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Title: Orphan Black S3.E06 “Certain Agony of the Battlefield”
Released: 2015
Series:  Orphan Black

Previously: Sarah took over Beth’s life and throws it in Paul’s face that Beth killed herself when she found out the man she loved was her monitor, and her whole life was a lie. Allison found out her suburban drug supplier was her high school boyfriend. (As Facebook shows us, they never do amount to much.) Sarah confided to Mark that Johannson had used Castor DNA to try to make more clones, but he still hauled her in to Mom Coady, despite Paul’s stipulation that Sarah was off-limits. Helena ditched Sarah and escaped, still believing Sarah was part of the deal that had her taken in. Felix talked Cosima into dating Shay. Gracie has gotten sick since she and Mark consummated their marriage. Coady had the Castors logging their intimate contact into a logbook.

This week, we were treated to some of the best, and worst, Majorly Hot Paul moments. Oh, hey, and there were clones!


Clone Club Chronicles

Sarah hallucinates an encounter with Kira in her desert prison, and wakes to find a bandages on her neck. Whatever they’ve been injecting into her, I doubt it’s the good drugs. Paul comes in to find she’s in a hospital bed shivering. She’s feverish and begs him to get her out. He promises he’s trying and asks her to trust him. Shockingly, she doesn’t. Creepy Mother claims she only gave Sarah an anti-inflammatory. Even ill, Sarah takes a moment to rub it in about Helena getting out. But Mother is confident that the desert will get her, if Rudy doesn’t first. Sarah hallucinates watching Beth’s old home movies of her and Paul, from when Sarah was trying to learn how to impersonate Beth, She dreams a conversation with Beth, about the day Paul moved in, and how he only had two suitcases, and how it should have been a red flag. But she was so gone over him, she didn’t let it change her mind.

Helena, stumbling through the desert, is barely surviving. So thank the Lord, she eats that obnoxious talking plot device of a scorpion.

Paul confronts one of the hospital staff and wants to know what was done to Sarah. He tells Paul that while Paul was gone, things changed. One of the Castor boys brought back a sick girl, bloodshot eyes, dizzy. Things have become secretive, but it’s all conveniently locked up in Coady’s office. In an anonymous city, Paul meets with someone I assume is a shady government contact and Paul provides him with one of the creepy Castor conquest/DNA sample journals as proof that things are not right out in the desert. The contact instructs Paul to get more evidence, in hopes that this is not what it looks like. Back at Castor HQ (apparently Paul has a private jet at his disposal), Paul talks to Mark about why he married Gracie, and gets Mark to admit that he fell in love with Gracie. Paul (probably understanding that one) tells Mark he needs him to do something “unofficially”. Paul goes to Sarah’s hospital room and tells Coady he’s placing her under arrest for sterilizing women. Sarah has been injected with two units of Rudy’s blood, as some kind of experiment. He sends the Castor guard to the stockade. Paul tells his contact that Coady is sterilizing people as a human trial and that Rudy is the only patrol unaccounted for. Paul’s contact advises him to sit and wait, and an extraction team will arrive in six hours. Scarface Rudy gets a call out in the field that there’s a situation back at base and he’s needed.

Cosima wakes up in Shay’s bed, informed that she talked about Sarah in her sleep. Shay is kind of nosy for a rebound girl. Cosima explains that Sarah is a friend who’s as close as sister. A wilder version of herself. I can’t wait to find out how she explains Helena. When Cosima finally rolls into work, a frantic Scott wants to know where she’s been, since she’s late and he’s been calling her all morning. And she finds out why, because Delphine is waiting in the lab. Maybe a text next time, Scott? Delphine wants to know how they got a hold of a Castor brain and why they’re studying Gracie’s tissue. Man, what happens in the lab does NOT stay in the lab. In looking at the results, Delphine points out that the same protein in the dead Castor boy’s brain exists in Gracie as well.

Mrs. S says Cosima is working on what bizarre Castor STD Gracie has contracted. Felix escorts Gracie in to see Delphine and Cosima for further tests. Cosima does an ultrasound on Gracie, and while she explains to Gracie how she might have contacted her currently illness, it’s juxtaposed with Paul and Mark digging through Coady’s records and finding that the Castor defect is contagious. Gracie tries to make sense of the fact that she can no longer have kids, though that’s what was always expected of her. She admits to a feeling relieved, and wonders if that makes her a monster.

Allison is providing payment to their supplier, you know, her high school ex, when a jealous Donnie squeals up in the new product placement car he bought, since they’re currently rolling in drug money. The supplier tells them that they need a more believable front than garage-made soaps. Allison’s mother’s store, Bubbles, is up for sale. Donnie points out that Allison hates it, but it’s a front for selling soap and various handmade scents.

Delphine tells Cosima she misses her. Cosima walks away. Later, we see Delphine pouring over photos and video of Cosima, while hitting the hard stuff. It’s surveillance footage of Cosima and Shay, obviously taken without her knowledge.

