Orphan Black – Season 3

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It took me a while to warm up to Orphan Black from when I started watching the show in its first season, but once that 4-5 episodes slump was over, S2 was a breeze. This third cruises (if you sat through it without having to wait a whole year) with the high of the finale- which had Sarah (Maslany) surrendering to and breaking out of DYAD, after British stuck-up Rachel (Maslany) had managed to successfully play Sarah to fool Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy) and Felix (Jordan Gavaris) to kidnap Kira (Skyler Wexler), who ultimately takes a step aside in this arc in the story, as they all checkmate the big bad corporation in favor of military conspiracies, more genetics talk and complicated family trees, spiritual bonding between siblings and sestras, lesbian lover spats, and cutesy murder scenarios with our favorite childlike killer, Helena (Maslany).

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And that continues to be part of the genius- you did not know it was Rachel until Tatiana Maslany played Rachel being Sarah… and you can totally see Cosima or Helena while trying to play Alison. The sister bonding continues to grow throughout the season, as Sarah sets out to look for Helena who had been kidnapped to be experimented on by the military, under the guidance of twisted mother hen Dr. Virginia Coady (Kyra Harper), which turns out to be another of the many parallels of that much hated S4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I ran into. The murderous loose canon that is Helena has been, somewhat, redeemed to become one of the most appreciated characters in the series; broken and put back together in pieces that don’t exactly fit together quite right, like your favorite ragged toy.

You should not threaten babies.

Though the talks, explanation, and reveals of what Project LEDA (Maslany) and Project CASTOR (Ari Millen) are turn out to be, at times, confusing; the storyline actually brings a nice balance to the conversation between religious cults and how much science should be willing to go for science’s sake. Orphan Black is not religion-haters, you guys~ Moreover, it gives Ari Millen’s characters that lovely inmaterial relationship with Helena, who happens to interact with a bunch of them throughout, culminating with that gorgeous shot of Rudy and Helena in the garage, symbolizing their yin and yang destinies.

Sarah also manages to deal with her unfinished business, metaphysically speaking, with Beth (Maslany) in a vision/dream sequence of self-growth and discovery that also reminded me of Buffy‘s Restless (4×22) that’s truly one of the best moments; on top of that final episode when we see that many of the members of Clone Club dining together like the bizarre happy family that they are– fantastic as that scene in United States of Tara‘s Wheels (3×04), only even more brilliant.

Rating: ★★★¾☆ 

amy

YAM Magazine editor, photographer, blogger, translator and part-time web designer. Film junkie, music junkie… and lately series (a.k.a. TV) junkie.

2 Responses

  1. ” culminating with that gorgeous shot of Rudy and Helena in the garage, symbolizing their yin and yang destinies”
    and this is a good parallel to an earlier shot of Helena and Sarah sleeping..I think in a tent, where they were arranged in a similar fashion to how they might have sat in the womb.

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