Category: Season 1

Orphan Black S01 E10 – Solid Hunches

After the previouslies show us Sarah trying to process the, "HEY THE GIRL WHO TRIED TO KILL YOU ISN'T JUST YOUR CLONE BUT YOUR CLONE TWIN!" bomb, she's tucking her sleeping daughter into bed. Downstairs, Sarah's getting ready to let her biological mother see said crazypants. Mrs. S isn't sure that any of this womb-providing and womb-sharing constitutes good reason for the serious endangerment of this little get-together, but Sarah's not hearing any of this. Sarah and the bio-mom head to the Basement of Don't Go In There: Canadian Edition, where Helena is tied to a post. Bio-mom pulls Sarah aside to say that she needs to speak with Sarah somewhere privately so that she can share something with her. As soon as Helena catches sight of this black woman claiming to be her birth mother she starts laughing because she's crazy and racist. Always a classy combo.

Orphan Black S01 E09 – Nailed it

We watch as an ambulance carries a broken Kira to the hospital, and then as paramedics rush her into an operating room. Kira and Siobhan follow behind them closely, crying and distraught, until they are told they can go no further. Sarah's outcry makes me... have hay fever. It's the weirdest thing.
Sweeney: IT'S THE WORST. I was already pretty devastated over the wounded child but mother-losing-her-shit is a kind of heartsick that is fully contagious.

Orphan Black S01 E08 – Nooners

Art is sitting in the station, staring at Sarah's ID photo, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. He puts forth doppelgangers and twins as possible explanations, but Deangelis isn't really sure either one makes any sense. They have to make a house call, since they identified Sarah Manning as their Jane Doe (who was actually Katja) and now they have to make a house call. Art gets Deangelis to agree to keep the Beth-Childs-lookalike thing on the DL until they figure out what's going on.
Felix's Frisky Flat. Sarah and Paul wake up in Felix's bed the next morning. You've asked a lot of Felix, Sarah, but kicking him out of his bed so you can have sex while he sleeps on the couch a couple feet away is crossing the line. (L: Still love my siblings. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.)

Orphan Black S01 E07 – Heads or tails.

Sarah and Cosima are video chatting. Sarah is freaking out because Paul has been called in by Olivier and she hasn't heard from him since. Cosima is cosima-ing, rolling a joint while telling Sarah that everything is totally fine because Paul is on their side. Trouble is, Sarah isn't so sure Paul is on their side. He could be ratting them out at this very moment.
Sweeney: Cosima's nonchalant attitude about serious shit is like Orphan Black's much more intelligent version of the Aria shrug.

Orphan Black S01 E06 – Fair.

This episode begins with Alison. She wakes up next to her sleeping, snoring husband, and goes to check her poorly hidden camera. She takes it down to her laundry room of solace to watch the tape. She sees Donnie get up in the middle of the night, but all he does is stand over her and leave before the memory card file fills up.
She comes up to the kitchen to find Donnie grumbling like an asshole about how he has to do everything (LOL, K) as he loads the dishwasher. He sasses her about getting ice because they only have three hours to go until something. Alison asks him where he went in the middle of the night - claiming she woke up to find him gone -

Orphan Black S01 E05 – Parasites

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.

Orphan Black S01 E04 – Murder Lighting

Crazy Clone is in a bathroom somewhere, bandaging the wounds from Sarah stabbing her. There's a lot of blood and close-ups to give you that extra crazy vibe as Crazy Clone repeats, "I'm not Beth," over and over.
A child comes downstairs and steps in the trail of Crazy Clone's blood. SO UNHYGENIC. He opens the bathroom door because he's a stupid child and doesn't yet know to run far far away from the trail of blood. Crazy Clone motions to be quiet and ushers him into the bathroom with her.

Orphan Black S01 E03 – Sucks to be us

Sarah is where we last left her-- sitting in Alison's basement, explaining to her two-twins that she never met her birth parents. She was adopted at 8 and came to live "here" at 12. The show is shot in Canada, but I'm now realizing that I have no idea where it's supposed to take place. Internet says possibly Hamden, Connecticut. Huh.
Sweeney: Really? Weird. She mentions that Alison lives in Scarborough, a suburb of the city where she resides. I don't know enough about Canada, but according to Google maps, that could be a suburb of Toronto. Canadians, please explain.

Orphan Black S01 E02 – Curiouser & Curiouser

The episode begins where the last episode ended. Sarah pulls over to answer the pink phone. A girl on the other end of the line is annoyed that Beth was MIA for so long (and it's going to be a whole lot longer still, girl). Sarah is freaking out as she answers that she did meet "the German" and then watched her get shot right in front of her. Just to kick this off with Tatiana Maslany flail: her voice is sort of stilted right now because, of course, Sarah's having a hard time processing and focusing on the accent. I wrote that about two seconds before Sarah does, in fact, slip as the girl on the other end of the line confirms that it means that someone is definitely trying to kill them off. Phone!Girl tells Sarah!Beth that she needs to dispose of the body and collect hair and blood samples.

Orphan Black S01 E01 – Who are you?

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.