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Title: Orphan Black S2.E01 “Nature Under Constraint and Vexed”
Released: 2014
Series:  Orphan Black

Previously: Lots of things happened!

Clone Club is back in session, y’all! Per yoohz, a lot happened in a short amount of time, so let’s get to it!


Clone Club Chronicles

We pick up where we last saw Sarah, i.e. FREAKING OUT that Kira and Mrs. S have gone missing. Ducking into a diner to avoid the sudden torrential downpour, Sarah has trubs reaching anyone, so she resorts to leaving a voicemail for Paul. (For the record, Sarah’s telephone hierarchy goes: Felix, Alison, Cosima, then Paul. And since Beth is listed as one of her contacts, it seems like Sarah’s just using Katja’s old phone. Reduce, reuse, recycle!) But Rachel intercepts the message — rude! — and she offers to release Kira and Mrs. S if Sarah surrenders to her. 

Meanwhile, two Pulp Fiction rejects with a fixation on pure eggs (foreshadowing!) track Sarah down, telling her that they can bring her to Kira. But that plan goes to shizz when Dark Hair Dark Suit kills the kindly diner owner, whose shotgun discharges right into Tan Suit Bolo Tie’s stomach. Thanks to shoddy construction materials, Sarah escapes from Dark Hair’s clutches — but not before giving him a swift kick in the face. 

Sarah and Rachel continue their convo through Paul, which pretty much goes like, “Paul, tell Rachel I want Kira and Mrs. S back.” and “Paul, tell Sarah that Kira and I are leaving on a jet plane, and I don’t know when we’ll be back again. Sarah can come along if she wants, I GUESS.”

Paul tips Sarah off that Rachel will be attending an event at the Dyad Institute that night, and Sarah’s totally planning to party crash — with a gun. A lady grip gun, obvs, as obtained through Alison’s pharmaceutical and firearms hookup Ramon, whom Alison was SO giving Mrs. Robinson eyes to. And then she asked after his mother, as proper etiquette would dictate in this situation. 

Aside from sending a handgun in a floral arrangement, Alison is totes staying out of the Clone Club bidness. Or she’s trying to, by throwing herself into the latest Glendale Community Theatre production (… about an asthmatic hospital cleaner?) after getting promoted to the lead. Translation: add singing and dancing to Tatiana Maslany’s repertoire!

To quote Felix (and 41% of y’all who listed her as your fave clone): 

But poor Alison gets tangled up in Clone Club shenanigans again, when Sarah uses her as a decoy to lure Rachel’s right-hand man, Daniel, away from the pro-clone. Luckily, Alison can take care of herself, with some butt-kicking moves, a can of pepper spray, and a bedazzled self-defense whistle. After seeing Alison up close, Daniel realizes he’s been duped. 

With Daniel on a wild goose an angry Alison chase, Sarah infiltrates the Dyad party as Cosima to get a literal shot at Rachel. (Sneaking out with Cosima’s covetable red coat, I could buy, but unless Cosima has identical spare glasses with her at all times, I don’t know how Sarah could have pulled this off without Cosima’s help.) Leekie doesn’t suspect anything until Sarah’s accent (deliberately?) slips, but Delphine wins the unperceptive award for not noticing the girl she’s kissing doesn’t have dreads, or that girlfriend is so not into it. At least Delphine didn’t have the cliché post-kiss revelation (“Gasp! Those lips are a lie! Those lips are Spiderman’s lips!“).

Sarah tries to sneak up on Rachel, but Rachel’s totally expecting it. What she doesn’t expect is that Sarah’s completely willing to shoot her. (Insert reference to the Divergent movie that’s still too soon to make #BecauseSpoilers.) And upon finding out that Rachel was bluffing about having Kira, Sarah very nearly does it, too — until she’s stopped by Paul. Sarah settles for knocking Rachel out cold and punching Paul, to which Paul says what we’re (OK, I’m) thinking: “In the face?” But it’s all for show; Paul lets her go because he’s still on her side!

Speaking of clones that Sarah fails to kill: guess who’s not dead, despite being shot in the chest at close range at least twenty-four hours ago! Helena drags herself to a hospital, and she’s closely followed by none other than Dark Hair from the beginning of the episode, who has since put on a menacing belt buckle with the same symbol as the one on Helena’s knife.

And can we just talk about the brilliance of the show’s score? I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of the clones have their own theme music, but none are as distinct and memorable as Helena’s. As soon as that starts up and those boots trudge across the screen… DAMN.

