Orphan Black Recap: Adventure Time with Sarah and Helena

Aren’t you glad you didn’t really murder Helena, Sarah? Because if you had, you wouldn’t be able to have such wonderful road trip fun! Helena is having a rocking time as well, dragging out this “Finding Duncan” bonding experience so Sarah doesn’t leave her. Helena also takes this opportunity to learn more about herself, asking if she too can have children because, “I’m very good with children.” But it really does look like Sarah and Helena might actually be having some successful seestra time, complete with adorable shadow puppet antics. On the road, Helena continues to be the most adorable thing ever with her inability to settle on a road trip song, then picking “Sugar, Sugar” and belting what she thinks are the lyrics for probably the entire drive. This may be the best moment in Orphan Black history, just saying. If only the happiness could last without Paul following them and snooping around in their stuff.

At the Dyad Institute, Random Science Guy Scott has submitted an application to work on the clones’ case. He already knows about their existence, but when he asks to see one, it’s clear he doesn’t know Cosima is a clone. After doing some research, Scott confronts Delphine about some genetics revelations - apparently they share genes with a specific woman, a cousin or daughter (it's a little confusing at the moment, but there's not much on this plot this week anyway. To be fleshed out soon!). Delphine gets all secretive and tells him that he can’t tell Cosima what she’s about to tell him...And that’s it for our favorite scientists this week, but it's not too devastating because Alison’s back!

Poor Alison is still in rehab, but definitely not ready to share about her life experiences in a group. Surprise guest alert! Victor, Sarah’s formerly abusive former boyfriend shows up for group, and Alison immediately tries to hide. It doesn’t quite work, and Victor pulls her aside when the session is done. She recognizes her for that time he attacked her in a parking lot thinking she was Sarah, and he recognizes her because yeah, she continues to be his ex-girlfriend’s clone. He asks if she and Sarah are twins, and she actually does admit their clones, but he assumes she’s joking and insists “The Godhead” has put her here to test him.

Back on the road trip, Helena leads Sarah to the Church where Duncan was last seen. Sarah leaves Helena to go examine the church, and runs into an employee at the church who tells her about the Coldriver Institute (which Helena previously declared the “Place of Screams”). The woman calls the man in Sarah’s photo “Mr. Peckham,” and tells Sarah he used to come in to study the archives. Sarah claims “Mr. Peckham” was her teacher and that she to needs to see the archives for her thesis. It works, and Sarah dives right into studying many photos of genetic experiment children. Come on, we all knew this research wouldn’t be sunshine and rainbows.

Helena has other plans, and hits the bar to indulge in a large array of pretty drinks. She’s not to keen on getting hit on by a pushy patron, however, and sprains his hand when he gets rough (though next time, “I break.”) A cute, more kindly bar patron runs over to break up the fight, and ends up getting his flirt on with Helena. She offers him a white russian, he offers her a pork rind, and it may be love at first sight, even though Prolethian Mark has just entered the building to mess everything up.

Donnie visits Alison in rehab, though she’s furious he didn’t bring the children. Alison nearly gets into a fight with him right in the hallway, but Victor breaks it up with his new zen-tude. Alison confronts Victor and tells him how she knows about his violent past. He claims he’s “walking the path of the budda now.” Alison actually seems to believe him, because she finally starts opening up and they play a friendly round of basketball.

The only thing that could possibly ruin this is what’s definitely happening - Victor is being used by Angie to spy on Alison and report back. Only thing is, he actually is starting to like Alison and the undercover trickery is cramping his recovery style, so the second his charges are dropped, he wants out. 

Felix may not be a huge part of this episode, but he’s definitely in it, and his drunken painting session is interrupted by Detective Bell, who’s brought over heaps of evidence from Helena’s storage locker that he needs Felix’s help unraveling. What a fun hangover cure! Good luck, boys.

At the bar, Helena opens up to her new friend, telling him about her history as a Ukranian detective-turned-scientist-turned-divorced alcoholic. Bar dude, who is clearly mesmerized by Helena’s uniqueness, asks how a simple guy like him keeps a girl like her, and she tells him he must be strong. Literally. Cue the arm wrestling, which he naturally loses. Mark and Paul watch from the bar, bonding over their stalkery of their respective clones, Helena and Sarah. Helena keeps rather animalistically winning the arm wrestling competitions, but Bar Dude decides to wrangle her into another physical activity - dancing! It seems that Helena may have actually found love! How long can this last? I’m guessing ten seconds. She and Bar Dude even start a wild dance floor/pool table make-out session that challenges all casual meanings of “PDA.” Unfortunately the aggressively tender moment is interrupted by the pushy guy from before, and Helena ends up mega-attacking him and his cronies. She wins, but the police arrest her, dragging her away as she screams that she wants her boyfriend. 

In jail we learn that, luckily, the guys she attacked aren’t pressing charges. Even better, her sister’s come to pick her up! Wrong sister though, it’s Prolethian Gracie, but the good news is her mouth looks a little better this week. Helena informs her that it will heal - her’s did once. Gracie tells Helena that they took eggs from her, and now she wants to take her to her children. Mark joins them as well, and hands her bar dude’s hat, saying he wanted her to have it. But Helena’s got a new mission now. She wants the Prolethians to take her to her babies. So long, cute Bar Dude! It was nice while it lasted.

After a cute little sibling check-up with Cosima, Sarah calls Bell and asks him to see if he can help get Helena released, as well as if he can find some of the files that were missing files from the archive. She believes Duncan stole this Andrew Peckham’s identity, and that he definitely has something to do with this Coldriver Institute. Because this research went miraculously well, Sarah is able to track down where she believes Duncan is hiding, only when she gets there, she finds that pesky Mrs. S. But it’s not all trouble in detective paradise, because Mrs. S leads Sarah to meet “Andrew Peckham”/Duncan. The poor, sad man seems a more than a little out of it, but he’s able to take a break from feeding his birds to speak with Sarah.

Mrs. S gives Sarah 5 minutes with him, and then takes her leave to go confront Paul, who’s still stalking Sarah, and tells him that to get to Sarah, he’ll have to kill her. Back in Bird Haven, Duncan/Peckham starts to immediately explain how his wife Susan had been the brains of the entire cloning operation. He tells Sarah about their research- how they successfully cloned human embryos, but the operation was declared an ‘ethical failure.’ However, the Dyad Institute hijacked the project and persuaded them to push on. Sarah’s confused about what he wanted out of all this, and he answers pretty genuinely, “Babies. Little girls.” He claims that they loved Rachel, and he wants to see her again. Additionally, he says it wasn’t the Dyad itself that corrupted her, but the Neolutionists within the Dyad, namely one Aldus Leekie. Sarah begs Duncan for his help, telling him about all the other clones and how they may all be ill. He’s crushed to hear his children are dying, explaining that Leekie wouldn’t let him raise the clones and was even the one who killed Susan. But Leekie seemed so nice and helpful! Ah, but when is anyone truly nice and helpful on Orphan Black. Next week brings Alison confessing the murder of Aynsley of to Viktor, Cosima and Delphine getting in a fight over her health, and Rachel actually meeting Duncan. Could that be emotion in Rachel’s eyes?? We’ll just have to wait until next week to find out!