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Title: Orphan Black S2.E09 “Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done”
Released: 2014
Series:  Orphan Black

Previously: Clone Club gains a new member, Alison and Donnie bond over their accidental manslaughters, and Cosima’s health takes a turn for the worse.

So, after all the LOLs of this week (kidnapping and catheter-shoving notwithstanding), how worried should we be about next week’s finale breaking our hearts? I’m fearful, y’all. 


Clone Club Chronicles

Alison

Thanks to the Dyad thinking that Leekie died at Rachel’s orders and covering up the death accordingly, no one suspects Donnie as the real murderer. As he and Alison dig a Leekie-sized hole in their garage, they find a trespasser in their midst, which allows Donnie to be a hilarious badass. 

Callback to when Paul shot Vic with a nail gun!

Like, for serious — I’d watch the Donnie Hendrix action hero spin-off. And so would he, judging by how he seems to have developed a taste for bloodshed and quasi-badassery. I’m looking forward to more Donnie storylines, now that he’ll be working with Alison instead of against her.

But back to the garage. Once Donnie gets rid of Vic, acting at Angie DeAngie’s behest (more on that later), husband and wife bury Leekie’s body in the foundation. And this, apparently, is a huge turn-on for the both of them, with Alison breaking her “I’ve never done the nasty” rule on top of the freezer that once housed a corpse. 

Helena

With the help of midwife Alexis (played by Tatiana Maslany’s body double, who gets to keep her face for a change), Henrik injects embryos into Helena’s womb. And since Helena is such a scientific miracle, Henrik’s implanting those soon-to-be babies in everyone — including his daughter, Gracie. Oh, and did I mention that YUP, those embryos are 50% Henrik? Sure, everything’s been done on the up and up — as much as they can be when one uses fertile women as baby incubators — but his daughter is carrying his child

Once Helena recognizes the Proletheans for the wack jobs that they are, she decides to GTFO — and so does Gracie. Being pregnant with your father’s child will do that to you! Henrik catches them in the act of running away, but Mark chooses to help Helena and his lady love, Gracie, instead. Gracie and Mark flee the farm, but Helena stays behind to see if Henrik likes having a baby put inside of him. (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t.) Then Helena creates her audition tape to be a period piece heroine… as she’s overlooking the farm that she just torched. Romantic!

Cosima

Cosima’s growth has spread from her uterus to basically every dang internal organ she has. Not to be glib (but actually being v. glib), but between her and Hazel Grace, ladies in cannulas are getting a lot of love in pop culture these days. 

Cos teams up with Ethan and Scott — another spin-off that I’d watch — to find a cure with the synthetic sequence, but she needs a more immediate solution that involves Kira’s bone marrow. Sarah and Mrs. S let Kira have the final say on helping Auntie Cosima*, and of course she agrees because Cosima is a treasure; don’t you dare take her away from us, Show!

*I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen them interact on-screen, but whatevs.

Sarah

As Kira’s recovering from the bone marrow extraction at the hospital, Delphine calls Sarah away to warn her about Grim Reaper Ben being compromised by Rachel. Sarah then races back inside to take Kira away… only the Kira-taking clone isn’t Sarah at all; it’s Rachel! The whole Ben thing was a trap!

Even though Rachel had just donned a Sarah hoodie in her previous scene and Rachel-as-Sarah’s hair is less dishevelled than the real deal, I was STILL fooled by the clone swap. I swear, this show is my Gene Parmesan. 

Rachel

I seriously hope this Evil-Clone-kidnapping-Kira tradition doesn’t carry over to Season 3. Although right now, it does fall in line with commenter Annie S.’s observation of Helena and Rachel being opposing sides of the same coin.

Anyway, Rach is becoming increasingly more deranged. I mean, a hair is out of place, for goodness’ sake! After revisiting her own childhood, she grabs Kira to become a Dyad kid just like she was. Because that’s really working out well so far.

Felix Felicis

Not a whole lot! But Fee makes his feelings towards Delphine crystal clear.

Mrs. S’s Home for Peculiar Children

Fee must have picked up on the thinly disguised disdain from Mrs. S, because she doesn’t like the bone marrow plan at all, and she makes sure Kira knows it’s OK to say no. 

On the subject of thinly disguised disdain — and also hair, which evidently is a main topics of my recaps now — let’s talk about mine towards THE BRAIDS.

I’m not sure what Mrs. S is going for with this modern day, grown up Anne of Green Gables aesthetic. Unless that’s exactly what she’s trying to achieve — in which case, brava.

They Fought the Law

That Angie DeAngie sure is tenacious. She has Vic snooping around for more dirt on the Hendrixes. But Vic being Vic, he’s terrible at it and he blows his cover. Donnie lays the smackdown on Angie’s unsanctioned investigation with a little blackmail and a nice exit line. 

I love how Vic is always photo ready.

Neolution News

Rachel promotes Delphine to be interim Dyad director, vowing to take Dyad in a different direction now that she knows the truth. Well, seeing as Rachel’s first act as whatever she is now was to take a child away from their parent, that seems to be par for the course with Old Dyad. 

Marian checks in from Top Side on a bereft and stone-faced Rachel. Much like everybody else on this show, the Top Side bigwigs are intrigued by Sarah: a “product of chance” that’s giving Rachel a run for her money for best clone status. As if Rachel needed more fuel for her case of the Marcia, Marcia, Marcias against Sarah. 

Purely Proletheans

Oh, you know how it goes. Boy meets girl. Boy shows girl kindness when girl’s parents stitch her mouth shut. Girl’s father sees that they like each other, so he has a sit-down with boy about girl needing to bear fruit, and boy stepping up to be her husband. 

Much like Paul and Sammy before him, Mark used to be in the military.* He joined at 19 but went AWOL, which is when Henrik took him under his wing — but no way we’re supposed to believe this was recent history, right? Gracie, I can buy as that age, but Mark must be older. (The actor playing him certainly is.) And yet their ambiguous age difference is nowhere close to the creepiest aspect of their budding relationship.

Henrik and the farm might be gone, but his wife, Bonnie, is still out west looking for more “brood mares”, yuck. Will we be seeing her again? I kind of hope so, just ’cause it’s a loose end that the show didn’t need to have at all. Plus, given what a hard-ass she was with Stitchgate, I’m thinking that Bonnie might be the real force to be reckoned with, not Henrik. 

*The military AGAIN! They’ve got to be the Season 3 Big Bad, right? Hopefully without a clone at the helm? Y’all know I love my clones, but it’ll start feeling like deus ex Clone Club if they’re popping up literally everywhere. Or OOH, maybe it’d be more like Rise of the Planet of the Clones! SPIN-OFF POTENTIAL EVERYWHERE.

Stick to the Science, Geek Monkey

Preventing the clones’ ovarian follicles from maturing was the sterility method of choice, for being the least invasive option. The infertility sequences are encoded, with only Ethan possessing the key in his mind grapes. He’s willing to decode them — as long as Dyad isn’t able to continue the cloning experiment. 

Next Episode

GAHHHH SEASON FINALE. Delphine’s pissed off at Rachel for using her as a pawn, Kira gets the cotton swab lab rat treatment, and Sarah gives her unconditional surrender while wearing a straightjacket!

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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.