Orphan Black S03 E03 – Bratr

Previously: Sarah sent Kira away so that maybe people would stop trying to kidnap her.
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Formalized, Complex, and Costly

Marines: Sarah and Felix drop the Mustached Clone’s body in the tub. They are decked out in rubber gloves and Felix is wearing a smock. Sarah says they should close his eyes, and Felix agrees, but first a drink.

Jessica: An excellent gif that I totally agree with in this situation. This gave me Breaking Bad flashbacks.

Mari: Felix says Mrs. S will know what to do with the body or will at least know someone who will. Sarah doesn’t want to ask for help, but that’s okay, because Felix will definitely ask. They look at the mess of blood and make lots of, “this is awful” comments so we know that it’s about to get way more awful. Art starts banging on the door like he’s, well, the police. Felix yells that he’s really sick and that just makes Art knock louder. Sarah and Felix try to hide the blood mess as well as they can.

Sarah opens the door and stands in the doorway blocking Art. (J: Totally smooth.) So great that three seasons in and Sarah still sucks at acting casual. Bless her heart. Felix is worse though, as he tries to nonchalantly block the entrance to the bathroom and ends up looking like he’s groping the doorway. Art lets himself in and looks down and sees the blood all over the floor. Felix says that’s a new project, but Art just stomps over to the bathroom and sees the dead clone body in the bathtub. Sarah starts off her explanation by saying it wasn’t them.

J: Oh Art. When will you learn that if the clones tell you that you don’t want to know something, then you probably don’t want to know it?

Mari: Probably never.

DNA AND SCIENCE AND NEAT-O SCREENSAVER.

After the credits, Art says he can’t overlook a dead body. Sarah brings her laptop, where Cosima is joining them on video chat. Sarah introduces Art to Cosima and it’s so weird that these two haven’t met yet! (J: She is the best! Everyone should meet her.) Cosima explains that she knew Beth and that they all really miss her. Art says he does too.

Sarah shows Cosima and Scott the body of the dead boy-clone. They hypothesize that the male clones are looking for samples of the original clone because they have a design flaw. The female clones have a physical one, but Scott thinks the male one is neurological. They can’t know for sure, though, unless they exam the brain. Art wants to tap out of this conversation as quickly as possible. He takes Sarah aside and says he really shouldn’t be doing this. Sarah says he doesn’t have to, especially since he just got back on the job. Art has news on that front too: he’s got a lead on a Prolethean named Mark.

You ‘member Mark. ‘Member? Smarmy Hipster Cowboy? We cut to where he’s sleeping sitting up, with his hand on a gun. That seems all kinds of unsafe. (J: Yeeeaaahh, especially if you’re in danger of neurological malfunction.) He startles awake and calls out to Gracie, but she isn’t in the room. He grabs the gun and starts to rush out, but Gracie is at the door with coffee and cinnamon buns. Gracie thinks it’s NBD that her family is probably after them. She just wants to enjoy her honeymoon and doesn’t get why Mark won’t sleep with her. She leans in for a kiss and they start undressing each other. (J: The cinnamon buns probably helped.)

Suburbs. Alison and Donnie are walking and passing out information about their campaign. They stop a blond woman and try to engage her, but she snootily says that she doesn’t want someone with Alison’s issues to handle her children. Alison says she has something for Snooty, though. They took over Ramon’s business and she has the “bath soaps” for Snooty. She lifts it so we see a small baggie of pills underneath. Snooty pays the increased price for her pills and suddenly seems more receptive to Alison’s campaign pitch as well.

Consummation Motel. Gracie and Smarmy Hipster Cowboy Mark are cuddling post-coitally and she says that she recognizes this town. Someone named Willard Finch lives here. Mark uses this opportunity to confess that he’s a lying liar. He never went AWOL from the army. He’s been working for the Army all along, trying to recover something Gracie’s father– Pastor Broody Cowboy (J: Also Pastor Shitbag Terrible Guy)– stole from them. They got away from the Proletheans but in order for him to be rid of the Army people, he needs to find this thing. Gracie is really thrown for a loop and storms into the bathroom.

Stakeout. Art notes that Sarah is fidgety and Beth couldn’t ever stay still either. Sarah is looking at pictures of Gracie and Pastor Broody (Douche) Cowboy. Sarah doesn’t think these are the kinds of people that get downtown very often but Art exposits that they all scattered when Helena torched the ranch. (J: Hooray Helena!) He also helpfully says in so many words that Sarah’s plan is to get the original Castor clone sample and use them to trade for Helena.

Art spots someone walking out to throw some trash and calls her the midwife. Art and Sarah get out of the car and he calls out to Midwife. We’ve seen her before, but we never gave her a better nickname than Midwife. She helped impregnate Helena and also abused one of the little girls in the nursery. Also, while searching IMDB to track that episode down, I learned that this actress is also Tatiana Maslany’s body double. #TMYK

J: I wish her character was better, because she is awesome, but Abusive Midwife = boo.

