paul’s (Fake???) Office. Sarah hurried sets up some surveillance equipment. Felix is on the other end of it, listening in from his Frisky Flat. Sarah opens one of Paul’s fake drawers, and it’s empty.
Alison goes into the garage and finds a locked metal case under the tool bench. She gets to work on it with a saw.
These scenes are intercut more frequently than the way I’m recapping it. For every one of Sarah’s moves, Alison makes one, both suspicious of men in their lives.
Sweeney: Bloggy aside: heavily cut scenes like this are such a pain to recap. Why aren’t you considering our needs, show?
Lor: Paul walks in and finds Beth! Sarah in his office chair. He notices the lunch, which she calls an olive branch. Sarah offers to talk about this morning’s argument, but Paul says he’d rather talk about last night. Felix is listening in and he sits back with some popcorn. Sarah pushes Paul away lightly, saying she just came to bring him lunch. Paul is standing behind her and pulls back her hair to kiss her on the neck, but stops when he notices that her scar is missing. Uh oh. Fee chokes on his popcorn. Sarah is a bit too jumpy as she tries to explain it by saying she’s been using a new lotion. He asks to see it again, but she laughs it off, saying he’ll try anything to make a move. He smiles and agrees but it isn’t lighthearted. Paul says he better get back to fake work, and Sarah is too happy to get the heck out.
Felix keeps listening in and we watch Paul power up his laptop. He pulls up a home video of Beth and zooms in on a large scar Beth had behind her ear. He slams his laptop shut and tells Degrassi Blonde to clear his afternoon because something came up. Felix freaks out.
Alison is still going to town on the locked box with a saw, but she’s caught when Donnie returns. She has nowhere to hide. She hilariously picks up the box and walks around in a circle with it. Like a trapped animal. Alison demands to know what’s inside of it, but Donnie says he’s entitled to some privacy. They start physically struggling for the box, and Donnie manages to grab it from Alison and he leaves the garage.
Sweeney: Homegirl should have just left with the box as soon as the garage door opened.
Lor: Yep.
Cosima examines the blood samples from Katja and tells a lab mate that the blood looks fine, even though the symptoms included shortness of breath and coughing up blood. She cuts off a piece of her own hair and bags it as she “jokingly” tells Lab Mate that if she told him who the subjects were, she’d have to kill him. She asks him to test a sample for genetic markers, including one he calls the bar code gene, used for species differentiation. He asks what he gets out of it.
Lab Mate scurries off, at least laughing at Cosima’s joke, and the shot pans out. Cosima gets blurry in the background as we listen in on this woman’s somewhat emotional conversation. The lady sees Cosima staring at her, hangs up, and apologizes. She stuffs her things away and takes off, leaving a single paper behind. Cosima picks it up. It’s a report card full of A’s.
Sarah reads through Beth’s letters to Paul (guess we got over that private thing) and fills Felix in over the phone: Beth loved Paul but he wouldn’t love her back. Felix says things have changed and he thinks Paul is falling for Sarah. IDK about that, Felix. Maybe Paul is falling for Sarah’s version of Beth. Weird.
Sarah is outside of Kira’s school. She tells Felix that this is the thing in her life that scares her the most right now. Kira is the only thing that really matters. There’s a knock on Felix’s door, so he hangs up with Sarah. He opens up for Colin, the morgue attendant. Back at school, Sarah greets Kira, laughing and crying all at once.
Lor: On their walk home, Kira asks her mom about her “aunty Alison” and why they look just alike. Sarah promises to explain it to her one day. Kira asks if someone is trying to hurt them, since Alison told her Sarah was trying to protect them. The shot starts to flicker and the appropriate sound effect lets us know that someone is photographing the pair of them, all while Sarah assures her daughter that they are safe. At the door, Mrs. S asks if they are coming in.
Back with Cosima, she finds that lady from the lab, who is crying in a hallway. Cosima interupts the violent sniffles to hand her back her report card, with the full disclosure that she peeked at it.
