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Lorraine: This pilot has already won me over because the episode has a name. I don’t like it when pilots are titled, “Pilot.”
Sweeney: Same. It also makes it really hard to make the first thumbnail because you just know most episode titles are going to be way longer. HOORAY FOR PILOT EPISODES NOT NAMED PILOT!
Lor: Enthusiasm for the episode title aside, this pilot has also won me over because I’ve seen all 10 episodes of season 1 already. So has Sweeney. There are no Snows here, but as always, we’ll keep the recaps spoiler free. We’re cool that way. On to the episode.
We open with an establishing shot of a train station. A young woman sleeps on the train with headphones in. Sleeping on public transportation gives me the heebie jeebies. I can’t even manage to sleep on planes. And if you are that jerk that takes pictures of your friends sleeping in the car while on road trips? WORST. I HATE YOU.
Sweeney: I like how you worded that. As if she decided, on that call, “You know what, I’mma be called Sarah today.” It’s amusing because there is plot significance to that.
Lor: You never really realize that moment when characters are first named until you are a recapper. Then, that moment becomes precious.
Nearly alone on the platform, Sarah looks around and notices a woman in business attire, clearly distressed. Sarah walks toward the woman, who puts down her purse and takes off her shoes. Sarah hangs back a little, watching. The woman stands, turns around and she looks just like Sarah. She’s crying and after a second, she turns and walks right onto the tracks, in front of the oncoming train.
Sarah sees the things her double left behind. Still in shock, but thinking quickly, she grabs the abandoned purse and takes off.
Credits. There are no lyrics, but there are lots of science-y blobs and strands of DNA. These credits are like the love child of the House and Fringe credits.
Sweeney: They’re super weird. I’m not sure how I feel about them, but I appreciate that they’re meant to reveal as little as possible. I think “weird” is the point.
Lor: Elsewhere in the station, Sarah goes through the purse. The ID belongs to Elizabeth Childs. She also finds two cellphones (one with a pink case) and some keys. Cut to a bar. Because yes, you deserve a drink or five if you just saw you committing suicide. Sarah is sitting at the bar and she’s approached my a man who jokes that she looks like crap. It was at this point in my original viewing, while the two of them start talking, that I took to Twitter all, “AM I SUPPOSED TO UNDERSTAND THEM?”
I actually paused this episode to turn on my closed captioning. I’m so bad at accents. Or understanding things. Something. But I’m ready now.
Sweeney: This an amazing watching-notes aside. Hooray for closed captioning!
Lor: Sarah asks Felix how he is and he says that she’s been gone so long she doesn’t get to know. He orders a drink and they sit down to chat. Felix asks how a “Vic the dick” is doing. Sarah says this time she hit him first, and with an ashtray. She also sneakily shows him something under the table. And then Felix looks at the bag of white powder and asks, “coke?” WAY TO BE SNEAKY, FELIX, GOSH. Said coke belongs to previously mentioned Vic the Dick, and Sarah wants Felix to peddle it for her. He isn’t liking this idea, and asks what she’s up to. Sarah claims to be here for Kira, her daughter, but Felix thinks “Mrs. S” isn’t going to let that happen, referencing a certain something Sarah did before she left town. She’s been gone for almost a year.
Talk of her shit life transitions into the story of having seen someone who looks just like her jump in front of a train. She shows him Elizabeth Childs’s license to corroborate her story and Felix is freaked out.
The next morning, Sarah, still in the same clothes, checks out Elizabeth’s house. She finds it empty, and quickly gets to exploring. She deduces that Beth lives with her boyfriend who is out of town until Saturday. She helps herself to a beer and checks out photos of her lookalike.
Felix’s Frisky Flat. He pulls his pants on (giving us our first butt shot of the episode) and asks his equally naked-except-for-his-pants companion about the drugs. Naked Except says it’s of shitty quality and offers him 10k. Felix says he can do better. Someone starts banging on the door. Fee has the good sense to hide the bag of coke before opening it. A man comes barreling in, grabbing Felix by the throat and pushing him down. This man, Vic, asks where Sarah is as Naked Except makes a hasty retreat.
