Orphan Black 3.06
May. 24th, 2015 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which there are visions and symbols.
Sarah-in-delirium talking to her inner Beth as the equivalent of Helena talking to her inner scorpion works for me. I continue to approve of the show's reminders of Beth as a person, not just a plot device. Mind you, in this particular case it's also a set up to Paul's final act, obviously, but still.
Before I get to that, from the minor to the major, no pun intended: turns out the photographer taking pictures of Cosima and Shaye was working for a jealous Delphine. Well, at least that makes it look like Shaye could be a relation for Cosima in which the other party isn't having a secret agenda, but still, sigh. I know representation is important and all that, but the Cosima/Delphine relationship, and now its fallout, keeps being the least interesting part of the show for me.
Sadly, the next least interesting subplot is the Alison one, which even as Breaking Bad lite is not entertaining me any longer in its utter disconnection to the other clones. Then again, the trailer makes it look like we're going to finally meet Alison's mother next week, so at least there's that to look forward to.
An increasingly worried Felix persuading Scott to let him see Rachel as the person at Dyad most likely to know about the Castors? Good. Felix trying to bully Rachel into giving him the information? Disturbing, and meant to be, I think, to Felix, too, not to mention Scott. Incidentally, I'm relieved it didn't work, because as an article recently pointed out, there have been too many examples recently of torture working if the good guys do it. That Scott notices on that occasion that Rachel, painting, used the same symbols Ethan Duncan did in his coding of The Island of Dr. Moreau (i.e. the implication being that Rachel, and only Rachel, knows what these symbols mean) is an ingenious way of bringing Rachel back to the overall plot. And it brings back one element that affected me deeply last season, which was the whole Rachel and Ethan Duncan relationship. I mean, yes, Rachel has done horrible things, and was planning to do more. For which she's fully responsible. But the thing is, he faked his death and left her to the Dyad Institute and Leekie when she was a child. As far as we know, he never made an attempt to free her. So who and what Rachel became is also his responsibility (leaving aside he literally designed her), and the way he ultimately washed his hands of her - "you don't deserve me anymore" - was just gutwrenching and made me feel for Rachel despite all she'd done.
As speculated, the whatever the right scientific name is that the Castor clones are transmitting via sex is an accidental by product of their sterility which however since its discovery has promptly been seized upon and weaponized by Dr. Cody. And the army, because imo that's what Paul grasps during that last phone call; the higher ups in the army aren't on his side, they're on Virginia Cody's side, because they want what she's offering, and his superior was the one who alerted Rudy. Also, "ending wars within a generation" : presumably what Virginia Cody is talking about here is letting the Castors loose on whatever female population of an enemy her bosses want to defeat, i.e. rape and enforced sterililzation, just to clarify?
(Want to know the truly creepy part? Back in 2002 when I was in the US in the year after 9/11 I was talking to someone with connections to a think tank and he told me that an idea like not completely dissimilar - i.e. not the rape part, the biological warfare aimed at one particular people with the aim of ending them within a generation - was actually floated around, though dismissed as inpractical.)
Thanks for clarifying Mark had no idea of this (but that Rudy did, not that the later was in doubt), show. I continue to root for your survival, Mark. Also thanks for coming through with my speculation that you and Paul are going to team up and help getting Sarah out of the camp. And speaking of people for whose survival I'm rooting, Gracie seems to be doing fine again now, both physically and psychologically, which is a relief.
And lastly, Paul. The show didn't really know what to do with him post season 1, and trying to keep him relevant to the action first by making him Rachel's bodyguard and then by retconning him as the army's mole in the Dyad camp felt like increasingly desperate stretches, but here they found a good way for him to go out on that manages to tie up the various ways they tried to use the character - Beth's monitor (the discovery of which was one of the factors that contributed to her suicide) who genuinely falls for Sarah, morally ambiguous soldier with changing loyalties, then again committed soldier - into a whole that works. Here, he draws consequences from his discovery from last episode, first by putting an immediate stop to it, and then, after realising his superiors are actually not on the ethical side of things here, going out by helping Sarah escape and by destroying Cody's research (and attempting to destroy Cody and Rudy while he's at it, but since they are main antagonists this season, I fully expect them to survive the explosion- but then, Paul doesn't know he's living in a tv show, so full marks for trying). Bringing Beth back in Sarah's vision is a reminder of Paul's personal guilt in the way he deceived her. Beth's suicide started Sarah's journey towards discovery, Paul's death - which is and isn't also a suicide - helps her to regain her freedom.
Speculation: will or won't Cosima tell Delphine what Scott just found out re: Rachel is a far more interesting question than whether they're going to have an exes argument re: Shaye. Also I'm looking forward to Cosima and Rachel scenes with Cosima trying to persuade Rachel to deliver the decyphering without using torture, while Rachel has to realise that on the one hand, this is also the code for her own survival, and on the other, the fact that Ethan Duncan gave the book to the other clones is yet another postumous parental rejection.
Sarah-in-delirium talking to her inner Beth as the equivalent of Helena talking to her inner scorpion works for me. I continue to approve of the show's reminders of Beth as a person, not just a plot device. Mind you, in this particular case it's also a set up to Paul's final act, obviously, but still.
Before I get to that, from the minor to the major, no pun intended: turns out the photographer taking pictures of Cosima and Shaye was working for a jealous Delphine. Well, at least that makes it look like Shaye could be a relation for Cosima in which the other party isn't having a secret agenda, but still, sigh. I know representation is important and all that, but the Cosima/Delphine relationship, and now its fallout, keeps being the least interesting part of the show for me.