At Mrs. S’s, Sarah heads down memory lane with her foster mom. Sarah is thankful that Kira doesn’t have to bounce around the way she did. She was just a bit older than Kira when she came to live with Mrs. S. Sarah says that Mrs. S got her this far, and she places an affectionate hand on her foster mother’s. She then softly adds that she still needs Mrs. S’s help. Siobhan leans back in her chair with an, “ah,” that screams, “I knew it.” All Sarah wants, though, is to know a little bit more about where she came from. Mrs. S doesn’t have any information for her, but is worried about what’s going on. Sarah insists that she’s fine. Mrs. S asks if Vic is still in the picture and Sarah promises that he isn’t.
Segue Magic to Vic. He’s being manhandled in front of drug lord, Pouchy. Vic explains to Pouchy that Sarah had the drugs and then jumped in front of a train. He promises to bring the money in another week. Pouchy doesn’t believe it, as that’s what he promised last week. The muscle drags him over to a paper cutter as Vic begs for some time. They chop his finger off and his screams take us into a cut to black. A beat later, we hear, “I’m good.”
Sweeney: I’m always grateful when dismemberment scenes aren’t mine to cover because I didn’t watch any of this, now that I knew it was coming. I’m not sure what it says about what we’re watching that we’ve had quite a few dismemberment scenes on the blog.
Lor: I know. As soon as the scene started, I cursed the Number Gods and my luck.
After the Not Break, Alison is giving her kids money so they can run into a drug store and buy some chocolate bars. She goes into a surveillance shop. The worker there immediately shows her to a nanny cam. In the drugstore, Alison’s kids run into Vic nursing his bloody hand. He walks out of the store at the same time Alison walks out of the surveillance store. He calls to her from across the street and she tries to get away, but he chases after him. She tries to explain that she doesn’t know him, but he yells at her, accusing her of faking her own death. Alison is doing this little nervous wheeze throughout this scene, and it’s kind of fantastic. She finally sprays Vic with mace and then stuns him with a stun gun. He grumbles to the ground, calling “Sarah” a bitch. Alison grabs her kids and quickly shuffles them into the car.
Sarah is still with Kira when she gets a phone call from Alison.
Apparently, Sarah’s all, “not white? MUST BE VIC!” Identifying minorities is so easy. We’re color coded for your convenience!
Sarah fills Alison in on Beth’s surveillance equipment. Alison asks for a call back once Sarah learns more.
Paul enters an office to find a man he calls Olivier standing in front of a window. We see Paul’s entrance through the reflection of this blacked out window. Paul asks Olivier why he’s there, and he says that they need to talk about Beth. Olivier wants to know how she was that morning. Paul says fine. Olivier turns to face Paul, but we only ever see him in reflection.
Felix’s Frisky Flat. Sarah’s arriving but sees Colin standing at the door. She sneaks around the corner and listens as Felix says goodbye to Colin with a kiss. After Colin’s gone, Sarah lets herself into Felix’s flat and gripes at him for hooking up with the man they conned into mis-identifying Beth’s body. It’s a valid point, but also Sarah is shagging Paul, so. Pots and kettles. Felix bites at her that he forgot that her life is always so much more important. Sarah says it’s just more complicated before dropping the bomb that Vic is back. Sarah asks what’s been happening at Paul’s office and Felix plays a recording for her of Paul’s meeting with Olivier. We hear the next piece of the conversation, in which Olivier asks about Beth’s mental health. Paul tells Olivier that she’s better and then Olivier goes on to say that as Beth’s monitor, Paul’s job is not to interfere, but to report.
Speak of the devil, Paul calls Beth’s phone. Sarah picks up and he insists that she come home, but she refuses and hangs up, certain that he knows something’s up. Paul sends her a text message. It’s a picture of Sarah and Kira. Felix and Sarah are still gaping over the photograph when Vic lets himself into the Frisky Flat, nursing his bloody hand. Because of course the first place Vic is going to look for Sarah is Felix’s place.
Vic is seemingly calm as Sarah lies about pretending not to know him earlier, as she was working a job. Vic gestures to his bandages hand, explaining that Pouchy took his finger because of the missing coke. He has to come up with 15k or else he’s going to keep losing fingers. Sarah stands and grabs the 20k Alison just gave her and hands it over, telling Vic that it’s piss off money. He doesn’t get any answers, but he lifts his hand again and says he’s entitled to know everything. Vic wants to know how she did it, thinking that Sarah was lying there pretending to be dead as he cried over her body. He tries to relieve some past memories, (about helping someone named Angel. Probably not helping the helpless though) but Sarah shuts him down. She says she was never in love with him.