Felix claims that he hasn’t seen Sarah in a year, and Vic calls his bullshit.
Sarah is still wandering around Beth’s house. She’s sharing her discoveries with Felix: Beth has maxed out credit cards, her townhouse is amazing and her boyfriend is gone until the weekend. Felix is not amused because Vic the Dick was just at his Frisky Flat causing trouble. Plus, the coke is terrible and she’s lucky to get 10k for it. Sarah says that’s not enough for the to take Kira and restart their lives. Felix changes to the subject back to Elizabeth Childs and asks who exactly she is. Sarah doesn’t know. A girl who looks like her. A girl with a pretty nice life. Felix asks why she killed herself if her life was all that nice. And then Sarah finds that though the niceness of Beth’s life is questionable, she does have a real nice savings account with 75k in it, which is enough to lose Vic the Dick and set themselves up in a new life. Felix compliments Sarah’s work on Vic’s face, but she isn’t paying attention. She’s watching the news report of Beth’s suicide, and the wheels are turning. The police haven’t identified the body. Sarah gets an idea.
POSSIBLY BAD IDEA MONTAGE: M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” plays as Sarah gets out home videos of Beth. She pauses on Beth’s face and examines it. She runs Beth’s bank card along the inside rubber of the fridge door. She practices Beth’s signature. She dyes her hair. She practices Beth’s North American accent, latching onto a phrase she hears Beth saying in one of the videos, “you’re damn right.” It’s a little Buffy-esque.
Lor: Beth gets another call from Art and ignores it. At the end of the montage, a very Beth-esque Sarah walks into a bank for her appointment with the manager.
Felix sits at the same bar from earlier in the episode. He uses the phone there to call the police about identifying the woman who killed herself as Sarah Manning.
Bank. Sarah-as-Beth (Sarah!Beth, if you will) meets with the bank manager, probably still reeking of hair dye and having mastered an accent in a couple of hours. GOOD WORK, SARAH. She tells him that she wants to withdraw most of the money from the account she just opened and she wants it in cash. The bank manager tells her they don’t actually keep that much money on hand, and I laugh through this whole scene because of that one time Ana Steele walked into a bank with a gun and withdrew five million dollars.
Sweeney: Infinity points for you, show! Way to know how banks work! You’re off to a great start.
Lor: Bank Manager says they’ll need 2-4 business days to order the money. Sarah-as-Beth schmoozes him and gets that down to 24 hours. Bank Manager swipes Beth’s card, but it isn’t going through because it’s demagnetized. Sarah!Beth says maybe it’s not activated and she needs to re-pin it. Bank Manger goes along with her, and after she pulls a key out of Beth’s wallet, even offers to show Sarah!Beth to her safe deposit box. If you aren’t reading the Veronica Mars recaps, you don’t know the Snark Lady plan to acquire safe deposit boxes to contain all the secrets we don’t even have yet. But TV has taught me I need to keep my secrets in a safe deposit box. SOON.
Sweeney: I need to make up secrets. Maybe I can just leave a bunch of gum wrappers in there to really confuse the shit out of you when I go missing and/or get murdered, as bitchy blondes on TV are wont to do.
Lor: I bet you can already hear me yelling, “BUT WHAT DOES WINTERGREEN MEAN?”
Beth’s pink cell phone goes off, and Sarah goes through a series of messages. Someone has arrived and wants to see Beth. Sarah’s all, “good luck with that.”
Inside Beth’s box, Sarah finds three birth certificates for Allison Hendricks (April 4, 1984, Scarborough) (S: MY BIRFDAY, MINUS FOUR YEARS. WHAT UP ALLISON HENDRICKS.), Elizabeth Childs (April 1, 1984, East Fork), and Katja Obinger (March 24, 1984, Germany). She grabs them and leaves the bank.
Outside, before she can reach Beth’s house, an unmarked police car cuts Sarah!Beth off. A man exits the car and barks at her to get in it. Sarah hesitates, but he grabs her and man handles her into the front seat.
