Orphan Black 3×5 Review: Scarred by Many Past Frustrations

This was a super sad episode, and it has left me with a lot of very melancholy feelings. All of the characters on Orphan Black are real and complex, and although we rarely get to see them happy, “Scarred by Many Past Frustrations” put into focus just how abnormal and sad their lives really are.

Most of the episode revolves around Sarah. Mark and Rudy take her back to the military camp, sparing her life from the end of last week’s episode. Now she is next door to Helena! Helena is still under the impression that Sarah sold her out, so she is not being very nice. Everything changes, though, when Sarah tells her that the Castor clones are their brothers. Now this is all about family. While in custody, Sarah meets Mother, and they take a ton of blood samples from Sarah to extract her stem cells. They obviously have big plans for the Leda clone who has a child. Sarah vents to Helena about how terrible of a mother she was to Kira in order to be selfish and hedonistic. The sisters work together to escape. Just when Helena frees herself, she leaves Sarah behind. Bad Sestra. Luckily, she manages to escape from the camp.

Paul returns to the camp. He reunites with Sarah, and they have a heated exchange (interrupted by Helena making kissy noises next door) about how Paul cares about her and was trying to keep her safe. Meanwhile, Mother works to brief Mark. She tells him that the marriage with Gracie wasn’t real and that he had to do it all for the mission. She is pretty insensitive. I realize that the Castor clones are all military and formal, but they are still human beings, and Mark really seems the most adjusted out of all of them. This scene made me sad for him. I believe that he really loves Gracie.

After being kicked out of the compound by her mother, Gracie shows up at Art’s place! He takes her to stay with Felix and Mrs. S. Felix calls her “Baby Jesus,” haha. Mrs. S is back in her natural state and tries to be a surrogate mother for Gracie. Gracie is moving on quite quickly, as she shows up later in the episode in fishnets and a mesh top. Now that she is away from her parents, she can experience being a free teen. Instead, Mrs. S and Felix show her a good time in the safety of their own home with dancing to punk music and drinking gin and juice with umbrellas. This is the happiest I have seen any of them, perhaps ever. It’s short-lived, however, as Gracie doubles over in pain. It seems as though the Castor clones infect women with some sort of illness when they have sex. Gracie’s eyes are red and bloodshot, and the woman from the beginning of the season who went to bed with Rudy and Seth also shows the same symptoms as she meets up with Art. This probably is not good.

The one bright spot this week was Cosima. She goes on a date with a woman she met on her dating app. It is Ksenia Solo! I love her, and have been impatiently waiting for her arrival all season. She plays a woman called Shay, and she is a holistic therapist, which is an interesting combination with Cosima’s hard science.  They have amazing chemistry, and I totally like Cosima/Shay more than Cosima/Delphine. They have a couple of very sweet scenes together, and Shay doesn’t even mind letting Cosima talk about her past relationship with Delphine. Of course, this is probably all too good to be true, but I am going to firmly enjoy the happiness in the moment as it happens.

Although we did not get a lot of forward movement in the story this week, I appreciated the slow burn of characterization. Everyone on this show is just so deep and complex that I really look forward to the slow moments just as much as the tense ones. I am interested to see what the Castor illness is and what sort of effect is has on the police involvement with our favorite boys.

Author: Erin

Erin has reviewed many shows over the years including Orphan Black, iZombie, Penny Dreadful, and Killing Eve. She has a keen eye for on-screen chemistry, and loves to tackle the subject of casting. She is also our horror aficionado. She live tweets shows, and loves to share her feelings. Erin has a BA in History, and likes to analyze the lore behind historical fiction. She attends San Diego Comic Con every year and has also attended C2E2 and WonderCon.

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