Orphan Black: Instinct

Spoilers for the episode

The Story:

Sarah buries Katya’s body, retrieves her briefcase from the hotel then comes clean to person on the phone she’s not Beth while still having to deal with Beth’s life. Meanwhile Felix has to go along with Sarah’s crazy plans.

Thoughts:

The person on the phone, who we later find out is Cosima, tells Sarah someone is killing the clones once she says the German is dead on her back seat. So now she’s got to find Katya’s briefcase and deal with the body.

I like that Cosima thinks Beth will know how to deal with a body because she’s a cop and her only advice is to buy a shovel.

So Sarah buries the body as Felix is stuck at her wake pretending to mourn. Vick talks about Love but ends up attacking Felix when he tells him it’s his fault she killed herself. Vick is pathetic and hilarious. Felix has to toss him out the next day when he’s still drunk and still feeling sorry for himself. Sarah comes back as Vick’s leaving almost getting caught.

Sarah wants to know if Kira thinks she’s dead or not and fails to mention everything that’s happened in the last day to Felix.

They discover that Art has taken the seventy five grand and Sarah goes on a mini rampage around the flat just trashing stuff. Felix sits there not looking impressed and resigned to this tantrum until she comes to destroy a painting and he tells her no. At least she can control her temper. There are lines she won’t cross.

She arranges to meet Art and so goes back to Beth’s place to get clothes and put on her Beth face. But she’s in Sarah’s clothes when she enters and runs into Paul who’s had enough and is going to stay with a friend for a while. He calls her a punk rock ho and instead of getting defensive and coming up with an excuse she gets angry back. That’s always the best way put the other person on the defensive.

Felix goes over to Mrs. S’s to find out what Kira knows. They have a conversation and it sounds like Sarah’s caused a lot of trouble in her life but that’s not surprising. Kira’s also a sneaky little girl and listens in on their conversation.

Sarah goes over the files to get her story of the shooting straight then meets Art. He asks about the money. She says she was going to run but came back to clear her name. Then he makes her go over the shooting and it turns out she called him before calling it in and he put the phone in the victim’s hand to cover her. So now she’s got a secret she can exploit but he won’t give the money back until she’s cleared of the shooting.

So then we’re back to Felix and Cosima phones telling Sarah she’s got to get the German’s briefcase form her hotel.

Apparently a wide brimmed hat, sunglasses and a furry coat makes you look German. She also puts on a German accent and says ‘Guten tag’. I’m betting that’s the only German she knows.

Felix thinks she’s crazy for answering the phone and crazier for going to the hotel. I love watching Felix’s incredulity that’s she’s still playing along.

At the hotel people at the front desk try to talk to Sarah but she slips past them and once she’s up in the room it’s clear why. The room is trashed with burnt dolls and annotated passages from the bible. So it’s not just a thief, it’s a message which makes it personal. Then there’s a knock at the door and she’s got nowhere to go so the staff take her down stairs.

She explains the room by saying ‘Rock and Roll’ and they look at her in disbelief. Apparently the intruder broke the sink and caused $6000 worth of damage. I like how a pillow is listed at the end of the list of all the damage.

Sarah takes out the German’s purse but there’s only a few notes. There’s an awkward moment when you think she’s been caught but then she says they have Katya’s card on file and to charge it. As if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. She says she also wants her briefcase. Then another tense moment as she waits for the card to authorise because she doesn’t know how much money is in the account. Sarah’s going to have stomach ulcers from stress by the end of this.

She gets the briefcase open by force and discovers other ID’s of clones but she doesn’t know they’re clones yet. She still thinks they’re triplets or how ever many she’s come across by now. I can’t keep track.

She answers the phone and after a short exchange decides to stop pretending to be Beth because she has enough stress in her life.

When she admits she’s not Beth the woman on the phone asks her a riddle that’s probably the same as what the German said before getting shot. But I didn’t quite catch what she said. Sarah doesn’t know the answer and gets hung up on.

But Sarah’s got addresses now so she goes to stalk Allison Hendrix who turns out to be a soccer mum. So she follows her to a football game and surprises her while she’s cutting oranges for the half time snack.

Tatiana Maslany is really good at playing both characters. You believe they’re both different characters.

Allison’s main concern is that her perfect life will be ruined if anyone sees Sarah and she seems like she doesn’t cope with stress well.

Sarah is mostly concerned with the knife Allison is carelessly brandishing and trying to find out who they are to each other.

Allison refuses to tell her anything because that’s not her job. She tells Sarah to wait for a call.

Art then calls and tells her the therapist has labeled her unfit for duty so the hearing’s not going to happen until she’s better. So she’s not getting the money. So she can’t leave with her daughter.

She bluffs her way through the session with the therapist but it doesn’t work at convincing her she’s better. Instead she blackmails the therapist.

Apparently this is where Beth was getting all her medications and so if she was stoned when she shot the woman then the therapist has got some liability.

So the hearing goes ahead and it goes well but Art still won’t give her the money back until she’s cleared.

Then Allison phones and tells Sarah to meet at her home because she can’t get a babysitter.

Sarah takes Felix as back up who’s not happy with the entire situation even though he only knows half of it. She didn’t even tell him who she was meeting and she only tells him the German is dead as she’s getting out of the car.

He wasn’t happy about being stuck in suburbia in the first place. Apparently it’s got bad architecture that’s making him break out in spots. I wonder what he considers good architecture considering he lives in a loft with a big metal door and a telephone booth.

Sarah goes in and Allison pulls a gun but only as a threat in case Sarah reveals herself to her children. Sarah points out the irrationality of shooing her with the children upstairs but Allison seems very highly strung and beyond thinking straight.

Sarah says it sucks being your twin and Cosima comes out. The episode ends with Sarah asking how many of them are there.

I liked this episode. Things just kept ratcheting up higher and higher for Sarah. Every problem gets worse and even though Sarah is working hard to keep everything straight it’s getting complicated really fast as she dives deeper into the mystery.

We haven’t seen much of Cosima other than her voice on the phone but Allison is really different from Sarah and Beth.

I hope next episode they explain to Sarah about the clones and things can get even more confusing for her.

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