Orphan Black Season 3 (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Then again, I guess Shay really was too much of a red-herring.

I thought that was a calculated move. Make someone so obvious that the audience would actually doubt it and then they'd fool everyone by having her actually be the rat.

 

[joshEH]

Last season, we got Bloody Wedding Dress(TM)-wearing Helena.


This season, it's Bloody Ski Coat(TM)-wearing Helena.


What haute fashions will we be seeing in Season 4??


(Also, I thought all the Felix/Helena interactions were some of the best of the series back in the day, but goddamn, Donnie/Helena are blowing EVERYTHING out of the water right now.)

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Loved the plot line with Donnie and Helena. Not showing what happened inside Pouchy's place between Helena pushing Donnie out the door and her walking out covered in blood holding the blade from the paper trimmer like a machete was absolutely the right call. Nothing they could have showed us would compared to what my mind's come up with to fill in those blanks.


Didn't see the twist with Gracie coming, but should have. It made perfect sense with everything we'd been presented. Still not convinced Shay is entirely innocent, since in that photo she was wearing the same uniform as Paul's.


I loved that we got to see Mrs. S perform on stage. In real life, Maria Doyle Kennedy has her own record label in Ireland and has performed with artists like John Prine and Damien Rice.


Still not sure how I feel about the reveal of the Castor/Leda original. On one hand, something that central to the mythology of the show should feel like a momentous revelation, and this certainly did that. On the other hand, it's got a bit too much of that "Anakin Skywalker built C-3PO" feel, where it makes the world too small and closed in on itself. Hopefully the show has an explanation for how Sarah ended up in Mrs. S's care of all people, because it's just too much of a coincidence that the clone that went to the state ended up with a biological relation.


The thing that intrigued me was the photo on Kendall Malone's dresser:

Kendall Malone is a biological chimera, a mix of her own cells and her absorbed twin brother, but her cells would have been all her DNA and her brother's cells would have been all his DNA. Given that fact, if Leda is mostly a straight clone of Kendall, young Kendall should have looked more or less exactly like Tatiana Maslany. Instead, you can find a resemblance to both her and Mrs. S, but the woman in the photo doesn't look exactly like either of them. I'm assuming the photo is of her holding baby Siobhan, but perhaps it's not. And if Kendall Malone did look exactly like Tatiana Maslany when she was younger, than why didn't Mrs. S ever make the connection?

 

[joshEH]

...Oh, Helena, welcome to the world of having to choose between family and imminent sexytimes.

 

[joshEH]

That Hendrix garage of carnage and pain...gonna have to rent that jackhammer again.

 

[joshEH]

Clone Club dinner-party at Bubbles??


With pills for dessert...

 

[joshEH]

Delphine should've stayed for dinner.

 

[TravisR]

I don't know what I enjoyed more, Helena saying that there was "much moley" or her pronunciation of kar-a-tay.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I know this season has been very polarizing among fans of the show, but for my money it was far and away the best season so far. The first season took too long to ramp up with the earliest episodes struggling to keep my interest. The second season felt to scattered, with each of the sestras pulled in a different direction. This season was excellent from beginning to end, with the mythology of the show feeding into the character-driven story of the sisterhood instead of distracting us from it. And while Alison's storyline was again divorced from the main proceedings, it was never less than compelling.


The story of how Sarah came to be in Mrs. S's care took something that seemed at first glance to be an implausible coincidence, and revealed it instead as an incredibly moving selfless act from mother to daughter, a means to give new life to a relationship that irreparably broken. What a well written and well acted character Kendall Malone is. We glimpses of both the ferocity and the heart that Sarah and Mrs. S possess in spades.


Is the science true about a chimera with two gene lines looking different than either of the component gene lines would on their own? I don't know, but much like the fingerprinting business in the first season I'll accept it as true in this world and move on.


I guessed correctly who the mysterious older woman was who oversaw Rachel's surgery. Given that Ethan told Kendall that Leekie had "corrupted" Susan, it appears he knew all along that Susan didn't die in that fire. And given that she has placed Charlotte in Rachel's care, it appears that Michelle Forbes's character is a neolutionist, too. I do think seeing Rachel try to be a parent will be a character-revealing story for her.


I'm glad Krystal made it through her ordeal unscathed.


I wonder what the hell that worm was that crawled out of Dr. Nealon? Are the parasites actually controlling the neolutionists?


I absolutely loved Sarah's episode-ending reunion with Kira. The angle of their faces while they were lying together in the snow almost made them look like true mother and daughter. It's a bummer that they couldn't get Michel Huisman to make a cameo for that scene, but it was still very well done.