Sadly, the next least interesting subplot is the Alison one, which even as Breaking Bad lite is not entertaining me any longer in its utter disconnection to the other clones. Then again, the trailer makes it look like we're going to finally meet Alison's mother next week, so at least there's that to look forward to.
An increasingly worried Felix persuading Scott to let him see Rachel as the person at Dyad most likely to know about the Castors? Good. Felix trying to bully Rachel into giving him the information? Disturbing, and meant to be, I think, to Felix, too, not to mention Scott. Incidentally, I'm relieved it didn't work, because as an article recently pointed out, there have been too many examples recently of torture working if the good guys do it. That Scott notices on that occasion that Rachel, painting, used the same symbols Ethan Duncan did in his coding of The Island of Dr. Moreau (i.e. the implication being that Rachel, and only Rachel, knows what these symbols mean) is an ingenious way of bringing Rachel back to the overall plot. And it brings back one element that affected me deeply last season, which was the whole Rachel and Ethan Duncan relationship. I mean, yes, Rachel has done horrible things, and was planning to do more. For which she's fully responsible. But the thing is, he faked his death and left her to the Dyad Institute and Leekie when she was a child. As far as we know, he never made an attempt to free her. So who and what Rachel became is also his responsibility (leaving aside he literally designed her), and the way he ultimately washed his hands of her - "you don't deserve me anymore" - was just gutwrenching and made me feel for Rachel despite all she'd done.
As speculated, the whatever the right scientific name is that the Castor clones are transmitting via sex is an accidental by product of their sterility which however since its discovery has promptly been seized upon and weaponized by Dr. Cody. And the army, because imo that's what Paul grasps during that last phone call; the higher ups in the army aren't on his side, they're on Virginia Cody's side, because they want what she's offering, and his superior was the one who alerted Rudy. Also, "ending wars within a generation" : presumably what Virginia Cody is talking about here is letting the Castors loose on whatever female population of an enemy her bosses want to defeat, i.e. rape and enforced sterililzation, just to clarify?
(Want to know the truly creepy part? Back in 2002 when I was in the US in the year after 9/11 I was talking to someone with connections to a think tank and he told me that an idea like not completely dissimilar - i.e. not the rape part, the biological warfare aimed at one particular people with the aim of ending them within a generation - was actually floated around, though dismissed as inpractical.)
Thanks for clarifying Mark had no idea of this (but that Rudy did, not that the later was in doubt), show. I continue to root for your survival, Mark. Also thanks for coming through with my speculation that you and Paul are going to team up and help getting Sarah out of the camp. And speaking of people for whose survival I'm rooting, Gracie seems to be doing fine again now, both physically and psychologically, which is a relief.
And lastly, Paul. The show didn't really know what to do with him post season 1, and trying to keep him relevant to the action first by making him Rachel's bodyguard and then by retconning him as the army's mole in the Dyad camp felt like increasingly desperate stretches, but here they found a good way for him to go out on that manages to tie up the various ways they tried to use the character - Beth's monitor (the discovery of which was one of the factors that contributed to her suicide) who genuinely falls for Sarah, morally ambiguous soldier with changing loyalties, then again committed soldier - into a whole that works. Here, he draws consequences from his discovery from last episode, first by putting an immediate stop to it, and then, after realising his superiors are actually not on the ethical side of things here, going out by helping Sarah escape and by destroying Cody's research (and attempting to destroy Cody and Rudy while he's at it, but since they are main antagonists this season, I fully expect them to survive the explosion- but then, Paul doesn't know he's living in a tv show, so full marks for trying). Bringing Beth back in Sarah's vision is a reminder of Paul's personal guilt in the way he deceived her. Beth's suicide started Sarah's journey towards discovery, Paul's death - which is and isn't also a suicide - helps her to regain her freedom.
Speculation: will or won't Cosima tell Delphine what Scott just found out re: Rachel is a far more interesting question than whether they're going to have an exes argument re: Shaye. Also I'm looking forward to Cosima and Rachel scenes with Cosima trying to persuade Rachel to deliver the decyphering without using torture, while Rachel has to realise that on the one hand, this is also the code for her own survival, and on the other, the fact that Ethan Duncan gave the book to the other clones is yet another postumous parental rejection.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-24 01:41 pm (UTC)Allison: I give them plus points for suggesting a "Lush" substitute shop as the perfect drug front. Other than that, I'm hoping her mother will turn out to be Susan Duncan, or Leda herself, or something like that. That would salvage all the time we have to spend with Donnie (I'm sure the actor is a wonderful person.).
I did kind of suspect that the disease was a "field test," so to speak. Lovely. I'm not sure the idea was giving male soldiers a free pass for rape, but more infecting men and women with the pathogen, and have the women go sterile, while the men... die. (In a lot of countries, that would also mean a reduced chance at strategic warfare within the generation they are infecting, since most armies are still predominantly male, and the female parts of the population presumably less trained in weaponry.)
Why am I not surprised at an idea like that being mulled over in the actual world?
Paul obviously never interested me much, but that was a good way to go out, and you're right, they did manage to sort of knit him into a satisfying whole in the end.
Felix torturing Rachel fits Beth's "people do horrible things for people they love." I hope that was his last trip to that particular dark side, though. As for Rachel, I'm really looking forward to her and the others trying to develop common ground, since she is as dependent on them getting her out and protecting her, as they are on her knowledge. On some level, I could even see her bonding with Gracie over being victims of horrible parents and science projects (although Gracie has a different take on the biological children question, which is very understandable.).