Orphan Black - Season 3 Discussion

[Guy Gardener]

Allison is 3 or four times stronger than any other human being her height and weight.

Donnie is weak.

Shouldn't sex with Allison for 10 years, have been strenuous resistance training for Donnie?

Donnie should be strong.

Maybe it's psychological?

Because Donnie is weaker than his tiny girl wife, he assumes that he is weaker than all tiny women. All tiny women have not been genetically modified to be stronger than an Olympic weight lifter.

If Donnie does not know that he is strong, then he would not expect himself to be capable of strength, and never try to attempt to use the strength he does not know that he has.

Donnie is weaker than Allison, but he should be almost as strong as an Olympic weight lifter, and he might be, unless Allison just lays there quietly and still, until he is spent.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

We're already seen Donnie in the sack.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In the sack, on the sack and thar she blows, the clearly defined outline of his sack

 

[Eduardo]

Indeed -- i also had to force myself to remember -- same actress... so now how do we direct an effort to get Tatiana Maslany nominated for Best Actress and Best support Actress (and Best guest star, for that matter)?

Her makeup and hair team should get an award too. Even Krystal's face looked significantly different from the other Ledas. I could barely tell it was Maslany. I'm not sure quite how they pulled that off. I think the eyebrows looked sharper or more angular, and the eye makeup was different and pointier on the outside, and the lipstick was brighter... I'm not sure what else they did.

And i also agree -- Jordan Gavaris was great as well, especially his fakeover for the makeover However -- i am wondering if he little reversion back to the British accent... will that be a deposit for good (so that Krystal will trust #CloneCLub later), or be a huge mistake, which will make Krystal hate Felix & friends & family?

That's assuming they ever manage to rescue her from the coma Nealon put her under.

But as the reviewer on io9 said, I love the way Krystal just unquestioningly accepted that a "truth voice" was a thing. Like it made perfect sense to her.

-Who does Neelan talk to on the phone? I don't think it's Shay, and it wasn't Coady. I originally thought he was the insider guy everyone was talking about but if someone can clear up the ending a little bit, that would be much appreciated.

It was an older, gray-haired woman, definitely not Shay.

Responding to myself here... the io9 review claimed it was Marion Bowles. I couldn't tell.

It is not her, it is someone older

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Indeed -- i also had to force myself to remember -- same actress... so now how do we direct an effort to get Tatiana Maslany nominated for Best Actress and Best support Actress (and Best guest star, for that matter)?

Her makeup and hair team should get an award too. Even Krystal's face looked significantly different from the other Ledas. I could barely tell it was Maslany. I'm not sure quite how they pulled that off. I think the eyebrows looked sharper or more angular, and the eye makeup was different and pointier on the outside, and the lipstick was brighter... I'm not sure what else they did.

And i also agree -- Jordan Gavaris was great as well, especially his fakeover for the makeover However -- i am wondering if he little reversion back to the British accent... will that be a deposit for good (so that Krystal will trust #CloneCLub later), or be a huge mistake, which will make Krystal hate Felix & friends & family?

That's assuming they ever manage to rescue her from the coma Nealon put her under.

But as the reviewer on io9 said, I love the way Krystal just unquestioningly accepted that a "truth voice" was a thing. Like it made perfect sense to her.

-Who does Neelan talk to on the phone? I don't think it's Shay, and it wasn't Coady. I originally thought he was the insider guy everyone was talking about but if someone can clear up the ending a little bit, that would be much appreciated.

It was an older, gray-haired woman, definitely not Shay.

Responding to myself here... the io9 review claimed it was Marion Bowles. I couldn't tell.

Why would she have gone that gray, that fast? Plus, the woman was a doctor, no? A doctor giving Rachel her prosthetic eye I thought.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, you're right. I thought she had gray hair, but then the article said it was Marion, so I wasn't sure if I remembered right. So I guess it's not Marion.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Mother's sometimes have the same name as their daughter.

 

[Admiral2]

So... talk about killing two birds...

 

[Borgminister]

Inexplicably, crazy good.

And one of those... rewatchable shows down the road, a la (IMO) Fringe.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

"Did you threaten babies? You should not threaten babies."

 

[Christopher]

Okay... Having the Castor/Leda original be someone with both male and female cells within her is just the kind of medically plausible but uncommon thing that fits right into this show. But having her be Siobhan's mother is a huge, absurd, hyper-Dickensian coincidence, unless they can provide us with some non-coincidental explanation for why one of the resulting Leda clones was placed into the foster care of the Leda donor's daughter.

And ohh, man, Donnie and Helena. What an impossibly good team they make, though "good" is hardly the word. The most amazing thing this show has done is to make the crazed killer Helena so... adorable. She's not the kind of character I'd normally feel sympathetic toward at all, with all the violence and bloodshed and all, but she's such an innocent in her own way. And of course she was acting in defense of the Hendrix children, if pre-emptive assassination can be considered "defense."

You know, I knew someone was going to die horribly at the end of the "Hendrixes become drug dealers" storyline, but I figured it'd be at Donnie's or Alison's hands -- or else would actually be Donnie.

