Hey youtubers it's Charlie and this week was the Orphan Black Season 2 finale. As of this
video it hasn't been renewed for season 3, but the episode was constructed to achieve
maximum WTF from the fandom if it's not. I feel like a lot of the more clever shows engineer
themselves so that viewers are left hanging with major teases for stories that may not
ever get told.
Just to clarify, I do think it will be renewed for Season 3 and they'll probably be making
an official announcement pretty soon. If you didn't notice BBC America laid in a ton of
graphics bugs on top of the broadcast with notes about Tatiana Maslany being nominated
for a ton of awards.
Networks don't do that for shows they don't believe in. So if you're freaking out about
the Season 3 question, chill thyself. We need to talk about the episode first.
So I'm going to start with my top 5 moments, then an overall season 2 review and then I'll
talk about season 3. Careful for spoilers from the finale if you haven't seen it yet.
But here we go.
Number 5 - Sarah Turns Herself in to Dyad
This is a very very cold open, I don't remember meeting Doctor Neelam before, but he's basically
the new Leekie, the sinister looking person with mysterious intentions. Almost everyone
at Dyad is sinister and mysterious though, so that's not saying a lot. Delphine is the
only one who wears her emotions on her sleeve. And I don't count Cosima as being Dyad, since
she's more of a double agent for clone club.
I think Sarah made the right choice in turning herself in, before Cal and Mrs S had a chance
to contact their insiders, there wasn't any better way to get to Kira in a hurry.
I was a little blow away when they full on tried to take one of her ovaries. Because
of all the side projects Leekie teased earlier this season, like the artificial womb I actually
thought the show was going to show us some gruesome frankenstein baby maker.
We did end up getting frankenstein though. And Sarah escaping Rachel was one of the most
cheerable moments in the episode. The writers did a good job this year using Kira's scenes
to shine a light on the more technical aspects of the story.
Like using Kira to explain the fire extinguisher mechanism as well as what's going to become
the story in season 3. The Doctor Moreau stuff.
Kira wins science so hard.
Number 4 - Cal and Mrs S's Inside Men
All of the double agents step out of the shadows. I was totally surprised at the Paul and Marion
reveals. I'd read some interviews with Michelle Forbes a couple weeks ago after her character
debuted and she just said Marion would be getting crazier and crazier all the way into
the finale.
I wouldn't call her crazy, but Marion is the neolutionist analog of Mrs S. They're both
very caring nurturing mothers, but they sit on two sides of the fence. Season 3 will explain
their allegiances a little better because after the finale it did seem like Mrs S was
in bed with Paul, the Military and Project Castor.
Just to explain when Mrs. S told Cal he didn't know his mythology. Castor is one of the twin
sons of Leda, she was a Greek Princess. She was seduced by Zeus who appeared to her as
a swan and impregnated. That same night she also slept with her husband, King Tyndareus.
She ended up giving birth to 4 children, two girls and two boys. The girls were Helen of
Troy and Clemenstra and the boys were Castor and Pollux.
Because Leda slept with Zeus and her mortal husband, Castor was born of the husband's
mortal line and Pollux was born of Zeus.
You may be more familiar with Castor and Pollux by their Latin Name. Together they're also
known as Gemini. As in Gemini Twins.
It's just a high minded metaphor for the way the Military compartmentalized Project Leda.
Splitting it into male and female projects.
Paul is obviously working with the Military. Because Marion said she was trying to learn
which big group was trying to influence the cloning projects and then it cut to the Military.
I think we can assume that they are that other big group. They'll probably be taking on the
antagonist role that the Proletheans occupied in season 2.
If it wasn't clear, Paul was Mrs S's inside man and Marion was Cal's, she was the person
trying to hack him on the dark web.
Number 3 - Sarah Shoots Rachel In The Eye
As horrible as this was, I was happy to see her take it in the face. If you apply tv logic,
she is not dead. She'll be back next season with an eye patch. That pencil didn't look
like it penetrated deep enough into her skull to cause brain damage. Just enough to destroy
her eye.
In case you don't watch Doctor Who at all, there was a character named Madam Kovarian
that Rachel is starting to look and behave more and more like.
I actually felt a little sympathy for her when Duncan committed suicide. He was her
father, but at this point in the narrative, she's eroded all good will.
The other thing I thought was a little funny was Kira had drawn a picture of the fire extinguisher
on her drawing. Meaning she drew that before Cosima played the pencil game with her. They're
starting to blur the line between intuition and full on foresight.
It's like Kira is reading Matrix code while all the other characters are still inside
the construct. And now that Gracie is pregnant with Helena's baby, there will be another
potential Kira. All the clones are different, so it's hard to tell what special abilities
that baby will manifest.
The real takeaway is that Rachel will be back next season. And twice as mean.
Number 2 - The Island Of Doctor Moreau
I loved the way they connected the Buckminster Fuller Golden Ratio speech to Duncan's research
and the end reveal of all the male clones.
