Orphan Black Season 3 Finale Review

Orphan Black Season 3 Finale Review: Going Back to the Start

Orphan Black S03E010: "History Yet to Be Written"

After a critically acclaimed first season and a still good, but not great second, Orphan Black went through a bit of a cooling-off period in Season 3. Overambitious in its attempt to go bigger and better, the series dug and dug to unearth new layers of the cloning experiment that started it all, but those new layers were only occasionally as interesting as those that were already exposed. The series overstretched to focus on the Castor clones early on, in a storyline that didn't feel so much like another layer of the clonespiracy as it did a completely separate exercise, which tipped the already precariously balanced scales in what most would likely say was the wrong direction. The series eventually tried to right itself by returning the focus almost purely to Sarah and her sisters, but was hindered still by the fact the women were each operating within their own separate storylines.

"History Yet to Be Written" brought everyone together again to highlight the highly unconventional family that has formed over three seasons, and it was heartwarming to see everyone—including Art!—in the same room again, but did the series earn that bubbly, pink, sugar-filled (for Helena, anyway) dinner with beef that was the bomb? It's difficult to say. Just as it is also difficult to judge whether or not the series has managed to dig itself out of the hole it fell into this season. The finale brought the crazy Neolutionists back to the forefront of the story, revived Rachel's previously believed-to-be-dead mother as one of their leaders, and seemingly killed off Delphine before eventually reuniting Sarah with Kira in the snowy tundra. Dr. Coady also appeared to have been neutralized, Rudy was dispatched by Helena, and we were all granted a short reprieve from the madness of a series trying to service a handful of related, but not totally connected storylines.

But before we break down some of the those problematic storylines, let's start with what Orphan Black did right this season. First and foremost, the decision to send Kira away early on cannot be viewed as anything but positive. It's not to say I don't like Kira or think the mother-daughter bond between Sarah and Kira is important—it's quite the opposite, actually, since everything Sarah does is largely motivated by a desire to protect Kira—but when Sarah has to constantly worry about her safety, it limits what the series can do in terms of storytelling. Sarah wouldn't have been able to jet off to London to find Kendall Malone if she'd had to worry about Kira, and with Mrs. S further entwined in the mystery of the clones—the finale revealed Kendall had been the one to push Sarah into Mrs. S's arms—Kira simply had to go. She's a liability to Sarah and to the story and I wouldn't even be upset if she disappeared for most or all of Season 4, either.

And as long as we're on the subject of Mrs. S, her increased presence in the main story has been beneficial, and not just because Maria Doyle Kennedy is an incredibly talented actress who's finally being given material that allows her to show off that talent. It also strengthened the bonds of family that anchor Orphan Black's entire reason for being, and even if her mother being the original felt a little too much like the series was trying to pull a Marvel and claim it's all connected, you can appreciate the way it further bound Sarah and Mrs. S and made them a stronger family unit. Add in Felix stepping up and kicking down doors, and you've got an impressive and loving family at the heart of it all.

Which, unfortunately, leads me to the problem children. Despite Ari Millen's best efforts, it was initially very difficult to care about any of the new Castor clones, because we didn't know who they were and why they mattered, and they were stealing screentime from the characters we cared about . But once the series dove into their upbringing with Coady, why she wanted Castor's original genome, and what her ultimate plan was for it and for the male clones, their story took off in a big way, eventually culminating in Paul's death and the destruction of Coady's research. Unfortunately, what should have been a big moment for the series, was immediately shrugged off in the following episode in favor of the slapstick of a school trustee election debate for reasons that are still unclear. Paul's quick thinking put Coady back on the hunt for the original genome, which pitted her in a race against Sarah, but the Castor storyline was largely abandoned after that until the finale. It was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. And so it raises the question: What was the point?

Following Sarah and Helena's escape from Mexico, the series quickly changed course to focus on Alison's campaign and problematic drug dealing, Cosima's illness and relationship, and for some reason, Helena's assimilation into the Hendrix family. It feels ludicrous to complain about Orphan Black returning its focus to the female clones after arguing it needed to spend more time on them and less time on their male counterparts, but the series almost doesn't know what to do with some of its original characters anymore. With the exception of Sarah and Cosima (and after the finale, probably Rachel), the series is struggling to find ways to incorporate them.

