Orphan Black is back and it's clonier than ever! It's also looking like it's going to be much darker than ever, so we're in for one hell of a season. Somewhat literally, if you're Helena. We've also got man clones to deal with, the return of Rachel, a new semi evil-mastermind version of Delphine, and lots and lots of murder plots. Truly, the fun never ends here in the Clone Club. Now let's break it all down!
1. Man Clones are a thing, but they're no Project Leda
If you were expecting a life-changing, Tatiana-esque performance out of these many man clones, that probably going to be a no-go. It's not Ari Millen's fault (he's doing a lovely job of running around maniacally), it's just that there's not enough happening to differentiate the Castor Clones to tell them apart. They all have the same hair cut, but one has a scar, one has a moustache, one...looks nicer? At this point, they all seem at least a little bit crazy too. I'm sure as the season goes along we'll figure this out more, but we really never had a problem telling Helena and Alison apart - just sayin'.
2. Helena's having a pretty rough go of it.
We've learned that Mrs. S got Helena kidnapped by the Castor Clones in exchange for Kira, but this transition will not be an easy one. Though the episode begins with a charming, sunshiney baby shower for Helena thrown by all her adoring seestras, it turns out there was never any backyard bash at all and Helena is locked in a small box controlled by the Castor-involved military. She's keeping a relative amount of cool though, since sadly this poor, poor dear is used to horrible tortures like this. She's also got the company of a friendly scorpion with a charming little speaking voice played by none other than Tatiana Freaking Maslany, because she's playing nonhuman characters too now. See?! This article was totally on the right track the entire time!
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3. Sarah loves her seestra and is hell-bent on getting her back.
Sarah and Helena have certainly had their rough patches, but there's now way she's letting Castor take her sister. After the crazy dude clone tells her to "count her sisters," Sarah goes into hyper-drive trying to find out what happened to Helena. However, her hyper-drive gets stalled when Delphine arrives to request her help. A mysterious Topside "cleaner" named Ferdinand is arriving to check on everything, and can't be aware that Rachel's been stabbed in the face with a pencil and might even be dead for all we know at this point. Sarah agrees, and gets one of those great makeovers where we can tell it's Sarah's pretending to be Rachel because Tatiana's such an incredible actress. Even better, there's another piece of this clone swap puzzle that makes this all that much better...
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4. Alison has a terrible British accent.
Though an actress, Alison barely makes the grade when she's called upon to impersonate Sarah during the Great Clone Charade of 2015. Sarah was only supposed to be impersonating Rachel long enough to say "Hey!" to Ferdinand, but now he wants to check on Sarah's oophorectomy and since Sarah's playing Rachel, Alison's on hand to do her best British accent (though we really can't blame her for that terrible wig). Of course, said oophorectomy hasn't happened, which Ferdinand discovers after feeling AliSarah up. Delphine pulls him aside to explain they couldn't do the procedure while "Sarah" was on her period and science + menstrual cycles is enough to get Ferdinand to leave this alone. Alison's free to continue living her life, which has been shaken up a little since Donnie abruptly quit his job. However, she's found new purpose in life deciding to run for school board trustee. Sure, there are bigger things going on for the clones, but it's certain Alison will take this just as seriously.
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5. Delphine is sort of terrifying when given power.
Remember when Rachel was stabbed in the face with a pencil? Well now Dyad needs a new Rachel, and they've reached out to Delphine. Girl's on a mission, but has been informed for this to work she needs to love all the clones equally. Sadly this means what we think it means, and she shows up at Cosima's to tell her she needs to break it off (although hey, would the other option where she has a love affair with all of them have been so bad?). Cosima's weepy delivery of "I love you," is the heartbreaking moment of the night, and while Delphine is clearly shaken, she doesn't take it back. She does, however, go to visit Rachel, who is revealed to be alive. Delphine gets a little torture-y, pushing into Rachel's eye socket just to get her to say her name, and we get a little shivery cause this is a terrifying Delphine we haven't seen before. Some good news? Cosima, though heartbroken, has been feeling better lately! Yay! She's also not in this episode much, but at least she's not suffering!
6. Ferdinand is absolutely the worst.
There may be a lot of precarious, murder-tastic Castor clones running around, but Ferdinand is the true villain in this episode. It appears he and Rachel were having an affair and were also involved in this secret project called "Helsinki." Turns out, Helsinki happened in 2006 when six Leda clones were targeted and murdered, and now Ferdinand's come for part 2. Apparently, he and Rachel were supposed to get ahold of Sarah's ovary, kill all the other clones, and pave the way for Rachel to become the one true Mother of Clones. He breaks down how each of the clones we've come to know and love is going to get killed, then tries to push past this to get kinky with SaRachel. Unfortunately, Sarah isn't really in the mood to have kinky sex after discovering her sisters are about to be murdered, and desperately tries to call Alison before her house gets burnt to the ground. Like, for real. A creepy guy is in their backyard about to burn the house down. Alison's working on her fitness and can't be bothered to answer the phone, but luckily Delphine enters as Sarah is about to kill Ferdinand and forces him to call it off. Creepy man gets a cancellation text (check your phones, people) and Alison is okay. For now. Ferdinand remains unkilled, so we can expect more of his suckiness around this season as well.
7. The Seestra bond is stronger than ever.
There's undeniably a lot going on this season, but one thing we can count on is these girls working together for the greater good of their own survival. With a hard minus on Rachel, the rest of the Leda clones that we're aware of are more in touch and more in tune with each other than ever before. Of course they totally misplaced Helena, but now they're working to get her back against all odds. We can't wait to watch this all go down.
8. There are endless more clones out there in the world.
At the top of the episode, Delphine explains how she got ahold of the crazy Castor clone that Sarah interrogated (or that interrogated Sarah, really). Turns out, he and his psychotic, moustachioed brother were trying to kidnap a new clone, whom we see in an elevator making out with one of them before all the kidnappery went down. This girl's name is Kristal Godrich, and she didn't end up kidnapped, which means she's still running around somewhere. Sadly, we now know there are 6 clones we'll never get to meet thanks to Helsinki, but there could still be so many more running around that we get to know this season. Or next season. Or forever, because we're pretty sure Tatiana Maslany will be brilliant for all of eternity.
