TV Review: Orphan Black 2×05, “Ipsa Scientia Potestas”

Okay, you can take a breath now. With all the overstimulating events in the last episode, this episode shows us all the consequences. That’s not to say this episode isn’t stimulating too, because that would be a lie. It’s stimulating, but in a very different way. *wink wink*

Daniel is dead. There is no coming back from what Helena did to him. Rachel and Paul come home as Dr. Leekie takes care of the clean up and disposal. Rachel is not at all pleased, though it is hard to tell with her cold expression. She is done playing the other clone’s games, so when Leekie tells her that he has found something that could stop the shared sickness in the clones, she tells him to hold off on giving it to seriously ill Cosima. Also, she asks/forces Paul to take Daniel’s place (in more ways than one), and his first mission involves getting Sarah to turn herself and Kira in immediately.

Meanwhile, Helena and Sarah are bonding over her recent rescue. Sarah decides to hide Helena with Felix and get Art to interrogate her about her connection to Maggie Chen. Handcuffed of course because we all know how crazy Helena gets. To no avail of course because Helena escapes, but gives them a little information, leading them to look for a locker held by Maggie Chen and discovers a picture of who she calls the Swan Man (from the Leda mythos). Just in time too because Felix is in a tight situation, not just because he set up a booty call with our favorite mortician Colin. They get interrupted by the police, with Colin all lubed up and nowhere to go. Then Paul shows up with the gun Daniel used to kill a cop, forces Felix to put his finger prints on it. Sarah now has until the end of the day to turn herself and Kira in or Felix will be arrested for murder. Sarah is able to use the info she found out about the Swan Man to barter with Dr. Leekie, insuring Felix doesn’t get charged for murder. That info of course being that the Swan Man is actually Daddy Duncan, Rachel’s thought-to-be-dead father. Could Rachel know this already?

Dr. Leekie also made a deal with Cosima, that he would be completely honest with her and everything will be at her disposal, so even when Rachel “ordered” him to keep the potential cure from Cosima, she “accidentally” found out about it. Leekie assured her that he always planned on giving her that information, which is believable because he cares about the longevity of his experiment. Paul, on the other hand, is being tossed around by both Leekie and Rachel, but only with Rachel is the tossing around sexual.

We return to the crazy cult commune of the Prolethians and find out that Gracie is still alive. For whatever reason, Helena left her alive, whoch doesn’t make too much sense since Gracie tried to smother her. Helena has done more for less, but maybe Gracie has a purpose to fulfill. Anyway, we find that she is being punished, locked in a room with her lips sewn shut until she confesses what she did and apologizes. Now Gracie has to help get Helena back or guess who has to carry the baby?

With Helena on the loose, and a sniper rifle missing, there is one clear target: Helena. Art and Sarah find Helena on an adjacent building with a sniper pointed at Rachel’s head. Rachel’s real head, and not the doll head Helena fashioned into Rachel by the way. Sarah does a very emotional plea to Helena, basically begging her not to do it, and to come back with her and be part of her family. Awwwww, sestra’s forever!

While all of this is happening, Rachel is playing dominatrix with Paul, forcing him to undress and then eventually having sex on him (as opposed to with him). Technically, this is clone number 3 Paul has slept with (that we know of), so I’m pretty sure he has a type.

We are officially half way through season 2 of Orphan Black, and we’ve been taken on so many side roads and detours, its starting to get more difficult to choose which story lines we should actually care about. At this point, Alison is a side story just added for comic relief, and even that is starting to fall flat. Every other clone currently serves some purpose in furthering the plot or revealing new pieces to the story, except Alison, so I expect a big reveal from her in the future. Pacing is never a problem for the show, at least not yet in the season, but this episode brings in an expected lull after the climax of the last episode. That means that this is probably the calm before the storm, hopefully.

RATING: ★★★★★★★(7/10 stars)