Sarah has remained our courageous captain throughout this bizarre journey involving Dyad, Leda, Topside, Castor, the Proletheans, and the Neoloutionists, and she continued to throw herself in the path of danger this week to save herself and her sisters, while the threat of Cosima's illness and her skills as a scientist have always made her important by default. But there's no real place for Helena at the moment. She has no use except to 1) murder people, or B) be used as a pawn in Sarah's story. The latter is made all the more evident when the rest of the clones just pass her around the group and the reasoning is that it's their turn to watch her. Meanwhile, Alison is making soap in her garage, selling drugs, and asking people to vote for her for a local school trustee election. I mean, what is happening here?

As Sarah's twin and mirror, Helena is an important character in the overall mythos of Orphan Black. She's family and that is truly what this convoluted series is about when you strip everything else away, but she's also not moving forward as an individual character, and she hasn't been for some time. Every once in a while the show allows her to time off from making her dance like a monkey to experience quieter, more poignant moments, like her conversation with a dying Rudy in the finale.

In that moment, Helena could identify with him in a way no other character could. They were the same, and although Helena's evolved since we first met her in Season 1, deep down she's still just a young, impressionable mind looking for guidance. She told Jesse, who returned this week, that he'd be the first person she'd ever had sex with, and that statement was meant to show just how little Helena has experienced in life and how much she still has to learn. While I don't necessarily need the series to bring Patrick J. Adams back again, I would like to see Helena explored and developed more in Season 4. By all means, please continue to allow her to act as a one-woman killing machine, but also allow her to be more than that, develop her in a meaningful way beyond whatever her initial character outline said.

Perhaps an even bigger problem for the series is Alison. Her storylines have taken a turn from being a necessary dose of levity in this madness to full-on adventures in ridiculousness. Alison's home life has always been what's kept Orphan Black grounded in the real world; She has a family and responsibilities outside of the clonespiracy and she has people she cares about. She's not special like Sarah or Helena, and she has no skills that tie her to the science at the heart of the series, she's just a soccer mom who finds pleasure in the small things in life. When she signed the contract at the end of Season 1, it was obvious she would not be intimately involved in the central plot of the series any longer, but I don't think it was clear until this season that she's largely just decoration at this point. And it pains me to say that, because Alison is a fun character—she's probably my favorite clone, to be honest—but she's also not that necessary to the series as it digs deeper into the mysterious conspiracy at its center.

Having said all of this, Orphan Black's growing pains were probably to be expected. Very few shows can maintain the level of quality and excitement that Sarah and her sisters commanded early on in the show's run. And very few shows can maintain the quick pace and the urgency at which the series always seems to be moving. And because of that I think it's okay to forgive the series for its missteps this year. Orphan Black is not the first series, nor will it be the last, to mistake convoluted for complexity. The good news here is that the show appears to recognize this problem and is trying to fix it in its own roundabout way by bringing everything back to a single point of entry: the Neoloutionists.

It's also a little hard to fault a series for attempting to grow beyond its initial concept, because doing the same thing over and over again is just as much a death sentence for a show as trying to go bigger. Orphan Black stretched its wings a little too far this season, but if Leda and whatever remains of the Castor clones unite to fight on the same side in an attempt to keep the genome out of the hands of the Neolutionists, I don't see any reason why the series can't return to its once great heights. Its problems were easy to identify and therefore should be easy to fix. A more streamlined, more interconnected story of events that gives each of its characters something important to do could significantly alter the series' trajectory. Let's hope the writers can make it happen.


CONSPIRACY THEORIES


– One has to wonder if the the growing separation of the four main clones this season was done purposefully to remove some of the burden from Tatiana Maslany's shoulders. She portrayed six different characters, including Rachel and Krystal, and even when the stories were not up to par, Maslany remained a delight. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened either. The Vampire Diaries wrote out doppelgangers to make life easier for Nina Dobrev, who, like Maslany, portrayed multiple characters for several years. If this is a similar case, it might change my opinion on some things, but at the same time, there were more problems than just the fact the sisters were hardly ever interacting with one another.

– Thank God the series finally gave James Frain something to do. You don't just hire James Frain for the role Ferdinand played for most of Season 3. Seeing him take a baseball bat to a Neoloutionist was awesome. Just as it was awesome as seeing Chekohv's sulfuric acid bath finally come into play. (Jesse Pinkman would be proud.)

– What happened to Krystal after Delphine realized she'd been tricked?

– Did Delphine know her shooter? How long will it take for Cosima to find out she's dead? Actually, IS she dead? I doubt it.

– Where do we stand on Rachel's mom returning? I am retroactively very sad for Ethan Duncan, but also, if everything that he thought happened didn't happen, then Sarah likely never would have ended up with Mrs. S.

– Freaking Neoloutionists. Ugh.