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Orphan Black “The Collapse of Nature” Review

Hellooooo my fellow
Geeklings! I am very excited to
announce that I will be handling all things
Orphan Black for your

favorite website, and look forward to healthy discussion, episode break
downs,
and celebrating the
awesome that is Tatiana Maslany. Before we go any further,
you know the
drill, these break downs will go into
full spoiler
mode
so advert your
eyeholes if you haven’t

watched yet. For those of you who have let’s break this baby
down.

When
we last left the Clone
Club a lot of our existing stories seemed to be wrapped
which is pretty much
what you use a season finale
for. Duh. I know that. I was
just making an observation. While the Castor
clones story was a bit up and down,

its conclusion was satisfying and opened the door for the return of an old
foe
in the Neolutionists. On
top of that the Kendall Malone (the original Castor
donor and Mrs. S’s
mom), Mrs. S, and Sarah were all
moved to the arctic to
reunite with Kira to enjoy some much needed snowy
down time. Yaaaaaay happy

ending! Or more like a temporary resting period as it was revealed
that
everyone’s favorite rigid clone,
Rachel, seemed to be in the care of the
Neolutionists and equipped with a
new badass cyber eye. Everyone
caught up now?
All of that leads us to our season four premier and the
introduction of…
wait is
that Beth?!?!

rs_1024x759-
160412195011-1024-orphan-
black.jb.41216 I
loved this
episode
and would count it in the top five of Orphan Black’s run.
Taking
us away from the events of season
three and bringing us back to how
everything started was a brilliant tactic
that helped add depth to one of
the
shows more mysterious characters. Everything we’ve known about Beth has
been
hearsay and filling in
the blanks (much like her knowledge of Paul). All we’ve
ever seen of her
was some video jogging, a fateful
jump in front of a train, and
an appearance inside Sarah’s mind as she was
dying. While all those things

helped give an impression of Beth this weeks episode allowed us to see just
how
she operated. And man,
she was a mess.

The episode opens introducing our
newest clone, MK,
who is doing her best Wyatt family
impression (yes that’s
a WWE reference.) as she spies on a couple
of ambulance workers dumping

a body in the woods. A phone call to Beth later and we find out these body

dumpers are Neolutionists and
MK has been tracking their behavior for some time.
This was our first real
glimpse into Beth’s life with
Paul and it was instantly
tense. Sneaking off to the bathroom to upload the
coordinates of the body dump

we got to see Beth’s drug habit in full effect as she snorts up a couple of

pills on the bathroom sink.
We kind of knew that Beth had a problem when Sarah
was learning to be her
and opens the medicine cabinet to
discover a treasure
trove of pills. I believe she even refers to Beth as a
drug store cowboy or
something
like that (that’s all the way back to the first episode mind

you).

Beth’s spiraling out
of control is a
constant theme throughout the
episode and right there for the
ride is her partner Art. We learn the most
about Beth through her
relationships
and the episode establishes early just how close these two
are. Art is very much
involved
in Beth’s life knowing about her drug problems as well as the
difficulties
she’s having with Paul, and it
seems that Beth was there for Art
when he went through his divorce. The bond
between them is strong and only
gets
stronger as the episode progresses.

The discovery of the body
has Beth
looking for answers
from MK. They have a weird Facetime like date in MK’s
trailer park home,
and MK is not short on information.
For starters we learn
that Neolutionists believe her to be dead which is why
she needs to stay off the

grid and probably the reasons behind wearing that creepy sheep mask. We also

learn that it was MK that
put Beth on to not trusting Paul as well as suspecting
that there is someone
on the police force who is
working for the Neolutionists.
From the start I liked MK and she reminded me
of Helena in a lot of ways.
Maybe
what Helena could have been if she hadn’t been destroyed by the
church. I’m
looking forward to
knowing more about her and how she faked her
death.

Needless to say
this conversation has Beth crank
up the
paranoia to eleven and leads to my favorite scene from the episode.
There was a
tremendous amount
of mirroring between Beth’s interactions with Paul and
Sarah’s
interactions with Paul from season one. The
most obvious is the sex in
the kitchen. Tatiana Maslany, who has been giving
terrific performances since

the show began, really kills it here in making Beth ultra vulnerable. All
Beth
needs is something real
and it’s almost heart breaking as she pleads with Paul
to kiss her and
piece her back together. Paul’s
inability to do so not only
confirms her beliefs that he’s working against
her (and even goes so far to

almost kill him), but probably what allows Sarah to seduce him in the
kitchen.
Almost like he was making
up for a missed opportunity. The relationship between
the three seems to be
a wheel.

Of
course the rejection of Paul and her trust
issues leads Beth to Art and
they… well they get it on. We knew
that Art was
in love with Beth but we never knew that their relationship had
reached that
sort of level.
Just adds a little sadness to the Art character. As a matter of
fact Beth is
kind of a sad and tragic
character. She’s being pulled in all
sorts of different directions, and
most of them are interlocked. She
has become
a defacto leader for Alison and Cos, her home life is filled with
mistrust,
she’s a bit
motherly to MK, her drug addiction to hide the pain and confusion,
and it’s
all due to the bigger clone
conspiracy. This episode shows how Beth
comes to jump in front of that train
and based on the trajectory of
her life
it’s not hard to imagine that she would need that escape.

I
liked that
the episode
didn’t end with Beth and Sarah at the train station. We know that
that
happens but I felt that it was more
important to see what lead up to that.
Following the Neolutionists to some
empty warehouse as they remove the
cheek
from another person (remember the weird worm from the season three
finale? Well
we get to see it
again with the hopes that there are answers on the horizon)
leads to the
shooting of Maggie Chen and the
cover up by Art and Beth. That
pretty much brings us full circle with Beth
but we do get one more scene
between
her and MK that saw a bit of role reversal. MK takes over the
leadership role
here and tells Beth
that she’ll do the thinking from now on and Beth can rest.
Which is
probably for the best as Beth is in no
shape to be thinking
clearly.

A few quick thoughts before we
wrap.

  • I loved how this episode worked in the other clones and
    established
    their relationship with Beth.
    Seeing Cos moving schools and talking
    about the bank account that will be
    emptied by Sarah was a fun easter
    egg as was
    Alison getting ready for shooting practice and sending
    everyone’s favorite drug
    dealer,
    Ramone, with flowers, drugs, and pee to Beth. All though I’m a bit

    surprised that Alison would be sending
    pee to Beth.

  • The return
    of the tail!! I always thought Oliver
    Duval’s tail was a bit on the
    cheesy side
    but this episode did a good enough job giving us an inside look
    at the
    Neolutionists that it
    made more sense. Yes they like to genetically modify
    themselves and no the
    tail is still not cool A little
    more acceptable but still
    a little cheesy.
  • The transition
    to the present day was

    preformed smoothly and I’m looking forward to the inclusion of MK into the

    Sestrahood. It also appears
    that Art will become a bigger player again this year
    and I’m looking
    forward to that. You have to think
    though with the
    Neolutionists on their way to foil Sarah’s arctic holiday
    how far behind is

    Rachel?

There you have it Geeklings. Season four brought us

back to the beginning and
reminded us that Neolutionists are a thing and gave us
a deeper exploration
to who Beth was. I wonder if her
shadow will hang over the
entire season. Also where has MK been hiding this
whole time? She seems to be

very knowledgeable of the Clone Club’s activities. If you have any theories
or
thoughts the comments are
yours.

Images from BBC America

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