Orphan Black 2.09 - "Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done"

So hey, this is the penultimate episode of Orphan Black’s second season, which means that a lot of loose ends get tied up, and new events push the storyline forward into the finale.  Alison and Donnie bury the hatchet (and the body), Cosima buys more time with Kira’s bone marrow, and Helena burns down the whole damn Prolethean complex to return to her sisters.  Most everyone is out of the woods by episodes’ end - except, of course, Kira, and by extension, Sarah.  This is the natural order of the show, echoing last season’s finale, and we hope this is going to drag everyone back into the woods - the natural order of the show.  After all, this season has marched steadily from EVERY CLONE FOR HERSELF, back towards CLONE SISTERS.

ORPHAN BLACK 2.09 - “THINGS WHICH HAVE NEVER YET BEEN DONE”

Truthfully, the two most interesting clone sisters this episode were the two that have never interacted - Rachel, and Helena.  But despite having never met face-to-face, Orphan Black actually interacts them quite a bit - thematically.  Rachel and Helena are both products of their contexts, bequeathed entitlement through their affiliations with corporation and religion, respectfully.  They stand on opposite sides of Sarah, given inverse relationships with control and chaos, but the same relationship with power.  They dye their hair blonde to differentiate themselves, to assert their own identity - which is ironic, considering that their identity is not derived from themselves, but through their alliances.  They feel power because of their belonging - to DYAD, to the Proletheans - and the narrative of Orphan Black has been slowly tugging the rug that these two stand on.  As an audience, we watch them reorient themselves, and wait for the big yank.

“Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done” puts Helena and Rachel forward in the narrative, and through this, lets them demonstrate their similarities and differences.  The episode does this mainly by letting us watch their relationship with a) their institution, and b) children.  We witness Helena begin her willing reintroduction to life with the Proletheans, an off-shoot of the context she was raised in, and we are shown Rachel completely ensconced in DYAD.  And within those respective walls, we see Helena interact with a child not too different from herself, and we see Rachel interact with Kira, and the opportunity to raise Kira through DYAD.  Basically: both women are faced with children that might echo the life she herself lived, raised in the snug empowerment of a stringent affiliation.

But in their reactions to the same basic stimulus, the differences between Helena and Rachel are illuminated, in the synthesis of chaos and control - we see the ability for these characters to change.  Helena connects with Faith (an ironically-named little girl) because Faith echoes to Helena her own self.  They zero in on each other, equally fascinated.  And when Faith is chastised by Alexis much like Helena was chastised by a nun in Ukraine, Helena protects Faith.  She steps between Faith and the life Helena got, and acts as an agent of change.  It’s echoed again with Grace - Helena puts herself between Gracie and the life her father’s forcing her into, and protects her from it.  And it ends with the ultimate change agent: fire.  Helena levels the whole compound, wildly burning it to ash for a better rebirth.

But where Helena destroys pain by fire, Rachel preserves it in ice.  In the throes of her original context, Rachel has a similar opportunity as Helena.  She’s kidnapped Kira to harvest a cure, yet she still puts her up in a pretty bedroom that’s decorated very carefully to be a home for a little girl.  She sits with Kira, waits for her to wake, and greets her warmly.  (Or as warmly as Rachel greets anyone.  Kira probably still felt a chill cascade over her.)  And the icing on the cake: she tells Kira, “You may even grow to like it here, just as I did.”  Here Rachel is, facing a child who might walk down the same path she did, and she says, “YEAH I KNOW IT SUCKED TOO BUT I LEARNED TO LIKE IT AND SO WILL YOU.”

So where Helena is an agent of protection, Rachel is an agent of perpetuation.  Helena, who was tortured, brainwashed, and caged, is capable of change.  Change is chaotic, and Helena thrives there.  Rachel, however, is not capable of change, because it can’t be controlled.  It is predicated on letting go, and Rachel is fundamentally incapable - and unwilling.  All season long, I’ve been waiting for some crack in Rachel’s exterior - to watch the hard shell split away and let all of Rachel’s issues come roaring out.  And yet, when this happened, it still felt dissatisfying to me.  Rachel reset right back to zero and pretended she didn’t just have a screaming fit where she broke things and threw plants.

It’s frustrating, and yet at the same time, this episode provided the saddest justification for that: unlike Helena, maybe Rachel is not capable of change.  And what else would make that difference but her sisters?  Helena can be an agent of change because she herself was changed - by Sarah.  She jailbreaks out of Prolethean Land because she belongs somewhere else, with her sestra.  She is no longer trapped by her context, because someone gave her a new place to belong.  Rachel doesn’t have that.  Not unlike Dr. Frankenstein’s creation (thanks for the thematic assist, Henry), Rachel is a monster because (cheese alert) she wasn’t shown love.

