Orphan Black S40E07 “The Antisocialism Of Sex” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Netflix, Fridays

Writers: Nikolijne Troubetzkoy, Graeme Manson
Director: David Frazee

Essential Plot Points:

• Rachel is finally let out of her room and finds she’s in a secluded house on what Susan calls “The Island Of Dr Moreau”. Susan is despondent, as she has to give up on her cause and sign Neolution and all she’s worked for over to Evie Cho, who will go forward with her gene technology and have no need for clones.
• Mrs S is distraught about her mum dying, and Sarah can’t cope with the guilt. She leaves and goes on a bender. Kira – apparently using that weird psychic power of hers – says her mum isn’t coming back as she’s “following Beth”.
• Alison is also distraught, but she throws herself into a birthday party for her daughter and tries to deny that anything is wrong. Donnie is worried and calls Reverend Mike over to talk to her. Alison stays tight-lipped.
• Cosima, too, is distraught, grief-stricken about Delphine and blaming herself completely for Kendall’s death. All their research has been destroyed and there’s nothing she can do to save all the clones. However, before long she hits upon a crazy plan: to implant the maggot-bot from Leekie into her cheek in the hope it will “turn on” a cure…
• Art has a little talk with Duko after realising he’s the one who killed Kendall. And by “little talk”, we mean “kicks the shit out of him”. However, Duko fires back that Art’s career may be over, as he knows he planted a cellphone on the woman Beth shot. Art may have met his match.
• Later, Duko and the police raid the birthday party, scaring the crap out of the kids and arresting Donnie for drug-dealing. In conclusion: Duko is a dick.
• Sarah is off drinking and partying, making a fool out of herself by getting off with a couple she meets who give her drugs. Dizzy turns up and after some drunken shouting, he drags Sarah out of the bar and takes her home. They’re about to get down to some sexy funtimes when he asks her how she got the maggot-bot out of her cheek – annoyed, she storms out and leaves him.
• Cosima locks herself in the lab and goes to implant the maggot-bot in her own cheek. Despairing, Scott calls Felix, who’s out looking for Sarah. Felix tells Cosima that Krystal saw Delphine get shot… but it looked as though Delphine survived. Thrown a lifeline, Cosima drops the maggot-bot and abandons her plan.
• Meanwhile, a drunk and high Sarah is hallucinating Beth, who tells her to end it. Sarah is wavering, considering leaping off a bridge, but Felix turns up and talks her down. “This isn’t the way, is it?” he says. “You’ve got to be stronger than her, Sarah.” And Sarah is.
• Sheepishly, Sarah goes home and Mrs S accepts her silent apology. They sit holding hands.
• In the other room, though, MK is talking to Kira on her computer.
• At the house, Rachel falls down some stairs and hallucinates a swan. Only it glitches and shakes like the cat in The Matrix. Is it caused by her robotic eye, or is she actually in The Matrix? Now that would be one helluva twist. Perhaps all those Agent Smiths were clones all along…

Review:

It’s quite difficult to enjoy this post-Kendall assassination episode given all the mourning and guilt dripping from every pore; not that we’re saying the episode should have been all joy and laughter, but it is quite hard going at times. Even Alison, usually guaranteed to inject some fun, projects her share of “tragic” as she gets down on her knees and prays to God – although at least we can laugh at her repeatedly saying “fudge” instead of “fuck”. (A few weeks ago she was digging up a corpse in her garage but she won’t swear? She’s one of a kind, is our Alison.)

You’d think Sarah’s bender would be totally in character for her, given the girl we first met all those years ago, but it”s difficult to understand quite why she’d run out on Kira again now, after fighting so much for her. This Sarah isn’t the same one who originally met Beth, so it’s a huge step backwards and, possibly, a step too far for us to swallow. Still, her night on the tiles is interesting and it’s good to see Dizzy back on the scene – and enough of a gent to know that perhaps there are bigger things at play with Sarah than just a quick lay. She owes him an apology now, but we’d be shocked if he got one…

Elsewhere, it’s good to see Rachel out of her room at last – and what a view she had awaiting her (hands up who else is coveting that house!). Her attempt to ingratiate herself with Evie went down like a lead balloon, so will she be teaming up with the other sisters now in a genuine attempt to find a cure? Or has she totally given up? Either way, when she breaks the news to little Charlotte that they’re both doomed, she does it with about as much finesse and empathy as a bear rampaging through a hall of mirrors, so she’s still a nasty piece of work when she wants to be.

And what about that final scene with the swan, eh? Does Rachel have a new superpower now? Fascinating… Also, maybe we’re imagining it but that swan looked hilariously indignant about being there.

Oh, and finally: Felix saved not one but two seestras this week. Someone had better buy him a beer for that.

The Good:

• While Donnie is telling ghost stories, the kids are so hilariously into it that you kind of wish you were one of them.

• Gotta love the editing when Sarah’s got a gentleman’s head between her legs in the bar – as it happens, the singer on stage lifts her guitar and sticks her tongue between the V in response. Naughty.
• Sarah chanting “West Ham! West Ham!” while leaving the bar. (If you’re a West Ham fan.)

The Bad:

• It’s impossible, utterly impossible, to think of Duko as a bad guy when he’s wearing these silly earmuffs.
• There’s something odd about Sarah having a demented night out in a club at the same time as the Hendrixes are throwing a kids’ party. Unless that club has gigs at 5pm, of course.

• Evie has shingles but doesn’t have them under a dressing and is wearing a white top. So, er, how come she doesn’t have blister-gunk and blood all over her blouse?
• Sarah chanting “West Ham! West Ham!” while leaving the bar. (If you’re not a West Ham fan.)

The Random:

• In Greek mythology, the god Zeus disguised himself as a swan and seduced Leda, the wife of King Tyndareus, after flying into her arms after being chased by an eagle.
• The same night, Leda also slept with her husband, which means the four children she later bore could have been the offspring of either him or Zeus (Greek mythology never does make much sense, does it?).
• Mind you, some legends say two of the children were hatched from eggs she laid, so that would’ve been a bit of a giveaway. And one of the kids was Helen of Helen Of Troy fame, and she also bore two boys: Castor and Pollux…
• Best Quote: Scott to Cosima: “I got your favourite – bad coffee and a good croissant.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read our other Orphan Black reviews