I think that The Island, so to speak, will be where the Military is conducting their
Project Castor research. Wouldn't it be crazy if it were an actual island? I don't expect
them to be that literal with the metaphor, but it's totally possible.
Even though Doctor Neelam was introduced in the beginning of the episode, I don't think
he's the Doctor Moreau in this situation. I think that person is someone we won't meet
until season 3. And then there's all the topside people that Marion shone a light on.
Most of season 2 has been the prolethean agenda versus the dyad agenda. But now we have the
military. Since they're specifically working on Male Clones, it looks like their goal is
pretty simple, just an infinitely renewable source of bodies to throw into battle as needed.
Right now I'm picturing someone like Stephen Lang character from Avatar being in charge.
He played Colonel Quaritch. Someone who doesn't see themselves as evil, but literally steps
on people with giant mech feet when they get in his way.
It's also kind of implied that the Military has a lot more control over their cloning
program than Dyad, so Clone Club is going to have to up their game big time. But I think
Paul will always have a soft spot for Sarah, so they will have him on the inside.
Helena, it seems, is someone Paul is all too happy to sacrifice. She's probably going to
be used for her eggs again, so the military can grow their own version of Kira.
Kira is basically the next step in the cloning program. Aside from stabilizing all the first
generation clones with Duncan's synthetic sequences.
Number 1 - Mark is The Male Clone
This was the major reveal of the episode, of all the surprises we got, this was the
most unexpected. I actually thought we'd see another version of Tony when he turned around
in Marion's basement. That one looked like the male version of Helena, the crazy one.
I think as we meet more Mark clones next season, they'll display the same diversity of personalities
that Sarah's clones do. Although I guess Rachel was the first clone, the beta test.
That means that Mark and Gracie's story will get folded back in, but if that last moment
confused you. Just remember how Sarah is with Cal and Kira. She doesn't care about any of
the Dyad, Prolethean stuff. She just wants to keep Kira safe and live out their lives
in peace.
So I think Mark and Gracie will be on the run in Season 3 just like Sarah and Kira.
Eventually their story has to get folded into Clone Club, but ultimately I think that Gracie's
Mark, this Mark, will be a good person.
The creators said Mark's look was modeled after World War II soldiers, which kind of
makes me wonder if the Military has been experimenting with clones since the 50s. All the Project
Leda stuff was from the 70s, but if that came from the Military, they had to have started
somewhere.
We'll probably learn that whole story by the end of Season 3. Where they started and what
their master plan is.
Because we me Charlotte in the finale, I also feel like we're going to see more Tony's,
more female clones next season too.
But now it's your turn, let me know what your favorite moment was and what do you think
is going on with the military and all the male clones?
Overall I thought the finale was a rock solid A. Even though the story was amazing all by
itself, I have to give a lot of extra points for technical achievements. For example, Tatiana
Maslany had to perform that dance scene a bunch of times for each clone and they had
to digitally add them together to give us Clone Club dance party. Just getting those
few minutes of footage probably took weeks of work to finish editing.
I know I mentioned it during my top 5 moments, but Tatiana Maslany gets nominated for a crazy
number of acting awards each year. I'm hoping she wins at least one emmy for season 2. Being
able to create all those unique personalities and jump back and forth between them while
they shoot an episode is amazing. Most actors find it difficult playing one character.
It makes me really curious about the actor Ari Millen, he's the one playing Mark. The
creators said that Ari didn't know he was playing a clone when he was cast. And they
actually intended to kill the Mark character in episode 6, but they liked him so much they
expanded his part.
Shows do this all the time, it's why on Game of Thrones, the producers gave the Shae character
a much bigger part. They just liked her performance so much.
It bodes very well for the Mark Clones in Season 3. I don't expect the same level of
performance as Tatiana Maslany doing the female clones, but I look forward to Ari proving
me wrong.
The most fun I have watching the show is when all the clones are together, so if he can
do a male clone version of clone club that's as fun as female clone club, season 3 is going
to be amazing. A lot of the time I don't even care about the science aspect of the show.
But I love the way they weave existentialism and comedy into it. It makes it a lot easier
to digest genetics.
The science is very interesting, but I really watch the show for Tatiana Maslany and the
other characters.
I don't have a lot more to say about Season 3 other than we're shifting focus from the
proletheans to the military. It's all about Gemini Twins, two sides to the story. So the
military is going to be that other side next year.
And like I said, they probably won't wait very long to make a season 3 announcement,
and on the small small chance they don't renew it, I send out all of the digital hugs to
After you have time to process the episode, I highly recommend you catch up on Doctor
Who, Series 8 is premiering in August and I'm going to be doing a ton of videos for
it. Be sure to subscribe to get everything. I'm not going to be doing an Orphan Black
Q&A video or anything, so any questions you have just write in the comments.
Right now click here for all the rest of my season 2 videos. And click here to learn all
about Doctor Who series 8.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight. High Fives!