Orphan Black - S1E5 - Conditions of Existence
Previously on Orphan Black, ‘Effects of External Conditions’
The episode opens in what is possibly the least sterile operating room ever. A man wearing in a clunky gold ring is cleaning out Helena’s wound. She’s pretty out of it – well, more so than usual – but is lucid enough to reveal this dude’s name: Thomas. Girl is also sprouting some serious regrowth. They seem to have a pretty father/ child relationship, although whether it’s father in the daddy sense or the preacher sense I can’t tell.
Over at Beth’s, Sarah is Skyping Alison. Alison’s not too pleased about Sarah quitting the cop life. They have one of their more amicable conversations about how swell Kira is. Alison heads to bed in some neat pink flannel pajamas. She brushes off Donny’s advances and they retire to their respective sides of bed.
A sneaky Paul interrupts Sarah’s shower times, and she almost stabs him in the eye with a nail file. Not to let a little thing like that get in the way, they quickly engage in some shower sex. Daayum. Later on in bed he tells her that they should go away together. I’ve gotta admit, this dumb hunk of man meat has started to grow on me. He’s kinda sweet.
Girl is having some freaky-ass dreams! She’s strapped to a table and being poked and prodded by a bunch of scientists. Also everything is blue. She wakes up back in bed, but OH SHIT! It wasn’t a dream! She finds some kind of… science… thing in her mouth, which was pretty careless really for a secretive organization. On further examination she finds track marks from being injected with unknown substances. Seriously, how did they think she wouldn’t notice?!
In the light of her discoveries, Paul’s morning chitchat takes on a much more sinister edge. I don’t know about Sarah, but I’m a bit distracted by human Ken-doll Paul walking around topless! Mmm… Sarah high-tails out of there.
Sarah calls up Cosima for an explanation about the thing in her mouth. Cosima shoots her some technobabble which I think boils down to saying that they were checking the electrics in her brain. The Clone Club figure out that there is probably someone close to them who is monitoring them, most likely Paul in Sarah/Beth’s case. Felix lets slip that Paul and Sarah are sleeping together, and Alison is surprisingly chill about it. Alison gives Sarah $20,000 for a self-defense fund. Sarah gets a call from Raj. He is asking if he can get the surveillance equipment back that he lent her. It seems Beth might have been on to Paul too.
Over at Alison’s, Doofus Donny is making a very suspicious phone call whilst rummaging through his wife’s drawers. I guess we know who her monitor is. Alison catches him in the act, and he turns out to be a far less capable liar than Sarah.
Felix and Sarah rummage through Beth’s house in search of the missing surveillance equipment. In the closet they find a box where Paul is keeping a gun and photos of himself in the military. I guess Ken is actually G.I. Joe. He also has a Purple Heart and letters from Beth in there. They find the surveillance stuff in the boot of Beth’s car.
Sarah decides to check out where Paul works to see if it’s real. It seems somewhat legit, and Paul’s nice secretary lets her wait in his office un-chaperoned.
Alison is spying on Donny. She goes through his drawers, but only finds porn. (Side note: Who uses actual DVDs anymore, that’s what the Internet is for!)
Sarah sets about bugging Paul’s office.
Alison hunts around in the garage and finds a mysterious lockbox. The padlock proves too strong for her attempt at sawing it off.
Paul comes in just as Sarah finishes bugging the place. He tries to have a repeat of last night’s shower antics in his office, but Sarah declines, possibly because Felix is listening to everything that’s happening. Though normally not one to notice things, Paul sees that Sarah is missing a scar on her neck. Sarah plays it off as a new lotion, and Paul seems to buy it. When she leaves, however he pulls out the old home videos and has a close examination of Beth’s neck.
Alison’s lock sawing is interrupted by Donny’s return. She freaks out on him telling him to open the box, but he grabs it and runs off.
Over in Minnesota, Cosima is testing blood samples with some geeky nerd pal. He seems to have a bit of a crush, and I can’t really blame him. On the subject of crushes, Cosima seems to have one on the very cute French gal across the way. She leaves a piece of paper behind when she leaves and Cosima goes over to have a look at it. It’s her grades for the semester, and damn are they good!
Sarah is reading Beth’s letters. She’s pissed at Paul because Beth loved him, but he didn’t reciprocate. Felix thinks that Paul may well have fallen for Sarah. She is picking Kira up from school, whilst Felix has a date with Colin the morgue guy.
Luckily for Sarah, Kira knows that it’s her straight away. They walk home together and it’s all hunky dory until some unseen person takes surveillance photos of them.
Back in the states, Cosima catches up with the cute Frenchy to give her her marks back. Her hair is glorious. She’s upset about a bad breakup. They get chatting about their respective fields of dorkitude. The new gal studies parasites, which I hope isn’t some kind of bad portent. Her name is Delphine.
At Mrs. S’s place they are having a pretty nice chat about Kira. Sarah asks if Mrs. S knows anything about where she came from, but she can’t throw any light on things.
Wow! I had forgotten that Vic existed! He is in some hot water with some scungey eastern European guys over the coke that Sarah stole. They decide that the best way to incentivize Vic to give them what he owes is to cut off his finger.
Alison is taking her kids to the store and decides to buy herself a nanny cam! In a very unfortunate coincidence, a bloodied up Vic is also at the store. He sees Alison and of course assumes that it’s Sarah. He is pretty aggressive about the whole thing so she pepper sprays him. And then Tasers him. He is not having a good day. Alison gets her kids home and then calls Sarah to tell her about the ‘urban’ guy who attacked her.
Paul is in a meeting with some dude called Olivier who wants to talk about Beth.
Sarah heads to Felix’s place, but has to quickly duck out of sight to avoid being spotted by Colin. They’re pretty cute, but Sarah isn’t having any of it. She tells Felix that Vic is back. They sit down to listen to the bug in Paul’s office. The Olivier guy confirms that Paul is indeed her monitor. Paul gives her a call and tells her they need to talk. She hangs up on him, but then he sends her a picture of her walking with Kira. To compound the badness, Vic chooses this moment to walk in.
He is really pissed of (as you would be). He needs 15 grand or the bad guys will ‘lobster him’. Sarah gives him the $20,000 that she got from Alison. He’s still pretty shaken up about her faking her death, but she makes him leave. She heads over to meet Paul, despite Felix’s protestations.
Alison heads back into the garage, only to find Donny’s lockbox conveniently unlocked. Inside is the porn that she found earlier (Big boob blowies – Ha!). Donny is elsewhere; burning whatever was in the box.
Sarah gets a call from Cosima, who begs her to exploit Paul’s feelings for her.
Alison sets up the nanny cam in her and Donny’s room (not very subtly).
Sarah heads back to Beth’s where Paul is sitting in the dark like a creep. He immediately notices that she’s got a gun in her pocket, so he may be sharper than he gets credit for. He has a gun as well! He runs through all the suss stuff that has happened since Sarah started running the show. He questions her about things that Beth would know, and when she can’t answer he demands to know where Beth is. Sarah tells him the truth, and in her own accent no less! He is definitely on the edge of losing it. He is really quite upset about the whole thing.
Next time on Orphan Black: More Delphine!