Or wasn’t she?  That somewhat thin conclusion doesn’t stop there, because Orphan Black has developed something deeper and more complicated for Rachel.  We have actual home videos that indicate Rachel was shown love in her life.  Not only have we seen these home videos, but Rachel traps herself with them.  She locks herself in a glass room with a martini and watches her own happiness, and tells herself it was all a lie.  Rachel was shown love, but she rejects that it could be real.  Helena may have tortured herself with a blade, but Rachel tortures herself with memories, and feelings she won’t allow herself to feel.  So like the home videos she watches, she’s stuck in a loop of self-torment until she implodes.  Then, she carefully reconstructs her facade, and the whole process is nothing short of fascinating and horrific.

I used to wonder how Helena could ever survive in this narrative.  How could she truly live in this world, all teeth and violence and remorse?  But Orphan Black has successfully resurrected the character for Season 2, and given her a believable chance at change and belonging.  Now, I find myself wondering if Rachel can survive this narrative.  “Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done” shows that she is similarly-derived as Helena, but suffers fundamental differences in how she moves through her own life, and what she allows herself to feel and do.  Can the writers feasibly keep her as a villain, in a time loop of tragedy and outburst?  Can they develop her, and let her change?  Or is Rachel the Javert to Sarah’s Valjean, doomed to pursue her endlessly, until she decides to step over the edge of her ivory tower?

STRAY OBSERVATIONS -

• Rachel/Marian interactions are deliciously loaded.  I like extending the idea of Leekie as surrogate father to the idea that Marian is Rachel’s surrogate mother, and their interaction was delightfully laced with a daughter’s false respect and a mother’s polite disappointment.  I practically screeched at Marian’s backhanded insult to Rachel about Sarah.  She may as well have said, “Why can’t you be more like Sarah, Rachel?  You’re genetically identical, and yet Sarah’s pretty much outsmarting at every turn.”

• I also dearly enjoyed Marian asking if Rachel, too, was intrigued by Sarah. “BIOLOGICALLY,” Rachel replies with a barely-suppressed eyeroll.  “I MEAN I GUESS SHE’S COOL IN LIKE A GENETIC WAY LIKE IF YOU WANT TO LOOK AT HER SCIENTIFICALLY BUT MOSTLY I THINK HER LEATHER JACKET IS DUMB AND HER ACCENT IS STUPID AND I’M NOT INTERESTED IN HER UTERUS AT ALL SO I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU WOULD ASK, MOTHER.”  Then she goes back to reading Tiger Beat, and muttering under her breath how embarrassing her mom is.

• Kudos to Orphan Black for giving Kira the decision about her bone marrow donation, and double kudos for letting Mrs. S. be the one who points it out.  On a show about choice, and agency over women’s bodies, it’s nice to see it echoed down into plot decisions and applied to young girls.  Kira’s body, Kira’s choice.  They gave her all the information going in, they didn’t sugarcoat it, and Kira was courageous and made her own choice.  Sure, this was a plot thing that had to move forward anyways, but it was still nice to see it pushed there by Kira’s own decision.

• Did Rachel really say that Delphine makes a good interim director because she’s telegenic?  I won’t lie; I looked that word up to see if it had a scientific definition - telomeres?  genes?  science things I vaguely remember from high school?  But NOPE, it literally just means, “Delphine looks good on TV.”  “Well… yeah,” says all of the audience like this isn’t news at all.

• “I’M NOT AS PERFECTLY COMFORTABLE WITH MANSLAUGHTER AS YOU ARE.”

Orphan Black 2.08 - "Variable and Full of Perturbation"

Hello, universe.  Remember when I wrote Orphan Black reviews?  Yeah, me neither.  And if it turns out that I barely remember Orphan Black itself, just leave me a little comment to nudge me towards accurate information.  Additionally, since this is the episode with Tony, please let me know if I inadvertently demonstrate ignorance towards his trans identity, or the trans community.  I will absolutely make corrections.

So let’s do this, shall we?  It’s only five months later!

Hey guys, remember us?

ORPHAN BLACK 2.08 - "VARIABLE AND FULL OF PERTURBATION"

Variable, and full of perturbation.  There’s a fairly linear connection between this phrase, and Tony himself.  After seventeen episodes of dealing with the Clone Club identified as women, the showrunners now give us Tony, from the same batch of clones -- Tony, who identifies as a man.  That’s a pretty significant variance, given our understanding of the words “genetically identical.”

Clearly, the writers have introduced Tony to do exactly that: raise questions about what it means to be genetically identical, and the biology of gender identity and expression.  They’ve wheeled out a substantial topic to parse, and yet they concurrently do something kind of wonderful: they don’t try to.  No one says, “Hey, how can this be?”  They only say, “Oh, I guess this can be, then.”  Which is lovely, because that means that Tony’s identity, itself, is never called into question.  Questioning the existence of a trans clone is not any different than questioning the existence of a trans human, and OB’s not playing that game.