In the car, the man tells Sarah!Beth that they were supposed to meet and go over something one last time. He’s worried because she seems to not care about whatever thing they have going on. Sarah!Beth fudges her way through the conversation, saying she’s ready and that she was only late because she got held up. Sarah sees a paper with his name on it – Detective Arthur Bell – and quickly connects the dots. She tells Art to just drive.
Felix is being led to identify the body by a morgue worker. He’s young and cute, and Felix is either flirting a little or Felix always seems like he’s flirting a little when he talks. (S: Both, I think.) Morgue Dude tells Felix he can do this.
Sarah!Beth and Art arrive at their destination: a police station. It’s obviously crawling with officers and Sarah freaks out as Art grabs her arm and drags her into the station. We’ll talk about Tatiana Maslany’s acting quite a fair amount throughout the series, I’m sure, but right now, her shoulders pulled tight and looking around in distress, I feel nervous just looking at her.
Sweeney: We’re probably going to talk about Tatiana Maslany’s acting in every single recap, to be honest. This girl is a powerhouse.
Lor: Inside the station, Sarah!Beth is wished good luck by a detective. Next, they are approached by a man that Art helpfully identifies as the lieutenant. He chides them for being “fashionably late,” and dismisses Art, who goes to sit at his desk. Lieutenant addresses Sarah!Beth as “detective,” and she registers a brief second of shock. The lieutenant tries to show Sarah!Beth into a room, telling her to just stick to her statement, but she hesitates and asks to use the washroom.
In the bathroom, Sarah waits until she is alone to call Felix. She leaves him a message: FELIX, ABORT.
Meanwhile, Felix is at the morgue, decidedly not aborting.
Morgue. Felix is accepting water from the attendant. Morgue Dude asks if that is his sister and Felix confirms. Morgue Dude says there are some papers to sign, and also, if he needs anyone to talk to over a drink, ahem, ahem. Felix smiles.
Sarah!Beth finally gets to the conference room where the official looking guy doesn’t even wait until shes sits down to start the proceedings. “Statement of Officer Elizabeth Childs entering into the record her version of the line of duty shooting, 7 October of this year, resulting in a civilian fatality, one Margaret Chan.” Official Looking Guy tells her to start by stating her name. There is quiet for a moment or two before Sarah pukes all over the conference table.
Sweeney: When I first saw this I was equal parts grossed out and impressed. When she was chugging the soap I didn’t quite get it because I’m slow. Sarah’s impulsive decision making also includes a fair bit of quick thinking.
Lor: After a cut, Sarah!Beth is sitting next to Art, telling him that she panicked. He says he doesn’t want to hear that, but he’s joking with her, and notices that her usual wit is gone. She hasn’t called him dipshit all day. Sarah!Beth says the dipshit doesn’t have to babysit her, and he says he knows, but no one else is going to. He also tells her that shootings happen, and she has to forgive herself. The heart to heart between the dipshit and the imposter is interrupted because the doctor will see Sarah!Beth now.
Felix’s Frisky Flat. He’s painting a thing that features Sarah and reminds me just a little of She’s All That for reasons I can’t properly back up with picture evidence. Also, I’m pretty sure there is a penis in this memorial picture.
Sweeney: I can’t believe penis-in-the-eye was never an outcome of the Fifty Shades “and then she dies” game.
Lor: It should have been.
There is more banging on Felix’s door. It’s Vic the Dick. Felix takes a moment to collect himself. He opens the door and promptly smacks Vic across the face, calling him a bastard. Vic asks what the hell is wrong with him and in dramatic fashion, Felix announces that Sarah is dead. “She jumped in front of a train because you are such an asshole,” Felix says, smacking Vic’s chest. Vic doesn’t believe it because he clearly sees a penis and not an asshole in that memorial pic. I made up that part. He doesn’t believe it, even when Felix shows him the death certificate.
Cut to the morgue. Vic cries over Beth’s dead body, believing it is Sarah. Felix there-theres Vic all while smiling cutely at Morgue Dude.