Mari: Like many of the Proletheans seem to be.

Anyway, Sarah says she’s looking for her sister but Midwife doesn’t know where Helena is. She got cast out because of Helena. Art holds up a picture of Smarmy Hipster Cowboy and Midwife tells them that he ran off with Gracie. Art realizes they were the ones that stole Pastor Broody (Asshole) Cowboy’s truck. He walks off to call it in and Midwife tries to slink off, but Sarah grabs her and demands to know what Pastor (Dick) did to Helena. Midwife tells her about the harvested eggs and pregnancy and also slips in there that they did the same thing to Gracie. Because they are the worst.

Art’s gotten the information he needs on the stolen truck. Midwife says that all she regrets is breaking bread with an abomination. Sarah gets all in Midwife’s face to defend Helena, but Art pulls her back. Before leaving he says that Sarah will bite Midwife’s head off the next time. And if you ever abuse children again, Helena is going to gut you like a fish. Probably stay away from the clones, girl. (J: And stop provoking them, maybe? Especially the two most dangerous ones?)

  Consummation Motel. Gracie is brushing her hair and I would guess she felt the baby move by the way she places her hands on her belly but it’s too early for that. I guess she just remembered, “oh, yeah. My father impregnated me.” (J: I’d try to forget that too.) Mark calls out that he’s got to go do the thing. Gracie walks out and says that she can’t raise this baby alone. Mark swears to be there for both of them. Gracie wants to help him with Willard Finch then and she wants to avoid another violent showdown. Mark asks if she has a better idea and her face tells us she might just.

Finch Farm. Willard hears a truck approaching and goes out to see who it is. Gracie climbs out of the driver’s side like a boss and asks Willard if he remembers her. It mirrors the “recognize me?” we just saw Sarah give the Midwife. After a cut to black, Willard is saying gross stuff about how Gracie has blossomed. Pastor Broody (Poopface) Cowboy used to bring her to this farm while he did business. Gracie says that’s why she’s here, to collect what Willard is holding for PBC. Willard says it’ll be $1000, but Gracie gets super intense as she shame/threatens him away from asking.

 J: Burn! But it also makes me sad because the reason she’s so good at this is probably because her parents did that kind of thing to her all the time.

M: That’s depressing.

Art and Sarah are driving together. Art wonders why Mark would take Gracie along and Sarah suggests either love or a hostage. Art tells her to look through the case file because Pastor (Penis-head) Broody has a known associate. Sarah says again that Art doesn’t have to do this and he goes into a feelsy speech about how Beth tried to tell him that she was a clone, but Art thought it was her pill addiction speaking. He feels like he let Beth down. Sarah tries to get feelsy back but he tells her to just look in the case file so they can get Helena back.

Speaking of, Helena is in her little jail cell. She stands when she hears a commotion outside. It’s Paul returning with Rudy. Dr. Virginia rushes up to them and before Rudy can get out much of an explanation, she smacks him across the face for killing his brother. (J: Awkward.) Rudy says he had to because Seth was stage 5. Dr. Virginia says that Rudy should’ve followed Paul’s extraction orders. Paul steps in and says that Rudy messed up but Seth had to die. Rudy apologizes to “mother” and she tells him to go wait in her office. After he leaves, Dr. Virginia goes to grab a cigarette, but finds she’s all out. Thankfully, Paul picked up a whole bunch of packs for her.

We cut to Paul and Virginia having real serious talks. The mental defect is getting worse and while they’ve tested Helena, she doesn’t have the mental defect. OOOOH. Well, I kind of wondered what they wanted with Helena in the first place and the testing thing framed that in a certain light, but it took me an additional moment to realize that of all the clones, they assumed that Helena would have the mental defect. Yikes.

J: Oh yeah, good point. Guess we can just chalk her crazy up to childhood trauma and assassin training. And scorpion hallucination.

M: Um, yay?

Paul doesn’t want Rudy to go back out into the field but Virginia says they need him there because they’ve lost contact with Mark. Paul says he can go after Mark, but there’s more bad news. Paul’s being called into Arlington to report to the director. Virginia says this is real bad news seeing as how their “weapon” is glitching. Paul doesn’t think they can shut them down, but Virginia scoffs. She says that if Paul can protect the boy-clones, she can cure them. Paul has to buy them more time with the director.

Felix’s bathroom is now the site of a bathtub autopsy. Seriously, in a bathtub cannot be the most convenient or… accurate? way to do an autopsy. Scott is being squeamish so it’s Cosima who is sawing through the skull and extracting the brain. (J: Aw, of course she is! She’s the resident badass scientist. Also, I love how she goes all philosophical during the whole thing.) Scott tells her to stop making things even weirder with her philosophical musings. Felix comes in with tongs and a spoon, but he takes a peek at the body and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

  Cosima gets the brain free and they put it in a cooler. There is oddly inspiring music behind this moment.

