Orphan Black Episode 302 Recap: Mangoes Are Not the Only Fruit

At Castor HQ, Helena is being waterboarded because of course she is because there is no end to this angel’s suffering! Torture, vitals, torture, vitals, torture, vitals. Finally, Mother pokes her head in the door and tells them to shut it down because Helena’s preliminary blood tests are back and she’s definitely got some buns in her oven.

I’m not leaving her home alone with all this j-u-i-c-e around.

I can spell, Mother. You spelled “juice.”

Oh, you’re so brilliant. Let’s see you find it.

Ms. S and Felix hang out at Ms. S house — which continues to be like hanging out in the middle of the interstate, but okay — talking about how she blew it hardcore trading Helena to Paul for information about Kira. And but how was she meant to know? She’d pushed every button she thought Sarah possessed, and Sarah never fought back. Not really. And anyway, Sarah killed Helena once too! But noooo, now all of a sudden, it’s like nobody’s allowed to murder Helena or hand her over to some psychos to be tortured or else you can’t be Sarah’s family anymore. Felix makes Ms. S some tea like the British always do when someone is sad or bleeding to death from a flesh wound, and tells her it’s time to stop pouting and start scheming. He gives her a blue ClonePhone to help with her wily designs.

There’s only three things I do really well, sweetheart, and science and sass are the other ones.

Dyad Institute of Duplicitous Deoxyribonucleic Inquisition. Cosima spins Scott around in his chair and laughs at him while he protests that he’s gonna throw up. They’re jolted from their playtimes by Dr. Nealon, who is taking a break from who even knows what to meet with them. Fitting Rachel for an eyeball transplant. Sewing tails on Castor clones. Hiring a hitman to off Bill Nye. Eating Cheerios, sinisterly.

Cosima: Oh, shit, dude, your pants are on fire!
Nealon: WHAT?!?
Cosima: That was just a joke because of how you are a liar.
Nealon: They told me Sarah was the sarcastic one.
Cosima: Hey, so remember how that Castor clone escaped and you didn’t bother to tell us, even though those guys keep on trying to murder us? And remember how you tried to loot Sarah’s ovaries? Remember how you’re the worst?
Nealon: I knew we should have just cloned some sea otters.
Cosima: Anyway, Scottie’s got a question for you.
Scott: Yeah, um, where’s the original genome?
Nealon: Duncan lost it when the military shut down funding for Castor and Leda, like Leekie told you.
Cosima: Bullshit, but good to know where you stand at least.

Don’t look now but are there some giant Gatsby eyeballs dressed like the Joker staring at us.

Sarah strolls up to the police department like some kind of Beth Childs to chat with Art and the woman the Castor guys assaulted. He can’t believe she has the gall to show up at a place where she pretended to be a detective, and her sister pretended to be her pretending to be a detective. It’s not that he’s worried that she’s going to get him in trouble; Art can handle himself. It’s that Angie is still lurking around here somewhere and if she scopes Sarah’s face for even a nanosecond, she’s gonna start in again with her awful bullshit again, and then where will they be?

The woman who was assaulted doesn’t want to talk to Sarah anyway. She’s rightfully furious because Art’s not going to arrest these guys, even though the conditions of consent changed for the sexual situation she was in, after which the two of them ripped out some of her hair and stole all of her personal information. She’s like, “Because once you agree to let a guy stick his dick in you, all bets are off, right? It’s an implied yes to literally everything that happens after that?” Art’s face says he gets how fucked up the law is, but there’s nothing he can do about it. The weirdest things about the Castor guys is: 1) Their matching horse tattoos, and 2) How mad Rudy was on Seth’s behalf when this woman told them no.

It’s almost like the they were raised in a culture of toxic hypermasculinity where they were conditioned to believe they’re entitled to do whatever they want with women’s bodies, which are things that exist only to make babies and serve their sexual whims. Right? That’s why Sarah and Helena are “made of the good stuff.” And that’s why they didn’t even blink at the idea of raping this woman. “Transitory Sacrifices Of Crisis” is much more focused on Orphan Black‘s straight dudes than the Leda clones/Felix, and while that’s not my preference, obviously, I’m really impressed that the writers come out unapologetically swinging at gender constructs and rape culture. Their disdain for both of those things is not subtle, and it is so refreshing.

(I actually also really enjoyed that they dialed back the pace of this episode by a zillion. It was nice to take a breath and assess where all the chess pieces are before the board is inevitably blown to smithereens by like the ghost of Ethan Duncan riding on the back of a velociraptor stuffed with dynamite.)

Men are like atoms. They make up everything.

Sarah calls Cosima to talk about the horse tattoos, and she’s all, “Oh, right. Castor and Pollux. Like those twin brothers from Greek mythology that Leda gave birth to by laying some eggs. No wonder they’re so obsessed with your ovaries.” Cosima tells Sarah this seems like an impossibly circuitous way to get to Helena, and so maybe she should just call Paul and ask him where she is.