Cosima shows up at Shay’s place to tell her she wants to take things slowly, but now she just wants to make out with her for seven hours. But then Cosima receives the cockblocking phone call from Scott that he thinks (based on her occupational therapy painting) that maybe Rachel knows the code to Dr. Duncan’s weird book of symbols

Paul tells Sarah that Coady had been performing sterilization trials, but that Sarah doesn’t show any of the symptoms of the other women who were exposed to Castor blood. Out of the blue, she asks him if he loved Beth. AWKWARD. Sarah wants to talk to Coady. Coady is just marveling that Sarah can fight it off, because of her fertility. She’s an anomaly among the Ledas. Which is also why she doesn’t have their illness (infertility). Coady claims she didn’t create it, she just discovered it. But Paul believes it’s a weapon.

Rudy appears back in camp and is pissed to learn that Major Dierden is in charge, and isn’t gonna let that one stand. He takes out a guard on the way in to unlock one of his Castor brother’s in the brig. Mark alerts Paul that Rudy got a call and likely knows what’s up. Paul has a conversation with his contact back in D.C. that lets him know he’s been betrayed. He tells Mark to go back to his quarters, and Mark asks Paul to make this right. Paul and Sarah try to escape together, but the armed Castor clones make that difficult. Paul manages to break the neck of a Castor, but not before the bastard knifes him in the gut. NOOO, Hot Paul, NOOO. He and Sarah hobble to an escape hatch, but he sends her out on her own, with instructions for how to flee. She pleads with him to come with her, but he turns away to head back to Coady’s lab. Perfect man tears flow from Paul, before a disappointed Coady shoots him. But even shot, he manages to drop a grenade on their asses before he loses consciousness. Sarah, still in the tunnels, gets knocked out by flying debris. But Helena climbs into the tunnel opening to help her out.

Clone Crush

Honestly? I want to give it to poor, dead Beth. This is some of the most personality we’ve gotten to see from Beth, ever, even though it was a hallucination.  Since no one has talked about her much since the early days of season one, I guess I’m feeling nostalgic.

But let’s get real, guys. DONNIE AND ALLISON TWERKING, OMG. We knew Maslany had moves, but Kristian Bruun is a revelation.

Maximum Maslanys

Sarah and Beth have their only scene together since the pilot and Sarah feeling responsible for letting Beth jump in front of the train, all the feels.

Helena comes back for her seestra!

Felix Felicis

Fee and Mrs. S video chat with Kira, who’s worried that her mom is mad at her, but they desperately try to cover for the missing Sarah.

While at the lab with Gracie, Felix secretly approaches Scott, to sneak him into see Rachel, in hopes of locating Sarah. Scott escorts Felix in to see a bandaged Rachel doing some occupational therapy. She’s still struggling with speech. Felix is really hard on her in her incapacitated state, but he’s obviously unhinged over the missing Sarah. Rachel doesn’t seem to know anything and asks him to please get her out there. By the end of the scene, everyone is crying.

Leda vs. Castor

The Castor boys continue to be jerks, except for possibly decent Mark. But, it looks like Paul might have blown a few of them up, including dear old mom. Considering they were spreading some kind of engineered potentially fatal STD, with her knowledge and approval? Can’t say I’d be super sorry about that.

Cloned Quotes

Mrs. S: “If raising Sarah has taught me anything, it’s how to survive worry.”

Beth: “We do terrible things for the people we love. Stop asking why, start asking whom.”

Paul: “What happened to Beth, I will carry that with me forever.”

Felix: “Nut up, and lead me to the cyclops.”

Paul: “It was never Beth I loved.”

OW, MY HEART.

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

PAULLLL.  I cannot, you guys.

It’s so hard to say goodbye to so much sexy.

Curiosity Killed the Clone

  • Just how much of Castor HQ did Paul manage to blow up? Does this mean we can finally leave the desert?

  • So, Delphine was the one having photos taken of Cosima and Shay. But did she have it done for herself, or is the old school Leda monitoring program still happening?

  • Is Shay just Cosima’s new monitor?

  • Be honest, did you know the Hendrix couple knew how to party like gangstas?

  • Losing an eye, begging Felix for help, crying over her dead father, has Rachel earned our sympathy yet? Or is it too little, too late?

Next Episode

Helena in a cowboy hat. That’s really all you need to know. Also, Allison’s mom doesn’t want to sell her store to the Hendrixes, which they desperately need as a front, which causes Donnie to be kidnapped. Allison has to recruit Felix for school board campaigning, and to let him in on the Donnie situation. Delphine drops in on Shay. AW SHIZZ.

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Kandis (she/her) is a proud member of the Austin FYA book club chapter who loves vampires, romance novels, live tweeting CW shows, and Jonah Griggs. She’s not like a regular mom. She’s a cool mom.