RACHEL STINKIN’ DUNCAN. Rachel has got her eye patched up and Dr. Nealon is holding up flash cards while she tries to name the image. She gets hung up on key, but Dr. Nealon says that the aphasia is improving already as are her motor skills. Rachel asks if she can go outside, but Dr. Nealon is afraid not. The Rachel Duncan that Topside knew is dead, killed in a plane crash. Rachel rightly assumes that was Delphine’s doing. Dr. Nealon tells her to focus on her recovery because she is more valuable than she knows. He shows her one more card and she recognizes it as horses. When we see it, it’s a pair of horse heads I believe is the symbol for the Castor Project.

J: YES IT IS. Hmm, something is afoot. Or … ahorse?

M: Rudy watches video of Helena being waterboarded. Dr. Virginia walks in and Rudy stands at attention. She waits a few seconds before telling Rudy he can be at ease. Rudy relaxes and laughs a bit because he thought Virginia was mad at him. She is. She asks to see his logs. He hands over two journals and one of them is blood stained across the edges of the page. Dr. Virginia flips through them and takes out a little sample baggie. “Her name was Patty,” Rudy says and I don’t actually remember who he’s referring to. Maybe the girl he raped. This is weird I want to move on.

Dr. Virginia tells Rudy that Smarmy Hipster Cowboy Mark has gone dark. Rudy rolls his eyes so hard, I’m surprised they came back at all and calls Mark a pussy. Virginia says not to underestimate him and orders Rudy to bring him home if he’s gone off-task. Rudy asks about the major and Virginia says she’ll handle the major.

After a beat of silence, Rudy softly addresses his “mom” and tells her that he saw the defect start in Seth’s eyes and it took him so fast. Virginia softens and opens her arms for a hug. Rudy starts to hyperventilate as she holds him. He sucks his thumb. Castor clones are creepy as hell. (J: Yeah. Not getting sympathy from this corner.)

Suburbs. Alison is leaving her house when two ladies approach her because they’ve heard about her new business. They want… “soap.” Alison says they have a special for new customers and hands over a bar of soap with a free sample of pills. Alison smoothly transitions smoothly into asking them who they are voting for school trustee. New Customer says she’s still thinking about it. Alison hands her a pin and tells her not to think too hard. This whole time, Alison’s opponent is across the street watching and being decidedly unhappy.

We cut to the Hendrix garage.

  Just then, Alison’s opponent Marci walks in and Donnie freaks out a bit. Alison keeps it cool and offers to give Marci some soap making lessons. Marci presents her with an ad for a house for sale. It’s a house in a different school district so even though it has a cool saltwater pool, Alison says no thank you. Marci says maybe Alison can gain a few votes with her soaps, but she can’t win. Alison stands her grounds and tells Marci to go sell a house. She says it like it’s the biggest insult in the world. (J: I think that’s because Marci is a real estate agent? And she should go do her job, instead of running? I don’t know, it was weak. Alison could have done better.)

M: Art and Sarah arrive at Finch Farm. Before they get out, Art tells Sarah to drop the accent. Willard is as prickly as you would imagine him to be and says he doesn’t know Mark (from a picture Sarah holds up) or Pastor Broody (Duck Anus) Cowboy. Sarah threatens him with a tip to the feds who once already found an arsenal of weapons on his farm. Willard gives in and says he truly doesn’t know Mark, but Gracie did swing by, though he claims it was only to pass on the sad news. He ends with a misogynistic comment about women running the Prolethean thing and it works well enough that Art and Sarah are just like, “okay. Bye.”

Downgraded Prolethans Who Heart Science Ranch. Midwife strolls up and knocks on the door. Mrs. Pastor Broody (Weasel-face) Cowboy answers. We never gave her a nickname other than Septic Labia, because she was awful. Her name is Bonnie. She tells Midwife that she’s banned as they have no more need for her. Midwife stops the door from slamming in her face and says she think she knows where Mark took Gracie. Glad to see that Proletheans are still the worst. (J: THE WORST.)

Consummation Motel. Mark frantically goes through the locked box Gracie brought home but there are no samples in there. They would need to be kept cold. He asks Gracie if she saw anything like a cooler. She says no, but then admits that she doesn’t know. Mark says he has to go back and look for it himself. Gracie protests but Mark gives her some money and tells her to go do something nice. They kiss each other goodbye and Gracie tells him to come back safe. He can’t leave her alone. He promises not to.

Diner. Art and Sarah are sitting together, talking about going to hotels in the area. Art curses at something on his cell phone and Sarah tells him to just go back to work. She’ll finish the canvas alone and take the bus back home that night. He is uncomfortably silent and Sarah presses.

