Orphan Black #CloneClub Recap: “Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method”

“D’oh!”

Welcome to this week’s Orphan Black #CloneClub Recap! Episode 8 of the season, “Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method,” gave us a new Leda clone, and an escape attempt gone right, then gone wrong, then gone right again. Well, depending on whom you ask. And are Donnie and Helena destined to become Orphan Black‘s new It Couple? Let’s dive in!

Alison and Donnie’s place has become the dumping ground for all the characters no one knows what to do with, and so Helena and Gracie are both being employed by Canada’s newest drug distributors via their newly acquired front, Bubbles. Helena, as it turns out, finds Donnie attractive (“You have meat on your bones. You are strong like baby ox. This I like.”) and funny, and thinks Alison is a lucky woman. She’s also happy to see Gracie is with them, and embraces her the way one would clutch a war buddy, telling her, “You will be auntie to my baby, yes?” Meanwhile, Donnie is not happy after having heard about Jason kissing Cosima thinking it was Alison in the last episode. Alison, in an attempt to put the kibosh on the situation, asks Jason to meet her at Bubbles, but before she kiboshes, she kisses Jason, adding fuel to the fire before sending him off. Clearly, their history still affects these two. Donnie knows this, so he uses Alison’s phone to get him to come to Bubbles again later that evening. His plan is to warn Jason off of Alison, but he ends up getting the snot beat out of him. Womp-womp.

“I know you are, but what am I?”

Cosima’s illness seems to be getting worse, much though she tries to deny it. Delphine insists that she come into Dyad for treatment, and as Cosima doesn’t want to put Kira through another stem cell harvest, they attempt to figure out how else to go about getting to the original Leda genome that might save them all. Of course, their feelings for each other remain complex. Cosima doesn’t trust Delphine anymore, and so she and Scott are carrying on their plan to get Rachel to translate her father’s cipher in their copy of Dr. Moreau in secret. Meanwhile, Delphine doesn’t trust Shay. In any case, Rachel insists on talking to Sarah before translating the book. After an awkward Skype call, Sarah and Felix agree to steal a naive clone’s identity and break Rachel out of Dyad so that she can have a “quiet life” somewhere in Asia. In exchange, Rachel promises to translate the book.

“Sure, I maaaaaay be spying on you, or doing any number of shady things. But LOOK! FLOWER!”

NEW LEDA CLONE! Her name is Crystal. You may recognize her as the Leda clone who was making out with Rudy in an elevator in some surveillance footage a couple episodes back. Anyway, she’s a manicurist, and she has a penchant for new-agey philosophy (she and Shay would probably get along). Sarah and Felix agree that, since she’s a naive clone, there’s no need to bring her into Clone Club and ruin her quiet life. So, Felix poses as a mani-pedi customer in order to get her wallet and steal her identity for Rachel. OMG – STRAIGHT, CANADIAN, METROSEXUAL FELIX! Who needs clones when you have ridiculous acting talent? Felix gains Crystal’s trust and gets her to give him some personal info, but as she does this, she also reveals that she’s suspicious that something is going on. Felix feels bad about lying to her, as she’s not an idiot and is driving herself crazy with thoughts of what might be going on to make her life so weird after her encounter with Rudy. Felix gets the wallet. And later, Crystal gets abducted by Dr. Nealon, Rachel’s Dyad doctor.

To keep Dr. Moreau safe from Delphine and Shay, Scott puts it in his backpack and takes it home. However, Rudy is waiting for him there and threatens the life of his beloved cat as he asks for the book. Scott has no choice but to give it to him, which forces Scott to have to tell Delphine. Delphine is furious with Scott and Cosima for not trusting her with the book. She asks if they made a copy, and Cosima tells her they haven’t. But of course, they have, and it’s this copy that they get to Sarah.

Scott gets Rachel out of Dyad and brings her to Mrs. S’s place where Sarah shows her the documents they procured from Crystal, but before giving them to her, sets the copy of Dr. Moreau in front of her and demands that she get to translating (giving her a PENCIL. Priceless). However, Rachel doesn’t get through more than a page, which mentions Castor, before Dr. Nealon shows up, having been tipped off to the copy of the book. But by whom?! Rachel has a seizure and collapses out of her wheelchair, and so Dr. Nealon takes Rachel back to Dyad for “treatment,” and reassures Delphine that he will do what he can to save her (as she’s the only one who can translate the cipher!). Delphine, even more furious that she was lied to twice, accepts Cosima’s resignation (apparently resignation letters and making out are Cosima’s methods of “distracting” someone), and forces Scott’s. FIRED.

But wait! There’s more! Apparently, Rachel set this whole thing in motion! Dr. Nealon has Crystal, from whom he is removing an eye (?? – I mean, her identity is already stolen. Why not her eye?), and Rachel is on her way outta there. Presumably with her father’s cipher. Yowza.

“I’m getting too old for this shit.”

The Awesome:

• Helena’s interaction with Gracie really struck a chord with me. Helena’s desire for a family to call her own was palpable in this episode. From the way she played with Alison’s daughter, to the way she comforted and welcomed Gracie, this was the softest and kindest we’ve ever seen her. Also, the way she wore Alison’s clothes was hilarious. The way she was complimenting Donnie, even moreso.
• FELIX! His straight, Canadian persona was EVERYTHING. Not to mention hot. His voice dropped, like, a jillion octaves, and I was like Damn. Obviously, Felix always has swagger, but his swagger was next-level in the manicure scene.
• Didn’t see the Rachel thing at the end coming! I’ve always been intrigued by Rachel. While I can’t say I “like” her, I do find her interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing what this complex character does next.
• I LOVE CRYSTAL, and I’m so sad that she’s been embroiled in all these shenanigans. Also, I love that her first attempt at a porn name is “Bitch Mistress of Cum-a-lot.”
• I love that Scott’s security guard friend at Dyad was so impressed by Scott and Rachel’s escape attempt. NERDS!

“Finally. A front business that allows me to be in touch with my feminine side!”

The Not-So-Awesome:

• I’m really, really over the Alison/Jason thing. Like, really. BOOOOOO-RRRRRIIIIING. Also, I don’t like the affect it’s having on Donnie as a character. While I appreciate the fact that he refers to himself as Alison’s bitch, jealousy is not cute. I don’t like how it affects Alison as a character either. Her coming to truly love Donnie, despite him having been her handler, was a huge journey – the idea that it can all be undone when reunited with a high school boyfriend just seems silly.
• Does Delphine really hate Rachel that much that she wouldn’t bring up Shay first when coming up with possible leaks to Castor about the cipher? Really?
• OMG, shit or get off the pot with whatever’s going on with Shay already! I’m tired of shifty/shady looks that go nowhere.

That’s it for this week! Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 9PM EST on BBC America. If you missed last week’s recap, CHECK IT OUT HERE. Also, make sure you’re reading our Orphan Black Science Recaps, which walk you through the plausibility of the science of each episode! See you next Monday, when we’ll be talking about… Mrs. S singing karaoke? ‘Til then, go make sure you have more than two copies of all your important documents.

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