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Title: Orphan Black S3.E03 “Formalized, Complex, and Costly”
Released: 2015
Series:  Orphan Black

Previously: Alison becomes a drug-dealing school trustee candidate, Gracie and Mark are shacked up in a motel of matrimony, Cal and Kira leave for Iceland, Rooster-Haired Rudy kills his glitching brother, and MANGOES.

Apologies for the delay! The episode wasn’t on the Space channel’s site (the show’s Canadian network) until Monday morning, but it’s like — don’t y’all know I have a recap to write?! HOW RUDE. In other super important news, I’ve eaten mangoes twice since the last episode. I feel ya on those delicious mofos, Helena.


Clone Club Chronicles

After Rudy put Mustache Seth out of his misery and evidently left his corpse behind, Sarah and Felix now have a dead Castor clone at the Fortress of Attitude. Naturally, this is the perfect time for a drink and an unannounced visit from Art. All Art wanted to do was to tell Sarah about a lead on Prolethean Mark, and he gets a bonus corpse for his act of goodwill. Moral of the story: never, ever do anything good.

Art also gets to meet Cosima via video chat, who deduces that Castor is looking for their original genomes for the same reason that Leda is: the clones have a design flaw (Castor’s being neurological), and they need the original to find a cure. Buuuut the only way to be sure is BRAAAAAINS. (Recap synergy!) Specifically, by extracting Seth’s, for which she turns Felix’s bathroom into a Dexter Morgan plastic-covered kill room. No aneurysms nor lesions to be found in Seth’s brain, but Cosima and Scott discover other items of interest. Seth was, indeed, a dead man walking, with maybe only another week left to live. And OH YEAH, the Castor clones are totally the biological brothers of the Leda clones.

But back to Art’s lead. Most of the Proletheans am-scrayed after Helena’s sliiiight bout of arson, but he managed to tracked down Alexis the midwife in the civilian world. Alexis reveals to Art and Sarah what we’ve known for a while now: Mark and Gracie fled together, and she and Helena are both preggo with Henrik/Helena offspring. Meaning Gracie is carrying a baby whose genetic material comes from her father and her husband’s sister. Just so we’re clear.

Since we last saw Mark and Gracie, the newlyweds finally bone for the very first time (with each other and at all). (So hey, I guess Gracie would have been a pregnant virgin, too. More recap synergy!) Post-coitus Mark is in a truth-telling mood: he didn’t actually leave the military, but he was sent by them to retrieve a valuable material that Henrik stole. Gracie freaks out that Mark’s been lying about who he is (girl, you don’t know the half of it yet — but you will), and that he’s looking for a dangerous friend of her father’s, Willard Finch.

Gracie visits Willard on her own, biblically guilt-tripping him into handing over Henrik’s Toolbox of Secrets. Alas, there are no genetic samples of the Castor original to be found. Or are there?!?!?, asks the lingering camera shot on the locked back of the box that neither Gracie nor Mark seemed to notice. But Mark himself says that the sample needs to be kept cold (duh), so I’m guessing that’s just misdirection or an intermediate clue for the real location.

Mark is none too pleased with Willard, bringing down the literal hammer on and inducing a fatal heart attack in the latter. Shortly afterwards, Sarah arrives at Willard’s farm. With Art’s help, she had been looking for Henrik’s last known associates, but she found Gracie instead. Sarah, too, was in a truth-telling mood; once Gracie learns that Mark is a clone, she promptly gives up his location to Sarah. 

Distraught, Gracie returns to the motel room to GTFO, when she’s interrupted by Mommy Dearest, Bonnie, who had been tipped off by Alexis. Bonnie dispenses some heartfelt words about Gracie’s stupidity and reminds her of their ‘purpose’, which is extra amusing to me because I just saw Avenue Q.

Meanwhile, over at Willard’s farm, Sarah spills the beans to Mark that Castor and Leda are related, having just learned that herself. Mark’s completely disbelieving that they’re family, and he has serious damage control to do with Gracie. Except UH-OH — Bonnie the monster-in-law and her shotgun find abomination interloper Mark first.