Felix Felicis

In probable post police detainment celebration, Felix is in the midst of orchestrating a five-way when Sarah finds him. Plus, he’s so very high. 

As always, Felix is a wealth of great quotes in this episode. But the high, assless chaps wearing version of him has some CHOICE moments, like when Alison is trying to hide him from a likewise-but-differently pantsless Donnie. 

Mrs. S’s Home for Peculiar Children

Seeing as Mrs. S left her truck and purse behind, she proooobably left her home against her will? Or maybe it’s an elaborate ruse to only make it seem like she did! In any case, Rachel’s minions found the house in the same condition as Sarah did: trashed like a rock star’s hotel room, without either Mrs. S or Kira in sight. 

They Fought the Law

With Beth and Katja dead and Sarah untouchable, Art and Angie Deangie continue to work the case they’re no longer officially on by tailing squeaky clean Alison. The straw-grasping pays off when they see Sarah on her way to meet Alison. Angie Deangie cuffs Sarah for questioning — on what grounds, I’m not sure, other than “BECAUSE I CAN” — before reluctantly and obnoxiously letting Sarah go.

Y’all, I’ve been sitting on a mental draft of an Angie Deangie thesis, in which she’s only one of my least favourite characters because she’s too dang competent. In another situation, a tough and brash woman with great instincts would TOTALLY be someone I’d cheer for. But because she’s an obstacle for Our Heroine, I automatically can’t stand her. The long-winded point I’m trying to make is that I can’t even play devil’s advocate and defend Angie Deangie in this episode. 

ANYWAY. Laterwards, Art tells Sarah that the investigation of the sketchy dudes from the diner has been turned over to the feds, on the basis of domestic terrorism. Because the peeps who have Kira are actually Helena’s (old? current?) crew, the Proletheans. 

Neolution News

The Dyad Institute is totally after worldwide domination, right? They’re currently 27,000 strong in 134 countries, with an emphasis on the Vatican City. (A subtle nod that they’re down with G-O-D?) And Rachel keeps bragging — in German, and also to Korean businessmen — about the Dyad being instrumental in the Supreme Court’s decision on the legal status of natural versus synthetic DNA, and the Dyad proceeding with their patent claims.

Rachel’s also planning a trip to Taiwan, with Paul accompanying her. I wonder if Daniel gets to go on this field trip, since he’s just looking for any excuse to put a bullet in Paul’s head. Methinks Daniel’s a bit jelly of the new baby. Obvs he’s rightfully suspicious of Paul, but it’s definitely new baby syndrome. Mm-hmm. 

Judging by who knew that Rachel didn’t take Kira at all — i.e. nobody but Rachel, since she played everyone — Rachel must be the highest ranked Dyad puppet we’ve met so far. So who does she answer to? Will we meet them this season? Have we already met them?!

Purely Proletheans

The Proletheans make a messy return, with the Dastardly Diner Duo. They have some mystery man presumably ransom photos of Kira — and bad ones at that, since she’s not even holding up a newspaper, as TV and movies have taught me. But there’s still no sign of Mrs. S…

Stick to the Science, Geek Monkey

Cosima’s trying to figure out what’s causing her illness, so she has Delphine draw at least four blood samples from her. She sends one of them to her lab friend back in Minnesota to analyze, but under no circumstance can the Dyad get its hands on her blood. 

So HA HA OOPS, Delphine totally takes one straight to Leekie. She tells Cosima that she’s only working for him on Cos’ behalf, but explicitly going against Cosima’s wishes gives me pause. But Delphine no longer seems like she’s Leekie’s pawn, either, even if he’s calling her a eugenicist. Why are your intentions so hard to suss out, Delphine?! What could the Dyad have over her, à la Paul and Afghanistan? 

Delphine’s convo with Leekie reveals that Cosima is the third clone to exhibit respiratory symptoms. One of the other two is Katja, but who else? HMMM. 


Next episode: Helena perplexes the po-po, Alison feels guilty, Cosima goes on a Dyad tour, Rachel is pissed, and Sarah is in danger!

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Mandy (she/her) lives in Edmonton, AB. When she’s not raiding the library for YA books, she enjoys eating ice cream (esp. in cold weather), learning fancy pole dance tricks, and stanning BTS. Mandy has been writing for FYA since 2012, and she oversaw all things FYA Book Club from 2013 to 2023.