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Previously: A whole season happened!
It’s been ten long months, but our show is finally back! And I have missed y’all and our dear Clone Club. Season 3 starts with more riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas than you can shake a stick at, and I’m also trying out some new recap categories, so let’s get right to it!
Clone Club Chronicles
Since we last saw Helena getting handed over to Project Castor, she’s now happily among her sestras and family at her own baby shower, LA LA LA THE END. Except that’s just a Beach Boys-fueled daydream, because Helena has been locked in a literal box for almost 48 hours, with no one to keep her company but hallucinations of a talking scorpion named Pupok. When she’s finally released, she’s greeted by Soldier Castor, aka face-sharer with Prolethean Mark from the Little Farm of Horrors of yesterseason. That’s not going to be a mindfuck AT ALL.
Sarah’s enjoying her freedom from the Dyad with Felix and Kira, when Delphine crashes the fam jam to ask for Sarah’s help on behalf of Dyad. A pair of Castor clones — the scarred one from the final scene of last season, and a new mustachioed one — were intercepted trying to kidnap a new Leda clone named Krystal. Mustache Castor got away, but Captured Castor is refusing to talk to anyone but Sarah. Just when she thought she was out, they pull her back in! And Captured Castor has a creepy mental dossier on Sarah’s entire life, as well as an ominous threat regarding her sisters’ safety.
The rest of Clone Club might be safe (for now, and the ones whose whereabouts are known to Sarah, anyway), but Mrs. S isn’t. Mustache Castor sneaks up on her in her home, inflicting some serious damage on Mrs. S in search of Ethan Duncan’s research, but not without a fight. In the aftermath, Mrs. S tells Sarah about handing Helena over to Project Castor in order to protect Sarah from the Dyad — “a wartime decision”. Unsurprisingly, Sarah is super pissed.
Meanwhile, House Hendrix is undergoing a few career changes. Donnie just quit his job (the non-Dyad monitor one), so the Hendrixes are kind of strapped for cash. He even had to give back his company Taurus! Since Alison going back to working at her mother’s store is seriously not an option (we have GOT to meet this mom some day!), she has her sights set on running in the school trustee election. Donnie’s super supportive of Ali eliminating the competition; I’m hoping he means strictly non-lethal, but I have my doubts with these two trading conspiratorial looks. Murder isn’t exactly the best couples hobby to pick up.
Over at Felix’s loft, Cosima is doing better than she had been before the break, but she still needs Kira’s stem cells as treatment. What she also needs is for her now distant and long-distance gf, Delphine, to freaking talk to her once in a while. Unfortch, when Delphine finally does, it’s to break up with Cos professionally and romantically so that she can better love and protect the clones equally, blah blah blah sadface. As relationship dramz goes, I guess it’s better than introducing a love triangle. BUT WHYYYYYYY. At least Cos will have something to work on to distract her from the heartache: she’s enlisted Scott’s help in deciphering the notes Ethan hid in his copy of Dr. Moreau, but on the extreme DL. Like, not even her sisters are to know about it until they figure it out. Ooh, Cos — keeping secrets from your sisters can’t go well, but for your sake, I hope it does.
Sarah’s about to enter a dangerous game of her own. Topside is sending Ferdinand the cleaner to check up on Project Leda, and he absolutely cannot find out about what happened to Rachel. After initially refusing Delphine’s request of playing Rachel for Ferdinand, Sarah changes her mind in return for Delphine’s help in finding Helena. The Sarah-as-Rachel ruse is going well, until Ferdinand demands to talk to Sarah, OH SHIZZ. But Delphine was one step ahead of the game, by getting Alison to revive her over-the-top Sarah impersonation. Alison-as-Sarah seems to be fooling Ferdinand as well, until he grossly checks Alison-as-Sarah for oophorectomy scars and finds none, but Delphine explains that the surgery had to be postponed. (Which: true. Just not relevant to the clone that he was molesting, ick.)
Ferdinand also wants to meet up with Rachel to discuss Helsinki — which, holy shizz, gets name-dropped so much, it could have been its own drinking game. (Also, I was just there last week! Had I known it’d be such a BFD, I’d have been on the lookout for clones.) It’s a super secret, super shady incident that gets discussed in vague, hushed tones by Delphine and the Dyad’s Dr. Nealon, that even Rachel isn’t supposed to know about, but obvs she does.
Oh, and how is Rachel, btw? She’s down an eye, and her speech is impaired by the damage of the pencil projectile, but that doesn’t mean Delphine’s going to take it easy on her to find out what she planned with Ferdinand: Helsinki (drink!). No, Delphine freaking TORTURES the info out of Rachel in her hospital bed, HOLY SHIZZ.
