Orphan Black - BBCA

[Reposado]

You really think so? They pushed the blonde woman being Alison's monitor so hard..

almost too hard. to the point where it might be a red herring. but if not her, then who?

[Jon AS]

You really think so? They pushed the blonde woman being Alison's monitor so hard.. I just don't know. I still think he is actually her monitor, but he's such a hapless loser. The complete opposite of our only confirmed monitor, Paul. It's hard to say.

Yes, I don't think the neighbourhood watch lady is the monitor either. Right now I'd put money on her husband, mostly based on the fact, apart from the children, there are no other characters in Allison's social circle that have gotten much screentime, but also because he's apparently acting in such a fashion that his wife suspects he's having an affair.

[Larkstongue]

Yes, I don't think the neighbourhood watch lady is the monitor either. Right now I'd put money on her husband, mostly based on the fact, apart from the children, there are no other characters in Allison's social circle that have gotten much screentime, but also because he's apparently acting in such a fashion that his wife suspects he's having an affair.

That's genius. Dude's name is Chad, by the way. Alison's friend is named Aynesley. Weird name. Anyway, I really like that theory.

However, I went to check imdb to see how many episodes Donnie, Aynesley, and Chad are each in, thinking it might give some insight into how important their characters are, so: Donnie - 6 episodes, Aynesley - 5, and Chad... isn't listed. That seems to point to him not being a monitor. Granted, Matt Frewer isn't listed either, and he's (probably) the main villian, so take my extra curricular investigations for what they're worth.

My favorite Vic part - which is easily missed - is when his finger is chopped off, and he screams in pain. The scene ends and the screen goes black, and then you hear him whimper "I'm good". It's so absurd and yet so funny.

That was hilarious! I liked when he was giving Sarah's eulogy. "This is all based on facts. That's right."

[Nearly Headless Ned]

Rather enjoying this show. Fast moving and addictive. Thought Tatiana Maslavy was a real talent years back when she was in Ginger Snaps Back (semi decent Werewolf flick) and this performance is really excellent.

EDIT: And her ass is cute.

[~ZombieWife~]

Holy cow, that last episode was epic. Hannah on the dance floor was so WTF and LOL at the same time.

It's creepy how the groups are starting to emerge.

Creepy Max Headroom ---> Tail(less) guy ---> The monitors

and

Thomas and Hannah and their twisted religious freakshow. "Don't call IT a SHE."

[delete this account pls]

It's possible that some of the clones don't have monitors, or have monitors that are more at a distance. Beth might be a special case, because she'd been suicidal in the past. With someone like Allison, I think it's easily possible her monitor is just the therapist she visits semi-regularly or her yoga teacher or something like that (we dont know if she does either of those things, but she seems the type)

Also, it seems they recruit monitors by blackmailing people who are already close to the clones. Paul implies he's only doing this because they have leverage on him from something that happened when he was in Afghanistan, but he and Beth were together before that. Maybe that's wrong, but it's the impression I got, anyway.

[Jon AS]

This show is still good. With longer running arcs I always expect them to implode, but so far this one is holding up.

Why would anybody want to have a useless tail?

Also, it seems they recruit monitors by blackmailing people who are already close to the clones. Paul implies he's only doing this because they have leverage on him from something that happened when he was in Afghanistan, but he and Beth were together before that. Maybe that's wrong, but it's the impression I got, anyway.

Olivier mentioned that he has a key to Beth and Paul's apartment because they bought the place for Paul in order to make him more attractive to Beth. That seems to imply to me that they picked him as her monitor and then inserted him into her life.

[denstorebog]

Well, this show just went completely cyberpunk on us. Very wise to start this development late in the series; it might have been alienating in the beginning, but by now it's been established that the 'real' layer is the grounded, suburban Canada and that the weird stuff is, well, weird. The tail stuff was disconcerting as hell, but hey, let's cut it off and dance around with it. I'm liking Helena more and more, she really is completely batshit on every level.

So, I assume it's a safe bet that the main conflict is between the science types from Diad Institute and an old-school religious sect (the ring on Thomas' finger and the whole fish thing seems to indicate as much). I guess the religious types are opposed to the whole transhumanism thing, the clones being in the center thereof. Maybe there's a personal grudge between Thomas and the Neolution leader as well, who knows.

This conflict could stand on its own without a whole lot more to fight over, so the question is whether the second season will try to attach even more stuff to the equation or just run with a simple, two-sided "secret war" conflict between science and religion. EDIT: I just saw a comment on the season finale by Tatiana Maslany which seems to address this - it doesn't really spoil anything, but what the hell:

TVLINE | How would you describe the season finale (airing June 1)?

[Laughs] Oh my God, whirlwind! It’s insane. It’s nuts. It’s really exciting. … There’s so many questions answered, and at the same time, there’s so many questions posed. These doors open… It’s a really gripping hour.

[SpaceChampion]

Thomas and Hannah and their twisted religious freakshow. "Don't call IT a SHE."

Helena, not Hannah.

For the women, it's logical that both X's are identical, as for whatever characteristics they've designed her for wouldn't necessarily be dominant, so making both sides of each of the 23 chromozone pairs identical would make sense to get around worrying about recessiveness of the traits they want.

Batshit crazy speculation: I'm wondering if Felix is also a clone, a version of Sarah but with a Y-chromozone added?

[protar]

Great episode. Paul is a boss.

Can we assume that Oliviae (sp?) is dead now. I don't really see why Helena would stop at his tail.

[Jon AS]

Can we assume that Oliviae (sp?) is dead now. I don't really see why Helena would stop at his tail.

Presumably it's the French name "Olivier". And yes, I'd say he's dead, otherwise why is Helena allowed to dance unmolested in his club?