Sweeney: She also says that they were “parasites,” which is an interesting insight into the transition she wants to make now and how important it was to her to do the right thing with the money.
Lor:It isn’t until you highlighted that line that it stuck out to me that this is the second time we hear about parasites in this episode. (Delphine says she’s studying host/parasite relationships.)
Vic is sniffling and crying and she tells him to grab the money and get lost. He does, but not without saying that this isn’t over.
Alison’s Abode. She’s back in the garage and she grabs the locked box again. The lock is open and inside the box, Alison finds Lesbians Licking. Or, you know, the Orphan Black equivalent, meaning that Donnie just moved the DVDs Alison knows were inside earlier the same day. We cut to Donnie burning some papers, assuring someone on the phone that everything is fine. Mmmhmmm. Suspicious.
Beth’s place. Sarah is sitting in the Jaguar when she gets a call from Cosima. Felix filled her in about Paul and Olivier. Sarah says she’s about to go shoot Paul in the balls, but Cosima tries to talk her into Nancy Drew-ing the situation instead. Paul may be a spy, but he did cover for her, which means something. Sarah admits that she thinks Paul is falling in love (after like 3 shags and two sleeps, apparently) with Beth!Sarah. Cosima wants Sarah to use this to their advantage, as Paul might not even know about the whole clone thing. They really need to get to Olivier.
Alison sets up her nanny cam in a super obvious place. Hide that shit in a teddy bear. Donnie offers to sleep on the couch, but Alison tells him that he was right about deserving privacy.
Beth’s place. Sarah walks in and finds Paul waiting for her. He knows she’s got a gun and tells her to put it on the table. Paul starts to go through all of her suspicious behavior, from the Clash t-shirt to her quitting the force, and even lays the pictures of her and Kira out for her. Through it all, Sarah is keeping up the Beth act, right up until he starts asking her questions only Beth could know. Paul points a gun at Sarah and asks where Beth is. Sarah tells the truth, that Beth jumped in front of a train, in her native accent. Sarah says she’s Beth’s twin but Paul doesn’t buy that either. He’s also having a hard time accepting that Beth is dead. Plus, if she is, how is he supposed to know that Sarah didn’t kill her? Sarah turns this around by telling him that he killed Beth. He’s her monitor and he let people into their home to examine her in her sleep and she knew. She didn’t know why Paul wouldn’t love her and wouldn’t leave, but she found out, and she killed herself. Paul lowers his gun as Sarah demands to know how he could do that to her. “You think I had a choice?” Paul asks. Sarah asks why and Paul replies, “they don’t tell us why.”
End credits.
When a season only lasts 10 episodes, things move quickly along. During first watch, I did not see the monitor thing coming, though it makes sense within the story. The idea of people coming into these clones’ homes and performing tests while they sleep is disturbing and it increases the intrigue of the story even more.
It’s interesting that there, at the end, Sarah asks Paul how he could betray Beth’s trust, with a hint of wondering how he could betray her trust, BECAUSE THE WHOLE TIME SHE WAS BEING A LYING LIAR.
Sweeney: YES. It’s a shady way for the writers to non-deal with Sarah’s rapey sex-under-false-pretenses behavior. (WHICH SHE KEPT AT! The panicked distraction sex was bad enough, but the fully unnecessary shower sex was totes problematic.) They’re trying to make it OK by noting that Paul has been a shitty person, but that’s entirely irrelevant to Sarah’s behavior towards him, particularly considering that she didn’t know all of this at the time.
Lor: They are also trying to make it better but insinuating that (1) – Paul knew “deep down” that it wasn’t Beth and (2) – he’s falling for Sarah, which I mentioned doesn’t ring exactly true. At best, he’s falling for Sarah’s version of Beth. Oooor Sarah’s vagina.
But, as we’ve mentioned before, part of still enjoying problematic material is being able to step back and say, “these things are problematic.” So, that’s us doing that here.
Next time: Alison ties up and interrogates her husband in her craft room in Orphan Black S01 E06 – Variations Under Domestication.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
