There are two kinds of clones in Orphan Black: Clones who are self-aware and those who are “naive.” Obviously, our Clone Club members fall into the former category, but what happens when we encounter a clone sitting at the fringes of the conspiracy? Is it better to let her know she’s not crazy? Or hope she stays unaware?
Bloody Rachel is right. Somehow, Orphan Black manages to keep surprising me with the horrible things it’s willing to inflict upon its characters. And Krystal really seems like a sweet gal.
Most of “Ruthless In Purpose, And Insidious In Method” involves a power struggle between Delphine and Rachel, even if Delphine isn’t quite aware of what’s going on most of the time. Delphine as the new Rachel has been an interesting journey, in part because Delphine’s motives have always been a bit murky. Yes, she fell for Cosima, but she was with Dyad long before she met our favorite dreadlocked scientist, and she’s always been more trusting of Dyad than Clone Club has.
But, when it comes down to it, Delphine and Rachel are very different people. Delphine may have grown colder and straightened her hair, but Rachel’s life, her whole existence, has been guided by resentment and regret. Delphine simply isn’t as ruthless as Rachel (as evidenced by the fact that Rachel is still alive) and her ends, while not always transparent, aren’t nearly as self-serving.
As part of her mission at Dyad (and to love all of Cosima’s sisters equally), Delphine checks out Krystal, the Leda clone that Rudy and Seth targeted a while back. Krystal is coping with her encounter by spilling her guts about the incident — which resulted in the death of her boyfriend/monitor — to every single one of her manicure clients.
Somehow, Delphine decides that Krystal has accepted and rationalized what happened to her. This is why Delphine is an immunologist and not a psychologist. Come on, this is not the face of a calm and collected individual.
Well, it turns out that Rachel has bigger plans for Miss Goderitch. The Clone Clubbers may not like Rachel, and they may not fully trust Rachel, but they do underestimate her for the moment. It makes sense; Rachel seems relatively helpless and it looks like Clone Club is her only way to escape her imprisonment. Scott relays a nursery rhyme that Rachel claims she translated from Ethan’s book, and offers to translate the rest for a price: Crystal’s identity. So the grifting team of Manning and Dawkins is in play.
Felix puts on his best straight voice and marches into the salon where Crystal works for a mani-pedi. She happily flirts with him, but in a kind of distracted way. It’s not out of left field when he starts talking about porn names, in part because he’s already been firing obvious sexual innuendo in her direction and in part because she has bigger things weighing on her mind.
And surprise! Delphine was wrong about Krystal. Very, very wrong. Dr. Nealon snarked that Krystal wasn’t “one to pierce the veil,” but she’s certainly been poking and prodding at it. When Felix sneaks into the staff room and finds Krystal’s purse, he also discovers a journal where she’s been piecing together what happened with the Castor boys. More than that, she’s been asking why this happened to her specifically. She’s actually quite close to realizing that all of her boyfriends haven’t been what they’ve seemed.
Krystal tells Felix that she’s not that smart, but not that stupid either. She’s certainly had an epiphany, but maybe it wasn’t the best idea to draw the Castor tattoo onto the cover of her secret investigation diary.
Felix is freaking out over all of this, not because she might pierce the veil, but because she’s dancing at the edge of it alone. Being in Clone Club may mean that your life is constantly in peril, but it also means family, people who will help you process the terrible things that you’re going through. Felix can’t give her that, so he instead gives her a pep talk. (Also, I love that Krystal immediately acts like a “truth voice” is a real thing that makes total sense; given everything else going on in her life, it probably seems perfectly reasonable.)
Meanwhile, some very stupid things are happening in Cosima land. Whenever I rewatch that moment in Season Two when Cosima tells Felix, “I won’t apologize for my heart,” I bust out laughing because 1) it’s clearly a line Cosima has delivered to other people before and 2) Cosima’s heart has a fuckload of apologizing to do.
Cosima is having such a grand time with her Reiki-practicing, near-death-experience expert girlfriend Shay that she invites her to her top secret Dyad lab. Cosima, there is actually a very good reason that your secret lab is secret. I’m amazed that someone can just waltz in there with a visitor pass, but I guess that’s how Gracie and company ended up in there for testing. Anyhow, after charming Scott by claiming enthusiasm for one of his boardgames, Shay grabs the Island of Doctor MacGuffin. Cosima quickly snags the book, which ends up in Scott’s bag. And who just happens to show up at Scott’s apartment looking for that very book but Rudy?
It further endears Scott to me that he’s less worried for his own safety than for that of his cat, Denise.
Yep, so Rudy gets the book, and a panicked Scott runs to Delphine. Delphine is, not surprisingly, pissed, but Cosima still isn’t ready to trust Delphine. She also doesn’t trust her own heart (ha!), which is apparent when Delphine tenderly touches her hand during a conversation, something that clearly stirs up complicated emotions for Cosima. She decides she has to sever her professional relationship with Delphine, tendering her resignation at Dyad. There’s a lot of heartache in this scene, but I’m so frustrated with Cosima at this point that I can’t really feel it.
Cosima and Sarah also decide to play ball with Rachel — with some help from Scott’s gaming buddies.
They get a copy of Ethan’s book to Sarah and help Scott smuggle Rachel out. Amidst contempt from Sarah and Felix, Rachel continues her translation, but she barely makes any progress before Dr. Nealon shows up to “recapture” her. To make the performance complete, Rachel fakes a seizure.
It turns out that Nealon was working with Rachel this whole time. He tells everyone that Rachel is comatose and may never recover. While the real Rachel is getting a new identity and a new prosthetic eye, Nealon has had poor Krystal kidnapped to serve as Rachel’s stand-in. It turns out that, in this case, it’s worse not to know you’re a clone, because you’re not able to protect yourself.
Using the one clue Rachel provided, Siobhan decides that it’s time to pack up and head to London in search of the Castor original. Field trip!
After everything that’s been happening this season with the Castor boys, it’s nice to have a good old-fashioned Leda con job on our hands. Best of all, the other clones and Delphine have no idea they’ve been played.
Then again, this isn’t just about Leda and Dyad. Marion, who has been suspiciously absent this season, appears in Rachel’s operating room, and it’s likely that she has some connection to Coady’s boss David.
Oh right! But we have this whole other plotline with Alison and Donnie. I wondered how their story was going to tie back to the rest of Clone Club, and it turns out that it’s getting a hefty dose of Helena. Felix decides that it’s the Hendrixes’ turn to take care of their feral sister, and while Donnie’s reluctant about having the little murderess about (not that the Hendrixes are in a position to judge), he’s actually rather flattered when Helena starts flirting with him.
And Donnie’s far less distressed by Helena’s presence than he is by Jason Kellerman, who kissed the disguised Cosima last week.
Jason Kellerman has the stones to think that, while Donnie’s not good enough for Alison, he is. But when Donnie tricks Jason into a confrontation, Kellerman makes a grave mistake. You see, he assumes that he’s the biggest badass in Donnie and Alison’s lives. He doesn’t know about Helena, or what she’ll do if she realizes that Jason is threatening her happy little family unit.