So is Delphine actually dead? Unlike Helena at the end of season one, she wasn't actually shot in the heart. And speaking of the act itself: Who shot J.R.?

...Oh, Helena, welcome to the world of having to choose between family and imminent sexytimes.

She's about to become a mother so she'd better get used to it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Another wonderful scene I forgot to mention last night: When Cosima goes to draws Kendall's blood, and the feral Kendall peppers her with verbal abuse. And Cosima just takes it in and is nothing but grateful in return. And not just to placate her until she gets what she needs; Kendall is her source, her mother and sister all wrapped up into one, and whatever that means to her is much greater that whatever barbs Kendall could throw at her. Seeing that family connection be made, with none of the baggage and hurt that has poisoned Mrs. S's own relationship with her mother, and seeing Kendall slowly lowering her defenses, was a beautiful thing.

 

[DaveF]

So wow. The penultimate was a bit anticlimactic for me. The revelation of the Original felt too cute, too random, and subtracted from the power of the scene. The finale fulfilled the power of the story, retroactively infusing the prior episode with more power.

Ferdinand. Did not see that coming. What an unlikely alliance!

While Clone Dance Club to finish S2 is my favorite, Clone Dinner Party was exquisitely done.

I look forward to Season 4.

 

[NeilO]

Clone Club dinner-party at Bubbles??


With pills for dessert...

I was surprised that Jesse wasn't at that final party. Too bad his part was so short.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tatiana Maslany FINALLY received an Emmy nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series
For playing "Alison/ Cosima/ Helena/ Rachel and Krystal/ Sarah".

In other news, an interview with the cast and creators at Comic-Con:

...revealed that the upcoming season will be "a little bit of a reset" at the start, because the creators "want Season 4 to have a little bit of a feel of Season 1 again."

 

[TravisR]

It's nice to see the old mummies that run the Emmys finally get embarrassed into nominating the best actor on TV for an award.

 

[jcroy]

Tatiana is purportedly on the short list for a lead female role on Star Wars 8.


http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/09/star-wars-gina-rodriguez-tatiana-maslany-spin-off


If she ends up getting the lead role in Star Wars VIII, will this mean season 4 is the last season of Orphan Black?

 

[NeilO]

Tatiana is purportedly on the short list for a lead female role on Star Wars 8.


http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/09/star-wars-gina-rodriguez-tatiana-maslany-spin-off


If she ends up getting the lead role in Star Wars VIII, will this mean season 4 is the last season of Orphan Black?

It only depends on whether she wants to continue making Orphan Black. The conflict in shooting schedules may produce a delay on future seasons, but unless she still wants to make the show it doesn't make any difference,

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If she ends up getting the lead role in Star Wars VIII, will this mean season 4 is the last season of Orphan Black?

I thought - could be mistaken - that the showrunners said that they intended to go five seasons to tell the story they had in mind. I would imagine that her contract with Orphan Black would take precedence over any other potential projects since they had her first. But their seasons are only ten episodes, so I'm guessing that the shooting period is relatively short. But I'd be shocked if she wasn't locked into a multi-season contract there.


She was supposedly in consideration for the role in the stand-alone movie. so Disney/Lucasfilm seem big on her.

 

[TravisR]

But I'd be shocked if she wasn't locked into a multi-season contract there.

Yeah, she must be and they might be able to juggle the schedule so there's an episode focused on the characters not played by Maslany but I can't imagine they'd be able or have any interest in doing that for more than one episode.


The good thing for her is that even if she can't do one Star Wars movie, there will be many more chances for her to do one in the future. Once OB ends, they could ever tailor a part in a future SW movie to her talents.

 

[jcroy]

Another option is shortening future seasons to 6 episodes, like what was done for Nikita, The Newsroom, etc ...

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

She's already contracted to do Season 4, which -- if past seasons are any guide -- will start shooting next month and continue on until March of next year. Principal photography is scheduled for next year for Episode VIII. If Maslany is under serious consideration for a main role, presumably they've accounted for the schedule. For Age of Ultron, Scarlett Johansson's scenes were frontloaded at the start of shoot before her baby bump started to show. For Episode VIII, they'd probably push the majority of Maslany's scenes until after March.


It's also BBC America, so it's not like they're locked into the broadcast schedule. If Episode IX interferes with the October - March shooting schedule for Season 5, they can always just push it back. Louis CK took a year and a half between the third and fourth seasons of "Louie". "The Sopranos" took two years between season 5 and season 6.


And while "Orphan Black" has its share of standing sets, it's not actually reliant on any of them. As long as Tatiana Maslany, Jordan Gavaris, Kristian Bruun and Maria Doyle Kennedy agree to come back, you've got a show.