Airing in the UK on Netflix, Sundays
Written by: Jeremy Boxen
Director: John Fawcett

Essential Plot Points:

• Sarah wakes up in a room at Dyad to find Ferdinand looming over her.
• She’s not happy, but by video link, Alison, Art and Cosima all urge her to play along, because Rachel is now on their side and they all want the cure.
• “Is Sarah Manning finally ready to behave?” asks Ferdinand.
• Sarah goes to see Rachel and discovers that Mrs S and Rachel have registered Kira at school again. A normal life is on the cards! Sarah’s the only one holding out – and even Kira wants to work with Rachel now.

• Sarah gives in.
• Enger is still grilling Alison about Donnie and Helena’s whereabouts, but Alison really doesn’t know.
• Helena wakes up in hospital (and promptly farts, because she is Helena). There’s a possible problem with one of the babies…
• Sarah goes home. The moment Ferdinand leaves  – although Neo goons are still watching them – the gang discuss how they’re going to get out from under Rachel’s power. They figure out an escape plan.
• Helena’s baby gets better, baffling the doctors.
• Cosima talks to the little girl who is being treated for cancer by Westmoreland, but such talk is frowned upon. She’s summoned to meet him.
• Scott finds MK: she’s in Felix’s flat! She’s very sick. “Rachel wants to restart human cloning,” she tells Sarah, over Skype. She offers to take Kira to a safe place for them.
• Cosima meets PT Westmoreland. It turns out he knew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of all people (because clearly you can’t come from the past without having known someone famous). He also tells an amusing story about cheese.

• He wins Cosima over and she stays on to research the cure.
• Rachel plans to collect Kira from school so she can study her – this is part of the agreement for them leaving the seestras alone.
• Sarah dresses up as Rachel and takes Kira herself, so she can’t.
• Helena suspects that the doctor, who wants to examine her babies to find out why one healed so fast, is up to no good. She stabs her with a needle and escapes, but not before telling Donnie where she’ll hide out. Also, OW.

• Sarah goes to get MK, but she was followed by Ferdinand. MK stays to distract him while Sarah escapes.
• Ferdinand kills MK.
• Kira is about to be driven off to a safe place but the little girls freaks out. She can feel that MK is dead and she’s fed up of having these powers – she wants Rachel to study her. Reluctantly, Sarah agrees.

• Kira goes off with Rachel. Sarah is distraught.
• Delphine turns up, secretly, to talk to Mrs S.

Review:

Kids, eh? You hatch a plan to kidnap them from school, dress up as their aunt so you can fool the guards keeping an eye on her and then sacrifice your sister to let the sprog get away. And how does she say thanks? She tells you she doesn’t want to go and would rather stay with the terrifying lady who’s been destroying everybody’s lives for the last few seasons. For heaven’s sake, Kira!

Mind you, the kid has a point: having these powers and not knowing what else could be bubbling under in her DNA is rather worrying, and psychic Kira is kind of creepy (although it’s adorable that she instantly knew it was her mum, not Rachel, who came to get her; we were certainly fooled). It’ll be interesting to see how well Rachel treats her now – she seemed to bond a little with Charlotte last season, after all, although not enough to call herself a good mother or anything.

Elsewhere, Helena’s storyline is uber-disturbing, as we don’t really see any evidence that the doctor is working for Neo or generally a bad person – unless we missed it? – and yet she still gets that bloody great needle through her face. Bad Helena! Although clearly Ferdinand gets the title of Evil Person Of The Week for his horrible, gruesome despatching of MK.

We see characters die left, right and centre on TV; so much so that we’re usually immune to murders, and yet the way he kills her – stomping on her chest, over and over – is so graphic and unusual that it really disturbs. No wonder Rachel kicks him out afterwards; how could you ever recover from that?

The episode has a couple of great (and horrible) setpieces, then, but overall there’s something missing – the bait and switch at the school seems rather pointless in the long run, and the whole “hide Kira” thing //is// getting a bit old now. However, it’ll be interesting to see what Sarah does now that her own daughter appears to have abandoned her. And what does Delphine want? Intriguing.

The Good:

As MK and Sarah walk around Felix’s studio and switch clothes, the FX is bloody stunning – you’d never guess they were the same actor. We’ve said this before in our reviews, but it’s so easy to forget that Tatiana Maslany is playing everybody that you sometimes have to point out the truly seamless moments!

No matter the life-or-death scenario, Alison always has her priorities: “I have to stop an insurrection at the church Fall fair!”

Mrs S can always be relied on for a good insult, too, telling Ferdinand: “Why don’t you choke on your own vomit?”

And you have to love how Kira walks into school and the first thing she says is, “Do you have any bunsen burners?” Er… why? We dread to think.

The Bad:

MK’s death is truly shocking – this episode should come with a trigger warning if you’re upset by misogynistic violence.

The Random:

PT Westmoreland’s house contains stuffed animals – clearly the whole “Island of Dr Moreau” vibe here is more than deliberate!

Best Quote: Sarah, to Rachel: “Shove it up your bleached arse.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

Read all our reviews of Orphan Black here.