At Ferdinand and Sarah-as-Rachel’s sexually charged Helsinki confab, Ferdie helpfully expositions that Rachel was the one who decided they needed to terminate six clones in Helsinki (with 32 other deaths as collateral damage, yikes) to prevent exposing Topside. Up next on the chopping block are the Clone Club: Sarah, once her ovaries have been extracted; Cosima, the following day; and Alison, RIGHT FREAKING NOW.
Sarah tries to warn Alison, to no avail. (Side note: Alison, why would you leave your real full name in your clone phone voicemail greeting?! Felix was right; y’all need new clone phones. BUT WHAT COLOUR SHALL THEY BE?) She then turns to a more active approach, by choking Ferdinand out. And he’s pretty into it, until he clues in that she’s trying to kill him, not get him off. Delphine arrives before Sarah can finish the job, and she gets him to call off Helsinki (and the ongoing hit on Alison) by pointing out that he, not Rachel, would suffer the brunt of Topside’s wrath if it’s revealed that they’ve been killing off the other clones.
After Ferdinand is dealt with, Sarah calls Delphine out for holding out re: Helsinki. Delphine insists that the search for Helena is still on, and that Sarah shouldn’t try anything until the Castor sitch is figured out. (Which: Sarah, not taking matters into her own hands? HA! Good luck with that, Delphine.) Buuuuut slight setback: uncooperative Captured Castor has just been broken out of his Dyad holding cell by Mustache Castor, WHOOPS.
Clone Crush
A clone of the week category is long overdue — although the past seasons would have probably been overwhelmingly Alison anyway — but I’ve got to go with Captured Naked Buddha Castor because of #buttsbuttsbutts. (Linked here, in case you don’t want spontaneous butts in your recap. BUT WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT SPONTANEOUS BUTTS?)
Maximum Maslanys
The Core Four, in the opening dream sequence.
Felix Felicis
Even though he didn’t have his own subplot this week, Fee was still around as Sarah’s confidant and makeover guru.
Leda vs. Castor
Seeing as Leda has only learned of Castor’s existence recently and that Castor’s been trying to straight up abduct Leda clones, Castor has a definite edge so far. But obvs, Leda will always be the sentimental fave. And this new category gives me an excuse to use the awesome promo photo that I can’t use for the Season 3 post image #BecauseSpoilers.
Friend or Foe
The world of Orphan Black is full of characters with dubious intentions, so let’s assess our relationship statuses with them!
After her confession re: Helena, Mrs. S is definitely on the outs with Sarah (“You’re not my people” — ouch! </3). Still, Season 2 convinced me that Mrs. S has always been on Team Sarah, even if her belief in Mother Knows Best has led to some seriously misguided actions.
Speaking of seriously misguided actions: ooh, Delphine — I hope you know what you’re doing, girl. I believe that she, too, has Cosima and the rest of Clone Club’s best interests in mind, but MAN, I hope this new path she’s on doesn’t mean that her upbeat, wavy-haired, science nerd side is gone forever. Then again, Delphine only became a part of Cosima’s life through deception, so maybe she’s been capable of that ruthlessness all along.
Ferdinand the cleaner, I may have overestimated. Probs because he’s being played by James Frain, frequent portrayer of devious masterminds. I totally fell for the misdirection that Ferdinand was onto Sarah-as-Rachel — and maybe there was some part of him that was, but any suspicion was overridden by some other part of him. Pushing for mass extermination of the Leda clones marks Ferdinand as a foe, but obvs he’s also DTF with a dirty clone.
Cloned Quotes
Felix: “It’s Delphine. God, she looks good.”
Alison: “Any boy clone who crosses the Hendrixes will get their butts kicked.”
Felix (to Sarah): “Jesus, don’t these people know you never even finished high school?”
Sarah (trying on her Rachel act): “Rachel Duncan, uber bitch.”
Scott: “With soldier clones running around and, you know, all this lesbian drama, I don’t know if I want to work on this super secret shit anymore.”
Biggest “OMG DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?!?” Moment
It has to be Delphine’s interrogation tactic of pushing her thumb into Rachel’s eye socket, WHAAAT. Apparently, the sleek ‘do came with ICE COLD BLOOD. (Would explain a lot about Two-Eyed Rachel.)
So what did y’all think of the season opener? Do you like where this season is headed? Are you intrigued, confused, or both? Did you even notice or care about the absence of Cal or Big Dick Paul? Let me know in the comments!
Next Episode
More #buttsbuttsbutts, YAY Art’s back, both Castor and Leda originals are lost, Helena continues to be tortured, and a Castor clone ends up at Felix’s loft (EEEEEK).