What’s nice about this portrayal is that it falls in line behind the LGBT representation that Orphan Black has already casually yet firmly displayed.  Cosima’s sexuality is never questioned, and so neither is Tony’s.  Gender and sexuality will always slide back on the list of main identifiers for these characters - like Cosima told Rachel, it’s not the most interesting thing about them.  Sure, they’re clones, and that’s always going to hold the trump card on interesting, but also, it’s quietly prescriptive: clone or no clone, that’s how it should be.

As a result, this plugs into grander, more universal themes.  Humanity is a central tenet of this show, and every clone expresses the need to be treated as a person and not a project.  We are not what defines us; we define ourselves.  This contextually-LGBT philosophy is actually central to the show, echoed across all the main characters, regardless of sexuality.  The ability to express one’s own identity is a human right, regardless of gender, sexuality, science, or nature.  It blows my mind a little bit that Orphan Black is thus a show that doesn’t narratively sequester LGBT themes in a “niche,” but rather carries them over to all the main characters.

So really, “variable and full of perturbation” is not just a phrase for Tony, a trans clone.  A major theme this episode was, “It’s not just me; it’s all of us.”  We’re not talking about Tony being variant or perturbed because he’s trans.   All of the clones are variable, and full of perturbation.  There are two previous episodes that have some version of the word “variable” in the title, and if you look up “perturbation,” you don’t necessary get the synonym “disturbed” (a word you really don't want to see applied to anyone identifying as LGBTQIA) - you get the emotional application, “anxiety, mental uneasiness,” and the scientific application, “a deviation of the system.”  If that doesn’t describe everything about Orphan Black, I don’t know what does.

Moreover, we get a few narrative connections between Tony and the other clones - mainly Cosima, and Sarah.  In this episode, both Cosima and Tony demonstrate the idea that they too, don’t call into question their own identities.  There is no crisis in key moments that would cause breakdown for others - Cosima casually strolls up to her maker and shakes his hand, and Tony has the biggest non-reaction to being told he’s a clone.  Identity issues are long since sorted through, and these two are the most resilient and adaptable in the bunch.  (LGBT themes may not be “niche” on this show, but it’s still important to acknowledge how they might manifest uniquely in context.)

There’s also Tony and Sarah.  Of course, Felix says, “He has some of your worst qualities,” about Tony the clone, but we also get a little scene with Rachel that illuminates the concept of variance.  What exactly is it about Sarah that makes her so different?  Why - not how, why - did she succeed in fertility when they were designed to be barren?  Like Tony, she was raised out of the control of DYAD, unmonitored, and that has cultivated a whole host of “chaos” on her identity.  Can we say exactly what happened, biologically, genetically, environmentally?  No.  It’s just who she is.  And the same goes for Tony.

The idea that “it’s all us” is specifically voiced by Cosima, as she struggles to forgive Delphine for betraying her trust in favor of protecting her.  (What’s that about respecting what people express about themselves?)  Delphine can’t make decisions for Cosima, because a) that’s a basic human no-no, but also, b) Cosima comes with Sarah, Kira, Helena, Alison, Tony, and yes, even Rachel.  No clone is an island; their fates are entwined.  Rachel herself voices this as well, as she uses the phrase “all of us” not once but twice in this episode (once with Delphine, once with Duncan).

So, from a thematic perspective, Tony slides easily into the world Orphan Black has created for itself.  Welcome to the family.  But from a narrative perspective?  Admittedly, the introduction of Tony feels something like proof of concept.  He whisks in, from nowhere, and whisks back out, into the black, with only the Clone Phone as a direct line back to the narrative.  In the grand scheme of the season, it’s likely that he will lift right out without any consequence.  Hell, in the episode, he lifts right out without much consequence.  They had to really work the timeline to pull Sarah out of her own plotline to even meet him.

Yes, they invented a reason to make Tony relevant: he comes bearing a message.  Mystery!  Intrigue!  Suspense!  Well - theoretically.  Tony’s message comes from Beth, via his dead partner (or monitor?) Sammy.  Narratively-speaking, messages from the dead are usually good devices.  But this one fell short.  There weren’t enough stakes generated during the time Tony held onto the message (except the looming threat that Felix was going to kiss a genetic identical of his adopted sister) - and the reveal of the message, which should ramp everything up, felt more like the air going out of a balloon.  Something about Paul, or something?  At which point Sarah screwed up her face and said, “Paul?”  Like she was trying to place him.  Us too, Sarah.  Us too.   His absence isn’t all that inconvenient, nor his is silence all that irksome, contrary to what Rachel says.

