A Fond Farewell to Clone Club: Reviewing the End of Orphan Black

Luce: Well, guys, it’s been a long journey to the finale. Five years of twists and turns later, we’ve finally reached the end of the journey (or, at least, this journey) for Clone Club. But how did our favorite clones fare at this, the end of all things, and did they all make it through unscathed? Reviewing the end of Orphan Black is too much to take on alone, so I’m super glad to be joined by all of our faithful Orphan Black review team for this very last review.

Spoilers after the jump!

(via denofgeek)

Orphan Black: “Manacled Slim Wrists” Review

(via denofgeek)

We left last week’s episode with Cosima locked in Westmoreland’s basement and Kira determined to take a more active role in her family’s crusade against Rachel. So of course the clone we start out with this week is… Krystal? With only a few episodes left, it makes sense that she would come back to wrap up her plotline, but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it quite so much.

Spoilers below the jump!

Orphan Black: “Beneath Her Heart” Review

(via denofgeek)

Welcome back, Clone Club. This week’s episode is centered almost entirely on Alison. During the last few seasons, Alison’s plotlines have functioned more like comic relief than anything else. She’s a sparkly, suburban foil to her darker, more serious sestras, and it’s easy for all of us (including the viewers) to not take her seriously. This episode changes that. Because it’s the final season, we’re actually getting an Alison-centric episode that explores the depths of her heart.

Spoilers, of course, for “Beneath Her Heart” below.

Orphan Black: “The Few Who Dare” Review

(via denofgeek)

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: this season’s titles come from the fiery-badass poem “Protest” by Etta Wheeler Wilcox, which y’all should read. Really, it’s short.

Done? Cool, let’s get on with the show. This week’s premiere picked up pretty much right where the Season 4 finale left off: Sarah injured, Cosima reunited with Delphine, and everything happening so much with Alison, Donnie, and Helena.

Spoilers after the jump!

Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: WASPs and Clone Club

via thesnarkingdeadrecaps

Season 4 of Orphan Black gave us a bigger taste of Alison’s religion. Alison is the stereotypical suburban soccer mom, a “type A” personality decked out in pastels. She’s a W.A.S.P. who stands in great contrast with her darker and edgier sisters Cosima, Helena, and Sarah. It’s no wonder that Alison is the clone with the most pronounced religious beliefs. Sure, Helena was raised by harsh Ukrainian nuns, but their religion hasn’t really been delved into by the show. Alison, on the other hand, wears a golden cross necklace and is often shown attending a Mainline Protestant church with her family. Her religion was involved in many minor scenes of this season, and she could be the doorway to a very different kind of religious representation in our scifi media.

Orphan Black: “The Mitigation of Competition” Review

I always feel guilty getting behind on Orphan Black, because the show always delivers such quality content that I feel like I owe them my regular viewership. Unfortunately, my busy schedule of con-attending (and then con-recovering) left me yet again an episode behind this week. It’s always fun to do a bit of a mini binge-watch, though, and this episode pulled a lot of our disparate plot strings back toward the center of our clonetastic Gordian knot.

Spoilers—and probably more mixed metaphors—after the jump.

Orphan Black: “The Redesign of Natural Objects” Review

The title of this episode seemed like the episode would get into some serious genetics shop talk, but fortunately, last night’s Orphan Black wasn’t big on the body horror at all. In fact, we seem to be moving forward on several plot points in several different ways.

Spoilers after the jump.

Orphan Black: “The Antisocialism of Sex” Review

This week’s episode is all about failure. After last week’s action-packed, info-dump-y episode, now we’re given a chance to let it sink in and see what all of these consequences mean for our beloved Clone Club, et al. I’m not sure it can get much lower than this.

Spoilers for this week and trigger warning for suicide after the jump.

Orphan Black: “From Instinct to Rational Control” Review

I’ve been behind on my Orphan Black-watching, and all I could remember from last season was a confusing blur and some vague plot points. It was, therefore, a pleasure to sit down and watch the first four episodes of this season in one fell swoop this week, ending with Thursday night’s “From Instinct to Rational Control”. The storytelling this season has been on point and I’m excited to see where we go from here.

Spoilers for this week’s episode after the jump!

Orphan Black: “The Stigmata of Progress” Review

Our latest episode of Orphan Black was quite a stunner. I have a serious fear of going blind, and there’s a greater than average chance I’ll have to have some dental work done soon, and thanks to this episode, now, I… really don’t want to do that. I didn’t realize this season of Orphan Black was going to have to come with a trigger warning for body horror every single episode.

Having said that, uh, spoilers and body horror after the jump.