Sarah!Beth is having a hard time during her therapy session, seeing as how she has no idea what went down. Sarah!Beth says she’s having trouble remembering details. The therapist tells her she (Beth) shot 44-year-old Maggie Chan… A CHURCH GOER. DAMMIT BETH. Next time, accidentally shoot a pagan! (S: Everybody knows it’s OK for cops to accidentally shoot pagans! Come on.) Sarah!Beth says she needs to take some kind of leave and the therapist “reminds” her that she’s suspended. From the Informational Therapist, we also learn that Beth saw Maggie Chan pull out her cell phone, and mistook it for a gun.
Sweeney: This episode does a really good job of working in a lot of expository dialogue without it feeling unnatural. In retrospect, it seems absurd that the therapist helpfully just repeated all this information Beth ought to have known, but it flowed really nicely.
Lor: More quick thinking on Sarah’s part, trying to play the disconnect up for information.
Later, Sarah returns to Beth’s place, where she has a beer and fills Felix in on the details of her day. Sarah doesn’t know which parts of the civilian shooting story are true, but she does think that Beth was lying about something. Felix says it’s about time to address the fact that Sarah and Beth are clearly related. Finding lost family is a foster kid’s dream. Sarah shuts that topic down quickly, and instead says that if Paul were her boyfriend, she’d jump in front of a train too. Felix hits her with an implied, “bitch, please.” I’ve seen Vic and I’ve seen Paul. #teamPaul (S: Preach.)
Speaking of Vic, he wants a funeral, but Sarah says the whole point was supposed to be that no one would miss her if she died. Fee starts looking over the birth certificates Sarah found in Beth’s safe deposit box. He notices that all the birth dates are within a month of Sarah’s. She doesn’t want to dwell on any of this. She wants to finish the job she started and get out, eventually coming back for Felix and Kira. This pisses Felix off. Sarah says she has to disappear, but he isn’t having it. She left her daughter “overnight” with Mrs. S and didn’t come back for 10 months. Sarah says she’s trying to fix that, but Felix in a bit of very Felix-flavored dialogue, tells her to tell it to the angels because she’s already dead.
We cut to Sarah exiting the bathroom, going through Beth’s closet when Paul gets home. She freaks out but there is nowhere to go. He comes into the bedroom and she’s standing there, fidgeting with a white collared shirt. He looks at her expectantly and all she can offer is, “hey.” He notices that she’s wearing a “The Clash” shirt and she nervously giggles that The Clash rock. Paul: Yeah, but you don’t.
Sweeney: Ouch. Maybe don’t insult your hot half-naked girlfriend?
Lor: Paul says he came home early because he wanted to be here for her. Sarah!Beth doesn’t pick up why, until he outright asks how the hearing went. Sarah!Beth stutters that she couldn’t do it, and sneaks past him into the kitchen. She tells him about puking and he keeps walking toward her and she takes steps away. It’s an awkward dance. She’s a cornered animal, leaning away from him with her whole body as he looks at her, noticing that something is different.
After the Not Commercial Break, Paul and Sarah!Beth are in their bed. Paul is sleeping and she sneaks out of the bed, giving us our third butt shot of the episode.
Sweeney: BUTT COUNT!
Lor: Felix’s Frisky Flat. Vic is banging on the door again and Felix is wearing a floral, kimono-like dressing gown. It’s very fetching on him. Vic says he doesn’t know where to go and Felix suggests a men’s shelter. Vic lets himself in anyway, crying about how he can’t sleep and keeps seeing her face. Felix drily says, “yeah, me too.” Vic wants closure and says they should to a memorial. Felix has apparently warmed to the idea and agrees to do it. First he sends Vic off for a shower and a Xanax. Oh, and Vic hugs him and lifts him in the air, increasing our butt count to four.
Back at Beth’s place, Sarah is rifling through Paul’s wallet, grabbing his cash and stashing it in her pants. Of course, Paul sneaks up behind her just then, mumbling in her ear that the sex was amazing. The camera pulls back, showing us that Paul is naked and it’s a profile shot, but I’m counting it as the fifth butt. Paul asks Sarah!Beth where she’s been hiding that for two years. Sarah!Beth slinks out of his arms and says she got up for the gym. Paul wants to know what happened at the hearing, and Sarah!Beth says she choked. He asks if she’s back on the meds, and she says no. He thinks, then, that she didn’t choke and that she’s finally feeling something. Feeling like the real her. Yeah, probably not, Paul, but nice try.