Smell ya later, Mark. I can’t say that I’ll miss you, but I know who might: the Castor Compound, which had already lost contact with him prior to his death. There are also signs of a house under tension: Mother slaps Rudy for killing Seth, whose condition had worsened to “Stage Five”, but Paul defends the decision as proper protocol. Mother and Paul also butt heads over Rudy; Paul wants him out of the field, but Mother wants him to bring Mark home. (Good luck with that now, bud.) Mother’s also confident that she can help her boys — however many there remain, anyway — if only Paul could buy her a little more time. “If you can protect them, I can cure them.” Castor is still shady AF, esp. with Helena still as their hostage and potential backup cure, but Mother and Paul both seem to be devoted to the Castor clones.

Out in the ‘burbs, Alison’s campaign is underway, as is her new career as a drug dealer. She and Donnie have been making soap as a front; how Fight Club of them. Marcy, the incumbent school trustee, tries to entice Alison to move out of the district — and the election — by offering a real estate hookup, but Ali shuts her down. She shuts her down HARD. #Hendrix2015

Last and certainly least in the current Leda hierarchy, Rachel’s undergoing cognitive testing by Dr. Nealon, who informs her that Topside thinks she died in a plane crash. “You’re more valuable than you know”, he also tells her. Pre-pencil Rachel may have had her shortcomings, but a low sense of self was never one of them. Trust — she knows she’s valuable.

Clone Crush

Cosima, for not being the least bit squeamish at dissecting Mustache Seth. Not that I blame Felix and Scott for being so (even if Fee literally met his last bf in a morgue), but Cos is just that pro. Honourary mention to Helena, for taunting Paul about being a clone groupie, as one of you astute commenters had pointed out last season.

Maximum Maslanys

Cos shares screentime with Sarah from a laptop, but that’s the closest we get. We didn’t even get multiple Millens! 

Felix Felicis

Need to dispose or dissect a body? Felix Dawkins is your man! Or, well…. maybe not.

At the very least, he’ll provide nickname possibilities (like Lieutenant Commander Scottie and Scooter) and sound advice for his fellow accomplice. 

But my fave Felix moment was when he was trying to act all nonchalant when Art showed up. (Why can’t I find a GIF of that yet, internet?!) SO SMOOTH.

Leda vs. Castor

Three episodes in, and Ari Millen’s workload is already cut in half? I don’t doubt that he’ll eventually have new clones to play, and I’m in favour of anyone* can die at any time. But right now, the Castor clones’ expendability pretty much make them glorified redshirts

As for the genetic connection between Leda and Castor: not really that surprising, given the names that were chosen for the projects. Although LOL at Cosima’s lightbulb going off at Leda and Castor, because those two mythological figures weren’t siblings. And I suppose this means nope on a Leda/Castor hookup, except OH WAIT IT ALREADY HAPPENED between Rudy and Krystal, the blonde clone from the surveillance video in the season premiere.

*Other than the main Leda clones, which would be great and awful if the show went there. But I doubt its stones in killing off a fan fave Maslany character. 

Friend or Foe

Sigh, so Art was in love with Beth. I’m glad that the show noticed that Art is a totally viable love interest, but couldn’t they just have been platonic workplace proximity associates? Especially since that means poor Art had to watch Beth be all moony-eyed over Dirty Paul, then find out that she’s actually been dead for a while AND her clone sister had been pretending to be her AND there are a bunch more women with their faces out there. Not only is Art saddled with unrequited tragic love, but he has to see her face EVERYWHERE. That’s gotta suck.

Cloned Quotes

Sarah (to Art, who just discovered dead Seth): “OK, first off: it wasn’t us.”


[…]


Felix: “Can’t you just, like, look away?”

These two truly are siblings.

Donnie: “We should have been drug dealers years ago.”

That Donnie Hendrix, ever the entrepreneur. 

Marcy: “Do you seriously think that people are going to trust their children to an infamous alcoholic?”


Alison: “Why not? They trusted a conniving, second-rate realtor.”

Marcy, YA BURNT. 

Sarah: “I showed you a dead clone in a tub this morning.” 


Art: “No, you did not.” 

It’s all in the delivery. Welcome to Clone Club, Art!

Helena (at meeting Rudy): “Another one. You are the ugliest Mark yet.”

Inquiring minds want to know: how would Helena rank the Leda clones in terms of hotness?

Biggest “OMG DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?!?” Moment

In an episode with plenty of blood and gore to choose from, I recoiled the most at Rudy being comforted by Mother while sucking his thumb. Which probably says more about me than him.

Next Episode

Cosima gets faux-Tinder, and MOAR mommy issues!

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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.