Orphan Black #CloneClub Recap: “The Antisocialism of Sex”

This week’s Orphan Black followed each of the Leda clones (except Helena, who’s still MIA) as they dealt with the fallout from Evie’s total destruction of Neolution. None of the members of Clone Club are handling things particularly well. Welcome to Episode 7 of the season, “The Antisocialism of Sex.”

**THIS IS A RECAP—SPOILERS ARE PART OF THE TERRITORY.**

The Recap

• Rachel notices that the door to upstairs, where she’s never been allowed, has been left open, and she and her crutches make it up the stairs to find a despondent Susan. Susan tells her that it’s all over. That Evie has “usurped” her, and that Kendall — the Original Leda — has been destroyed (ie: killed in a really heinous way). This doesn’t sit well with Rachel who, being Neolution-born and self-aware her whole life, has defined herself entirely by being useful to Neolution. What is she now that Evie Cho has taken it all away? A part of her is Charlotte’s mother, and she tells Charlotte the truth about her illness, and that the both of them are dying.
• Meanwhile, Evie Cho has shingles. But that doesn’t matter, because she also has a patent for a BrightBorn gene therapy implant that is affordable, will cure her, and will make human clones obsolete. She’s dismantling Project Leda for its assets and will allow the Leda clones to go about their business — “no need for a Helsinki event” — except that she is coming after Sarah, Alison, Cosima, and Helena, because they are a threat since they know too much and probably won’t ever stop digging around.
• Alison is trying to act as if nothing is wrong as she prepares for Gemma’s birthday slumber party, but Donnie sees that she’s struggling, walking in on her crying and praying. Alison is determined to put on a brave front for Donnie, but he knows better. He ends up inviting Pastor Mike to the slumber party to help him tell ghost stories (and also lend an ear to Alison), but she remains reluctant to really talk about how bad she’s feeling about what’s going on. And now, she’s got even bigger problems. After ghost stories, there’s a knock at the Hendrix home. The police have arrived to arrest Donnie for dealing drugs!
• Cosima is a wreck, having not only been present during Kendall’s murder, but dealing with Evie having told her that Delphine is dead. After returning to her makeshift lab in the comic shop, Scott tries to be hopeful about retrieving data from their crashed system, or figuring out another way to work on a cure, but Cosima cuts him down pretty brutally. Just when it seems like the two lab bros might be in a fight, Cosima remembers that she swiped Sarah’s bot from Evie’s office, which might have clues! Yay! After a while, she “jokes” that since the bot is designed to repair and change DNA, that she could just put it into her own face to try and cure herself. Scott immediately calls her on this bad plan, as she has no idea how the bot will interact with her body. However, Cosima is desperate and depressed. When Scott leaves the room, she locks him out, and begins to implant the bot into her own cheek. However, Scott calls Felix for help to try and stop her, and Felix calls, telling her that Crystal told him that there’s a chance that Delphine’s still alive. That she was shot, but that someone carried her away, and she was still alive. Relieved, Cosima doesn’t go through with the implant.

