Orphan Black S3 Ep5, Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est

After being captured last week by Mark and Rudy, Sarah is now being held in a cell right next to Helena’s – and Helena wants nothing to do with her. Despite Sarah’s attempts to tell her twin that she wasn’t the one who turned Helena over to Castor, Helena’s not willing to listen. Pupok’s also very set against Sarah, and it was strange to be annoyed at Pupok for that, only to remember that Pupok is just an extension of Helena.

Even though Dr. Coady now has the remains of baby boy Johanssen, who carries the original Castor DNA, she’s still keeping her options open as they continue working towards a cure. (And for the record, her conversation with Rudy confirmed what I was initially confused by last week: “His DNA doesn’t have the synthetic sequence that made you and your brothers viable.” “Viable, but defective.”) She’s not letting any opportunities slip by, so she has samples of Sarah’s blood taken so they can examine her stem cells. Dr. Coady says Sarah’s biology “can’t be ignored,” but whether she’s talking about Sarah’s ability to have children or something else, I’m not sure.

Once Sarah’s back in her cell, Paul drops by to see her, angry that she couldn’t keep herself out of this mess. With Helena listening in from the other side of the wall (and making kissing noises), Paul confirms that he traded Helena for Sarah, but defends himself by stating he’s just protecting the Castor clones, exactly like Sarah protects her sisters. And as much as he’d still like to help Sarah, it’s now out of his hands.

And then, in my favorite scene of the episode, Sarah opens up to Helena about leaving Kira behind with Mrs. S. She was being selfish, and because of that she missed a year of her Kira’s life: “I didn’t get to watch her grow up. Or share her secrets. Or be her mum.” Seemingly affected by Sarah’s story, Helena finally agrees to let Sarah in on her escape plan.

So the next time the guards come by, Sarah refuses to hand over her meal tray, and fights back once they enter her cell. Her injuries from this fight land her in medical, where she steals tweezers and brings them back to her cell by hiding them in her mouth. By carefully timing their actions to avoid the moving security camera, Sarah manages to swing the tweezers over to Helena as they reach through the bars in their cell doors. Helena quickly gets to work, using the tweezers to unlock the cuff around her ankle, slathering herself in the butter that she’s saved and hoarded from her meal trays, and then breaking off a loose bar from her cell door. With one bar gone, and the lubrication from the butter, Helena manages to slip through the door and take down the security camera.

The broken camera finally prompts a guard to come check on Sarah and Helena, and Helena quickly takes him out. Sarah urges Helena to get the keys to let her out too, but it turns out Helena has other plans. “Now we are even, seestra,” she says before running away, leaving Sarah alone. Maybe I should have seen this coming, given how set against Sarah Helena was for most of the episode, but I honestly didn’t. Mostly because of the shot we saw earlier of Helena’s expression when Paul confirmed he made the trade – I thought she was realizing then she’d been wrong about Sarah. If it’s any consolation, though, at least we know Helena is still conflicted about this latest betrayal; “My seestra,” she says, as she’s about to slip away from the edge of the base into the night, “She tears my heart.”

Moving on to other threads of the episode: Art gets a surprise when Gracie shows up at his front door. He feels that she needs a friend right now, not a cop, so he brings Gracie over to Mrs. S and Felix. Felix initially gives Gracie the cold shoulder, but eventually warms up – when Gracie comes downstairs in some of Sarah’s old clothes, eager to find a bar that serves Mai Tais to start catching up on the many life experiences that she’s missed. Felix and Mrs. S help her have some fun at the house instead. With loud music and alcohol, they teach Gracie how to dance, and all is well… until Gracie collapses on the floor in pain.

When 911 arrives, we see her eyes are extremely bloodshot. At the same time, Art is meeting with Patty (the woman that Rudy and Seth assaulted in episode 3×02), who has the same red eyes and says that she’s been sick, and the doctors don’t know why. Suddenly it’s starting to make sense why the Castor clones are logging all of their intimate contacts.

Also this week, Cosima goes on her first date set up through the dating app. Things start off awkward with Shay, but they fall into a comfortable back and forth, and ultimately end up kissing back at Felix’s loft. And I’m probably in the fandom minority here, but… I just didn’t really care. Shay was nice enough, but nothing about her struck me as particularly interesting, and for some reason (I honestly don’t know why) Cosima’s never been near the top of my list of favorite characters on the show. So the intrigue over who was taking the pictures during Cosima’s date is where all of my interest lies regarding that storyline.

A few quotes!

• “She looks a damn sight better than you did when I took you in.” “I was not yet formed.” “You were a budding delinquent at six.”
• “You, baby Jesus, come up the stairs with me.”
• “In Siberia when planning an escape you take weak person with you. They’re called sandwich because you eat them.”

And with that we’ve reached the halfway point of season 3! Did you care more about Cosima’s date than I did? Think there’s any chance Helena will come back to help Sarah escape after all? Any theories about why the Castor clones are making people sick? Let us know in the comments!