Orphan Black S05E05 Recap: Ease For Idle Millionaires

Cosima discovers the real reason the Neos want Kira, but digs a little too deeply, severely angering old PT. But also Cophine cuteness.. \r

Episode 5 begins with Cosima in the lab drilling out a sample of the tooth Charlotte found in the woods to test it to see exactly what kind of creature it came from. Meanwhile a very cheeky villager sneaks out to have a smoke – no doubt strictly prohibited – and can hear movement around him. Of course – like all good scenes that appropriate the horror in the forest genre – the creature jumps out and attacks smoker, while at the same time Cosima is looking at the data from the tooth-testing.

This triggers a flash-back for her, to the time she and Delphine cracked the code on the genome and discovered that Cos and her sisters were intellectual property, and that the sickness she has was programmed into her DNA right from the start. Now Cosima was pretty pissed off at Delphine at this point because as she tells her, “They own me. You were paid to lie to me.” But Delphine has fallen very hard for Cos at this point, and sets about trying to prove to Cos that she will always ‘work to protect you.’ As she’s kissing her neck, her shoulders… she’s saying, “not your integrity, not your intellect, not your humour. We’ll find a cure, defy them. Live your life with every ounce of passion that I know you have”… and it’s a very lovely little lesbian flashback we end up having, thank you Cosima!

Defy and Protect = always.

But Cos is then jerked back to the present with frenetic shouting just outside her lab, and I’m guessing we’re supposed to think it’s tied in with the “bear” in the woods. The villagers are all pretty angry, they know it’s no ‘bear’, but those with guns insist it’s a bear, so I guess the poor escapee from old PT’s medieval torture chamber is still a bear until someone can prove otherwise. Cosima wanders out and follows Aisha to her tent, and despite Aisha saying The Messenger has said Cos isn’t to examine her, Cos goes ahead and does anyway (just because she’s a clone – and when do they ever do as they’re told?), and finds Aisha’s tumour is shrinking. She then ‘borrows’ Aisha’s daily log of how she’s feeling on her treatment.

In S’s house, Siobhan and Sarah are planning the day. Sarah and Kira will stay there, S will go out and try and find out where Cody fits in. They decide that no more whispering around Kira so tell her S is off to try and find out what the Neos did in the past, so they can try and work out what they’re going to do in the future. Meanwhile the village is in lockdown as Men With Guns confine all the villagers to their cabins and tents while they go out to ‘hunt the bear’. Cos finds Mudd, who is really upset, but has been ordered to go with them because she’s the only one that might be able to calm him down. It turns out that Mudd was the one who let him out of his hell-hole, as ‘he wasn’t always like that’, but he turned bad when they started doing some horrible experiments on him. She tells Cosima that the guests have begun arriving at the Big House, “Rachel’s already here’, and Cosima turns to see Delphine ascending the steps, but is sent back to her cabin by a Man With a Gun.

Where’s she going?

She could have at least come and seen me first!

Rachel and old PT are toasting the success of whatever it is they’re doing, while Ira is STILL trying to Susan away from PT, but he’s fighting a losing battle, and while Delphine sits outside in the hallway, old PT gives Rachel a needle of Cosima’s inoculation, telling her she deserves it more that anyone. At the same time, she tells him they have selected 1300 surrogates and have them awaiting implantation. PT is pleased. But he’s NOT pleased, when Rachel asks why not just eradicate this mutation in the woods, rather than capture it. He raises his voice at her and says, that it’s important to him, that all life should be studied, so I guess he wants the poor old ‘bear’ to do further tests and see exactly where he fucked things up. Rachel is put right back in her little box, and says meekly, “Of course, I must remember you know most things,” to which he replies, “but not all, so you’ll have to meet with your mother to shore up her loyalties.”

Stick it it me baby, uh, huh, uh, huh!

He calls in Delphine, who just about trips over herself to do his beckoning and not keep the crazy old bastard waiting. She’s brought gene samples from Sardegna, is happy with the work, was hoping to be on her way to Geneva. But, says old PT, we need you here. You’re friend Cosima is a line-crosser – he’s obviously noticed what she’s doing in the lab, and the questions she’s asking Mudd and the others, shit he probably knows she was poking around in his Medieval torture chamber. All will be revealed tonight he says. “What is it you need to know?” says she. Now I’m going out on a limb – and given Delphine’s visit to S earlier in the series, and Cosima’s dream earlier this ep, this is all part of a grander plan, and Delphie isn’t about to spy on her gf. But what is she up to?

You disgust me old man.