• Sarah just wants to forget everything for a night. After a fight with Mrs. S, she leaves the safehouse and goes directly to a bar without passing “Go” or collecting $200. She runs into Dizzy, and starts drinking with him, when a couple beckons her over, basically for a threesome and a partner in cocaine-snorting. She accepts, and they go into the bar’s back room. (Which is too bad, because special guest star, Peaches, was giving a rocking performance!) Felix shows up looking for her, but Dizzy doesn’t give her up, and Felix leaves, but not before telling Dizzy to tell Sarah that she needs to call him and that it’s “about her daughter.” (Dizzy didn’t know about Kira) When Sarah’s done with her threesome, the guy member of the couple starts shit with Dizzy, and Sarah tries to defend him. Dizzy pulls her out of the bar before she can get into a full-on bar brawl, and she asks to go back to his place. Once there, they start to get it on, but all Dizzy wants to talk about is maggot bot conspiracies, since his friend was killed after having an implant put into him. Aggravated that Dizzy won’t let it go and let her lose herself for a night, Sarah leaves.
• Art talks to Mrs. S to get information about what happened with her mother, and when she describes whom Cosima described to her as her mother’s killer, Art identifies Detective Duko. As Mrs. S gets a vengeful glint in her eye, Art goes to the police station and kicks Duko’s ass. But Duko is unfazed. Probably because he and Neolution have been watching Art this whole time and know all his secrets. Including the one where he covered up the fact that Beth committed murder.
• Sarah’s been having visions of Beth the whole episode, and so when she ends up on the bridge overlooking the train tracks at the train station, Beth “stops in” for a full-on conversation. Sarah is depressed, angry, scared, and hurt, and Beth encourages those feelings, pointing her to her only option, telling her how alike they are. As Sarah hovers over the railing, Felix arrives, having been tipped off by Mrs. S, who was tipped off by Kira that Sarah was “following Beth.” He talks her away from the railing. Then Beth tells her, “Bring us together, Sarah. We need you.”
• Sarah returns to the safehouse and silently reconciles with Mrs. S. Meanwhile, as Kira plays Minecraft on her laptop, M.K. reaches out to her on her screen, introducing herself as “a friend,” and telling Kira to call her Mika.
• Oh, and Rachel has an accident and falls. When she looks up, she sees a swan like the one depicted in a Neolution book. As Ira goes to help her up she looks over and sees it again, but it glitches. Is that her new eye glitching? Or is she glitching, a la Castor clones?

The Awesome

• I’m glad that they devoted an entire episode to allowing these characters to deal with (or not deal with) the events of the previous episode. These people have been through so much, they (as well as the audience) needed a bit of a breather from the relentlessness of it all before the next wave hits (and it looks like the next wave is gonna be about M.K, Kira, Mrs. S trying to kill Duko, Rachel’s glitch, and Donnie in jail).
• Seriously, Peaches was awesome!
• I’ve only ever really tolerated Rachel before, but I’ve been loving her more and more this season, and really loved her and was rooting for her in this episode. Probably because we’ve started seeing the cracks in her put-together facade. It’s not her injuries that make her vulnerable, it’s the fact that she cares for Charlotte, and that Neolution, the thing that defined her, is gone. I really want Rachel to find a new purpose, and I hope that purpose involves her joining Clone Club and giving up her evil ways.
• I also loved Sarah’s journey in this episode, and the parallels between her and Beth that were highlighted throughout. At her lowest, Sarah realizes that she’s the linchpin of Clone Club and that she does have a purpose, and a reason to live.
• What wasn’t said, but I think is equally true is that Felix is the other linchpin of Clone Club, and we see that in this episode as he’s the one everyone calls to solve problems. He can tame Sarah. He is BFFs with Alison. He has a way with Cosima. He’s got a better way with Krystal. He’s basically The Clone Whisperer, and I’m glad we got to see him in the fullness of his power here.
• This must have been such a harrowing episode for Tatiana Maslany, but she pulled it off impeccably, giving four gorgeous, nuanced performances of these characters at their most beat-down.
• I’m thrilled that Neolution has, heh, evolved and that we’re going in a new direction with clones being the problem rather than the solution. I was wondering how Orphan Black was going to proceed once certain mysteries were solved and problems resolved. Now I know, and I love the theme of newer science usurping older science.

The Not-So-Awesome

• There’s not much I didn’t like about this episode, so this is just getting really nit-picky, but Donnie inviting Reverend Mike to talk to Alison didn’t make much sense, especially since she can’t talk about what’s really bothering her with him anyway. Like, what’s she going to tell him?

“The Antisocialism of Sex” was a perfect companion to last week’s episode, and managed to give every character their due attention, even characters like Art, Mrs. S, and Kira. I’m loving the direction in which Orphan Black is taking us, and I can’t wait to see how Clone Club plans to face off against Evie Cho!

That’s it for this week! Orphan Black airs Thursdays at 10PM EST on BBC America. You’ll always be able to FIND MY OB RECAPS HERE. And yes, we’ve got the Orphan Black Science Recaps, too!

(images via BBC America)

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