  It was never going to happen between them, but he fell in love anyways. Art says that Sarah is just as fierce as Beth was, and she needs his help. Sarah smiles softly and says they need him as a cop, though, not suspended. Art gives in and leaves, telling her to call him if she needs anything.

Rudy visits Helena’s cell and she hilariously calls him the ugliest Mark yet. Also, her pits are unshaven and MF ORPHAN BLACK, YOU GUYS. BEING REALISTIC ABOUT WOMEN WITH NO ACCESS TO RAZORS. Anyway, Rudy starts prodding her about Sarah selling her out. Helena stands and gets close to the bars in the door. She tells him to come inside the cell so she can tell him all about it. He says he’d love to, but is interrupted by Paul. Rudy almost sarcastically salutes the major. Paul says he needs to be briefed so he doesn’t stray on this mission too. Helena clicks her tongue and Rudy leaves. Paul starts to follow, but Helena calls him Dirty Paul for sleeping with her sestras, including Rachel. She licks her hand and tells him to come inside her cell too so he can have one more. Paul says that she may not believe it but he is sorry it has come to this. Helena sticks her arm out past the bars and says one day she will kill them all. She imitates a machine gun as Paul walks away. I believe Helena. I’m a little bit rooting for her if that weren’t really weird because she’s so murder-y. (J: Agreed.)

Confessions and Fries Diner. Sarah gets up, ready to go, but stops when she sees that Gracie is just a couple of tables away, saying her prayers before eating.

  Sarah asks if Gracie knows who she is. Gracie assumes she’s Sarah, since Helena talked about her often. Sarah is looking for Helena, but Gracie says they left her at the ranch. Sarah thinks Mark and his brothers know where Helena is. Gracie says her husband doesn’t have any brothers. Sarah congratulates her on the marriage then changes gears and brings up Kira. Gracie is carrying Helena’s baby/Kira’s cousin. Gracie says that doesn’t make them family. “Why,” Sarah asks. “Because I’m an abomination?” Gracie doesn’t know what to think. Sarah says Mark isn’t telling her things. She knows that he was sent by the army and all that, but he didn’t tell her about his brothers. Sarah shows her a printed security cam picture of Seth and Rudy. Gracie freaks. Sarah stops her from running off and says that Helena, the mother of the kid Gracie is carrying, is in trouble. She needs to find Mark.

J: That’s a pretty heavy thing to drop on someone. But might have been the shock Gracie needed.

M: All things considered, Gracie is handling this remarkably well.

Finch Farm. Mark has Willard tied up and he’s insisting he doesn’t know anything else and Mark can tell Septic Bonnie that. Mark says he wasn’t sent by her. Willard repeats that he doesn’t know anything else and Mark swings a hammer down on one of his fingers. I had to take a cringe break.

Consummation Motel. Gracie is packing her bag. She takes the lock box of Pastor Broody’s things and hides it under the bed. Just as she stands she finds Septic Bonnie at the door. Gracie looks terrified but is soon going along with her mother, admitting that she “made a mistake” and “had doubts.” Septic Bonnie says she struggled too when Pastor (Barf Bag) Broody came up with the idea of impregnating his own daughter. Gracie points out that SB didn’t stop him, though. Septic Bonnie’s face hardens a bit as she says that they aren’t like other people. They have a purpose.

Making Crazy Science Lab. Scott is examining the brain matter under the microscope. He says it looks real bad and names Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease as the cause. That linked Wikipedia article says that disease is often called the human version of mad cow disease. (J: I like that they used a real disease, not some sci-fi randomness here.) Cosima is cross-referencing the DNA and finds something that looks real interesting. She calls Scott over and we cut away.

Sarah is sneaking into the Finch Farm when she gets a call on the Clone Phone. Cosima is going off on matching base pairs and loci, even though Sarah says this isn’t a good time. Cosima goes on though because the boy clones ARE THEIR BROTHERS. Sarah gives a startled, “what?” and we cut away.

We’re so far behind on these and it’s been a while since I watched the previous episode so I feel like I was catching up/remembering things! It’s strange, because I was poking around the S2 recaps while looking for names of certain characters and it just reminded me of how much happened in S2 and how heartbreaking and strange and wonderful (at least in the sense of good TV) the unravelling storylines of the Proletheans and the growing relationship of the sister clones were. I think I mentioned it in my first recap of this season, but S3 so far seems to be pacing itself. That doesn’t mean things aren’t happening though. I freaked when we saw Rachel and made crazy noises at the last reveal. For the most part, though, this all feels like a wind-up. We’re almost spinning our wheels in the storylines (involving Alison and Helena especially) but it just feels like something is going to explode and set it all off.

WE SHALL SEE.

 

Next time on Orphan Black: Sarah helps her newly found brother Mark in S03 E04 – Newer Elements of Our Defense.