Damn, why do I like this show so much? I normally hate shows about killers and drug dealers and all that stuff. I once caught 20 seconds of Breaking Bad and it was enough to convince me I never wanted to see another second of it. I guess it's the alchemy of Tatiana Maslany. She's just made these characters so empathetic and engaging in spite of everything. And the writers manage to keep a lot of humor and heart in it despite the dark stuff, and the science is pretty good, so that's a plus.

Although the character I'm feeling the least empathetic toward right now is Delphine. Did she have to take things so far with Shay based only on a suspicion? Having Shay turn out to be innocent after all just makes Delphine look like kind of a monster. Especially since we still don't know whether she actually let Shay go. She was still eyeing that razor blade rather intently after she learned Shay was innocent.

Anyway, I was hoping they'd actually shoot some scenes in London, but since the material there was mostly indoors or in close-up, and since there was one apparent greenscreen shot of the family looking at some London scenery just after getting out of the cab at the beginning, I figure they probably stayed in Toronto. A pity. Still, at least the guest stars' accents sounded authentic.

EDIT: According to a commenter on io9, the "London" scenes were filmed at the University of Toronto.

 

[auntiehill]

"Did you threaten babies? You should not threaten babies."

...and that was the last thing they heard, aside from all the screaming.

Having Helena in Alison's world is just perfect. They are two opposite sides of bat-shit crazy. Helena's type, however, results in piles of bodies being left behind.

 

[Eduardo]

But having her be Siobhan's mother is a huge, absurd, hyper-Dickensian coincidence, unless they can provide us with some non-coincidental explanation for why one of the resulting Leda clones was placed into the foster care of the Leda donor's daughter.

Mrs. S involvement in this whole thing has never been a coincidence.

Having Sarah, hiding Duncan, her mom being involved... I think there is more to come.

 

[Admiral2]

"Did you threaten babies? You should not threaten babies."

...and that was the last thing they heard, aside from all the screaming.

Having Helena in Alison's world is just perfect. They are two opposite sides of bat-shit crazy. Helena's type, however, results in piles of bodies being left behind.

But that might be good for Alison, given all the potentially violent situations she can get herself into...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Although the character I'm feeling the least empathetic toward right now is Delphine.

I have always hated her. She just rubs me the wrong way. I don't like her with Cosima either.

Having Helena in Alison's world is just perfect. They are two opposite sides of bat-shit crazy.

You're right, that's what makes them together so fantastic!

Helena with a maternal instinct is truly terrifying

 

[Christopher]

Mrs. S involvement in this whole thing has never been a coincidence.

Having Sarah, hiding Duncan, her mom being involved... I think there is more to come.

Probably. Still, I'm not crazy about the tendency of so many shows to reduce all their big, sweeping storylines to the interplay among a few members of the same single family. It makes them feel rather smaller. I can understand wanting to keep plot developments centered around the established cast, but there are other ways to achieve that. And there are other relationships people can have besides familial ones.

 

[tomalak301]

I was so involved with Orange is the New Black this last weekend that I actually decided to rewatch this episode of Orphan Black. I think I liked it better the second time, but I do agree with the whole too many coincidences of Kendell being Mrs. S Mother. Also, I think I still stand by my original statement but for a penultimate episode of the season, this felt like a bridge between episode 8 and 10.

I did love the Helena scenes though, and yeah this show is able to pair up characters you didn't think possible so easily. Alison/Felix, Art/Felix, and this year, Donnie/Helena. That was some good stuff.

I have absolutely zero idea what will happen in the finale. I also don't feel as stressed out over this year's finale like I did with last year and when Felix got drugged. That might be why this episode didn't affect me much as I hoped it would, especially with how episode 8 ended.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Alison will try too carry one of Helena's babies?

If she only has trouble in the opening act, maybe she can carry the... Wait? Wern't all those eggs already fertilized by reverend Psycho?

 

[Christopher]

I was so involved with Orange is the New Black this last weekend that I actually decided to rewatch this episode of Orphan Black.

Hmm. That similarity of titles suggests some kind of mashup parody video or something. Orphan is the New Black? I know nothing about the Orange show beyond the fact that it's set in a women's prison and, I think, involves Kate Mulgrew, so I have no idea what such a mashup would be like.


I've actually been wondering about the show's title lately. Orphan Black. What does that mean? I guess, yes, Sarah was an orphan, and the "Black" could've represented the mysteries of her identity and origins. But now Sarah is surrounded by more family than she knows what to do with, and the mysteries of her origins have been progressively illuminated. So the title no longer seems to fit the show.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I was so involved with Orange is the New Black this last weekend that I actually decided to rewatch this episode of Orphan Black.

Hmm. That similarity of titles suggests some kind of mashup parody video or something. Orphan is the New Black? I know nothing about the Orange show beyond the fact that it's set in a women's prison and, I think, involves Kate Mulgrew, so I have no idea what such a mashup would be like.

It would be hot.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6AUhNKhQLo[/yt]