In all seriousness, bringing a message that Paul is military and is “on it,” is not all that revelatory, mostly because that message seems to baseline “he’s a good guy, DON’T WORRY” and not much else.  Yawn.  Orphan Black has long-suffered from a Paul Problem, and this message pretty much sums it up.  He’s supposed to be a mystery, which is supposed to invest us - but the problem is, there’s not enough there to make us care.  And they can’t give us more information to hook us, because a) then there’d be no mystery, and b) this is not Paul’s show.  As a viewer, I would probably be annoyed about following Paul through a mysterious adventure, thereby taking screentime away from more interesting elements of OB.

In a way, “Variable and Full of Perturbation” reminds me of a one-off episode that borrows elements of a different genre - in this case, a crime mystery.  We begin the hour in the middle of a car chase, where we meet a brand new character, and then wonder how this all connects to the main narrative thread.  In other words, the pre-credits sequence was exactly like one in Bones or Castle, with a hint of Lost sprinkled in.  Then, Tony has a mysterious message, and won’t talk until he gets more information - which Felix isn’t willing to give up until he gets more information, through Art.  Stand-off.  Art conveniently gets information, with no obstacle.  Added to that, there’s the suspense that someone’s going to come after Tony and shoot him too - except it doesn’t even come close to happening.  It’s very cop show-ish, without much air in it.

Let it be said, though, that genre-borrow isn’t necessarily a bad thing - but it definitely makes itself noticed.  In another way, the hour reminded me a bit of the Lost outing that “explained” Nikki and Paulo, distracting itself with a conceptual hook and letting an element of tension and dramatic irony carry through the diversion.  (And then promptly ending with only a remote possibility that this would be brought up again.)  But the bad thing about Nikki and Paulo - and the risk of genre-borrow and one-off episodes on serialized shows in particular - is the nagging question who cares?  Why care about these yahoos when Jack and Kate and Sawyer are traipsing around?

This same nagging question surfaces with Tony, unfortunately.  Would it have been better to parcel off some of Tony’s screentime to another character - Cosima, or Helena, or even (dare I say it) Paul?  If there weren’t another story thread or emotional beat that could have benefited from more clocktime, I wouldn’t necessarily say yes.  The problems in Tony’s storyline could be fixed within Tony’s storyline.  But in “Variable and Full of Perturbation,” there was another area that could have used the extra time - with Rachel Duncan’s meltdown.

That sequence should have been great!  Here’s this character who’s been buttoned-up for so long, pressurizing her emotions in fragile glass, and finally - she combusts.  It’s a huge deal, right?  Except it wasn’t, really.  The cutaways were, first of all, confusing, because it was difficult to tell the time and place for of her breakdown.  The sense of disorientation pulled the audience out of the moment, and we weren’t so much feeling anything as wondering where we are.  You could argue that the cuts helped to make her explosion more jarring in contrast with her usual demeanor, but I personally feel like we should have seen a stone-faced Rachel slowly crack and then unleash her tornado of pain and anger.  Cutaways just don’t do it justice, especially when they untether the audience from the emotions.  The scene would have benefitted from more screentime to build that emotional climax, and unfortunately, Tony’s part is the storyline with excess time to give.

So, in the end, the point of bringing Tony into the fold kind of remains on the idea that the OB writers wanted to demonstrate that a trans clone is, indeed, possible.  And y’know, given the space that Orphan Black has created for LGBT characters, and the way their presence is fundamentally thematic in all of the main characters -- it’s hard to argue with that.  This is the concept episode, the genre episode, the proof of concept, and the proof that identity - gender, and sexual - is in a person’s voice, not their DNA.  But in the realm of television writing - story building, plot threading, stakes and obstacles - “Variable and Full of Perturbation” was a little left of target.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS --

• How much did I love Kira’s exasperated “MO-OOOOM!” at Sarah questioning if Dr. Moreau was appropriate for kids.  How lovely that they still get to have some hints of “normal” mother-daughter interactions.

• Kudos to Josh Vokey, who plays Scott, for the scene where he finds out that Cosima is 324B21.  It’s a lovely little moment of realization and compassion, as suddenly the science becomes very human for him.

• THE KIDS ARE TRUANT.  Alison’s manner of speaking is still the best thing ever.  Also, of course she would criticize Donnie’s sloppy handling of Leekie’s body.  And of course she’d be irate that Donnie used one of her guns.  Of course, Alison.

• “You cannot imagine the strange colourless delight of these intellectual desires.  The thing standing before you is no longer an animal, a fellow creature - but a problem.”  This week, on meta-relevant excerpts from in-narrative novels!

• Did Tony remind anyone else of Apolo Anton Ohno?  I mean, it’s Canada.  He probably skates.