Sarah!Beth hurries towards the door, asking Paul if she can borrow his car because she can’t find her keys. He follows after her and asks if she checked the place where they always are. Sarah!Beth is all, “yep. Definitely checked that place.” Naked Paul turns and checks out the place where they always are and they are indeed there. Sarah!Beth grabs the keys, ducks away from Paul’s kiss and leaves.
Outside, she presses the key fob and hears Beth’s car chirp. She’s impressed by this luxury vehicle the Internet is telling me is probably a Jaguar and IDK because I know nothing about cars. She doesn’t notice that Art is watching her from his own car, parked across the street.
Back at the bank, Sarah!Beth is in the Bank Manager’s office, leaving a message for Felix in her own accent. She’s saying something about bloody bollocks in a vice when Bank Manager walks in and catches her. She rushes through an excuse about obnoxious English relatives. Bank Manager smiles tightly and proceeds with business. He starts stacking the 75k on his desk and tells her she just needs to sign for it. She does, Bank Manger gives her the all clear, and she giddily starts to pile the money in her bag.
Next, Sarah drives to Felix’s Frisky Flat, unaware that Art is still tailing her. She goes upstairs and Art breaks into her car and finds the money. Sarah, meanwhile, finds Felix’s flat empty. She does find a funeral card for her service, thankfully sans penis.
We cut to said memorial service. It’s being held by the river. There is a small crowd gathered around a bonfire. Vic is reading (with a bit of a struggle) from a paper. He says it was always fight of flight with Sarah. He stops reading and says, “You guys remember how she was, right? This is all based on facts.” It’s pretty hilarious, especially because Felix is wearing sunglasses but you can so tell he’s rolling his eyes. Things take a turn for the less hilarious and kind of creepy as we start seeing the scene through binoculars. Sarah is across the river, watching her own funeral. She calls Felix who talks to her while Vic is still giving his speech, making fun of his clothing and one girl who is particularly upset. It’s really weird.
Sweeney: Weird, awkward, and hilarious.
Lor: Sarah tells him that she has the money and there is still a chance for them to start over. Fee starts to argue, but Vic has noticed him and asks him if he minds. “I’m trying to…do you want us to go and come back?” And then another problem shows up in the form of the before referenced Mrs. S. Sarah starts freaking out. It’s not only Mrs. S that’s there. Kira climbs out of the car as Sarah watches and cries that she can’t think Sarah’s dead.
Sarah heads back to Beth’s car and when she gets in, so does someone else. It’s another lookalike, this one with short red hair and a German accent. This woman ask “Beth” why she hasn’t responded. Sarah scrambles out of the car and tells this woman, Katja, to get away from her. Katja says she brought the briefcase with the samples for her scientist friend. As Katja tries to make “Beth” understand who she is, she pauses to cough up blood. Sarah is more freaked out than ever and climbs back into the car. Katja does the same.
Inside the car, Katja tells Sarah!Beth that her partner was following her. Realization dawns on Sarah as Katja tells her that she’s the police and some unidentified “we” need her. Katja looks at Sarah!Beth and seems to realize something.
She drives off, her car full of bullet holes, a dead body in her back seat. Katja’s pink phone starts to ring. Sarah looks at it, suspiciously, but doesn’t answer. It stops and then Beth’s pink phone starts to ring. This time, Sarah answers and we cut to black.
I love to watch pilots because there is so much information and set-up you have to convey to the audience, all in a limited amount of time. It’s hard to do right, but I was absolutely hooked by this pilot. It had your line here and there of expositional dialogue, as is to be expected, but it did not feel heavy handed. The beauty of having Sarah discover her lookalike, and then trying to step into that world, is that we as the audience were discovering it along with her. (S: YES.) I loved that this episode mostly focused on Beth, and then threw another ball in at the end with another lookalike. I mean, anyone who’s heard talk of this show probably knows what’s going on, but it was all fed to us in parts, which I appreciate.
Next time: Sarah finds another lookalike and sets off in search of a mysterious suitcase in Orphan Black S01 E02 – Instinct.
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.