[Larkstongue]

Finally got a chance to watch last weeks episode. Considering how much I've praised this show, I think I'm entitled to say that Art's partner, Angie, is a godawful actress. They tried to make her a little more interesting by giving her a... morgue predilection, but she's just annoying to me. I hope they do something about her in the second season!

The good stuff: Paul telling Sarah to run. Awesome. Sarah and Mrs. S having a reconciliatory moment was truly emotionally affecting. Helena salting her Jello was great. That whole scene with Helena and Sarah at lunch was sweet and creepy and really well done. The tail reveal was repellant. Eugh.

I'm not so sure that Olivier is dead. I have no evidence for that, besides not having seen a body. In any case, Helena dancing with the tail is not an image I'll be forgetting anytime soon. By the way, Sarah giving up her name to Helena.. I understand why she did it, partially, but doesn't this put Kira, Mrs. S, and Felix all at much greater risk? I know it's been established that Sarah is brilliant when thinking on her feet and terrible at long term planning, but shit.

[SpaceChampion]

Helena dancing with the tail was more gleefully crazy moment on television in recent memory.

Poor widdle Kira. Maybe she'll have super healing or something.

[denstorebog]

This was probably the least eventful episode of the series so far. I noticed that they spent a lot of time recapping the situation, giving us several who's-who explanations of the characters and their relationships. Even so, it was much better entertainment than most TV episodes out there. The characters are well enough established that the show can fall back on comical moments whenever nothing important is happening - Allison smoking and brawling being the obviously examples in this episode.

Random thoughts:

- Looks like Paul is about to get a promotion.

- Helena is, surprisingly, quickly becoming the most interesting clone

- We finally got an explanation for the title of the show

- Someone's going to die soon. They succesfully built up sympathy for an impressive array of characters, and they're going to take full advantage of that in the last two episodes.

Yeah, only two episodes left. Goddammit.

[SpaceChampion]

- We finally got an explanation for the title of the show

I totally missed it. Care to explain the explanation?

[denstorebog]

I totally missed it. Care to explain the explanation?

Mrs. S. tells Sarah that the "pipeline" that was responsible for distributing orphans to parents used the designation "in the black" as a term for undocumented orphans outside the system. The black orphans were supposedly medical experiments, and Sarah was one of these orphans. (This dialogue is near the end of the ep, when Kira descends the stairs towards the door and Helena.)

So, what are the latest monitor theories? Mrs. S. seems less and less plausible as Sarah's monitor, given how much she is divulging. However, we have to remember that the monitors aren't aware of the *reason* for monitoring their subjects. I suppose Mrs. S. could be doing it out of some good intentions. Felix is completely out of the question for me. The combination of his loyalty to Sarah and his awareness of the monitors' purpose would make it very unbelievable. I guess Mrs. S. is the only real option at the moment; I just hope there's a really good explanation for it. Or she might not have a monitor at all.

[Jon AS]

So once again Kira is emphasised as an important distinguishing feature amongst the clones. I'm guessing Helena is beginning to suspect that she doesn't have the whole story, or possibly even been completely lied to.

Or she might not have a monitor at all.

I think this is the case. The background story given by Mrs. S. would make it credible that the organisation completely lost track of Sarah at a very early age.

[SpaceChampion]

Mrs. S. tells Sarah that the "pipeline" that was responsible for distributing orphans to parents used the designation "in the black" as a term for undocumented orphans outside the system. The black orphans were supposedly medical experiments, and Sarah was one of these orphans. (This dialogue is near the end of the ep, when Kira descends the stairs towards the door and Helena.)

Thanks. I sort of half heard that, was paying more attention to Kira at that moment.

So, what are the latest monitor theories? Mrs. S. seems less and less plausible as Sarah's monitor, given how much she is divulging. However, we have to remember that the monitors aren't aware of the *reason* for monitoring their subjects. I suppose Mrs. S. could be doing it out of some good intentions. Felix is completely out of the question for me. The combination of his loyalty to Sarah and his awareness of the monitors' purpose would make it very unbelievable. I guess Mrs. S. is the only real option at the moment; I just hope there's a really good explanation for it. Or she might not have a monitor at all.

I'm sure at this point she had no monitor. Max Headroom's reaction to Delphine listing Sarah as one of Kosima's contacted clones strongly indicated he had lost track of her and was surprised to find her again.

I'm glad the monitor like Delphine and Paul have minds of their own, and don't act just like puppets for their boss. That Delphine didn't tell Leakey about Kira was surprising. I guess she is having some genuine feels for Kosima, and/or she realised that one of the clones being fertile was a really big deal that she wanted to analyse more before betraying Kosima. Seems too much like Paul, monitor falling for the monitored, but perhaps maybe that's the point, that real people (as opposed to stereotypical evil henchmen) who might be asked to do things like this would have trouble with it. Leakey could have hired total sociopaths to do the job of monitoring, but if you do you risk not being able to get emotionally close to the target.

I'm still surprised at how refreshingly logical and swift this show is. "Coming out" publicly (or at least to more and more people like potentially Art) is something a different show would have waited until the last season to do. At this rate I imagine at some time soon Sarah and her sisters will be on the news. Then the perhaps thousands of other clones will come forward and contact her. I really hope it is thousands.

I don't think the intrigue is the main focus of this show, so I wouldn't be surprised if the show morphs a bit with each season. Getting the same actress to play all these personalities is clearly the highlight, and the intrigue isn't needed for that, it's just a hook to get an audience initially.

[Howling Mad]

The show is moving at a hell of a pace which is outstanding. Hopefully, the sophmore season can keep pace. The acting is superb especially the Tatiana's ability to cover all of her characters.

[Howling Mad]

Regarding monitors:

One piece of evience pointing to Chad being Alison's monitor is that it would wrap of the "hat trick" of each clone having had sex with their monitor.