Rachel goes to visit her mother – and I loved Ira’s little parting remark to her as he left the weird greenhouse where they seem to spend all their hours, ‘I’ve hidden the knives’ – but Rachel makes it clear that this is no happy family reunion. When Susan makes the mistake of claiming Neolution as “ours”, Rachel is quick to stab her fingers into Susan’s recovering wound and remind her that old PT put her at his right hand and that Neolution’s corporate and science are one, so it’s hers – not Susan’s. Meanwhile in her yurt, Cosima is studying some paperwork, and in walks Delphine. It’s a bit of an icy reception, Cos is clearly hurt that Delphine went up to the house before coming to see her, but she explains that and they seem all good. They talk science and Aisha’s tumour and how Leekie was studying that very same thing that she has on ‘spiny mice’.

Remember who’s boss here.

Cut to Kira – very next sentence – telling Sarah that ‘spiny mice have 90% of the same genes as humans’. Coincidence that this is the mouse Rachel gave her? I think not. Sarah asks Kira to teach her all the stuff she knows about ‘the feeling’ and in exchange she’ll tell her whatever she wants to know about what the grown ups do. At the same time, S is at the lab with Scott and Friend. They’re cross-referencing all the info they have on old PT, on Leekie, on Susan Duncan on Virginia Cody – but they need a crossover, a lover, benefactor… someone to draw them all together. They also need to find out of old PT actually died in that jungles of Borneo, so they can put it together – is the man from the jungle actually the man on the island?

Mudd is dragged along on the ‘hunt’, and tries again to plead for ‘the bear’s’ life, but the guy she’s with says it’s dangerous, and if it comes anywhere near his family he’s going to put a bullet in it. Mudd’s not happy. Back in the yurt, and Cophine are sciencing (like actual sciencing, not a euphemism for lesbianing…) – and Cos reveals the tooth, as the genome testing on that particular sample is completed on her computer. They find some gene (lin28A ??) and Delphine warns her she’s pushing too hard, that she’s jeopardising everything she’s doing on the outside. Of course, Cosima wants to know WHAT THAT IS, but then says, of course you can’t tell me. The Messenger turns up and tells Delphine she’s expected for dinner, and despite a blunt, “you’re not invited” to Cosima, she fires back “Lin28A – tell Westmorland I found his fountain.” Suddenly she’s invited.

Play along, and we’re all happy.

Ha! I was just wondering the other day about the language restrictions and time zones this must be shown in US/Canada, because here in Australia, after 9pm – you can f-bomb all you like. So when The Messenger takes Cos and Delphine into a room full of 19^th C clothing and tells them to ‘dress for dinner’, and Delphy tells Cos they need to play along to be able to get more info and keep Kira safe, and Cosima says, “Play along in a dress like this? Frock that!” I actually laughed out loud. Because I can not see Cosima, Sarah, Felix or Siobhan cruising through life with nary a word worse than “shit” escape their lips. So yes, Cosima – frock those dresses, because they are frocking ugly! And may I add – FROCK ME… how HOT does Cosima look in a tux!

It’s VERY frocking appropriate and no, you’re not invited to our wedding you weird frocker.

Next thing, old PT is walking into the dinner with Dephine on his arm. She looks VERY uncomfortable, Cosima looks very confused and very pissed off. Awkward pleasantries are swapped between Cosima and Susan, and Ira whispers that ‘her people wish her well.’ Sweet Ira. Old PT sits, and is immediately making things very icky…”Susan, they’ve discovered our interest in lin28A.” Susan gives Cos a dark look and asks if that’s why she’s here. Old PT, who is as vile as he is OLD, points aggressively to a seat, “Wanted a seat at the table.” Cosima – not one to be easily intimidated – replies, “I’m not so sure anymore.”

Fill ‘er up, Jeeves! I’m having a grand old time.

OH MY GOD I LOVE COSIMA! Determined not to kowtow to old PT, and both take the piss, and maybe get a little pissed at the same time. “You have a lot of dead things in here. Did you kill all of them?” Poor Delphine doesn’t know whether to laugh or whether she wants a great hole to open in the floor to swallow her up. She waxes lyrical about Darwin being a med school dropout… until suddenly old PT turns the table and asks about Cosima’s parents, Sally and… Jean? (She has same-sex parents! Cosima has lesbian parents! Is this new? Did I miss this somewhere along the line?). Suddenly it gets very sombre. Cos says she hasn’t spoken to them in a while, they’re professors who live on a houseboat, they’re in love, they think she’s still in school, they love her, they don’t know she’s sick – and if she told them she might crack and have to tell them she’s a clone and that the whole thing has been a lie. “My, what a delicate balance you have. The clinical and the humane,” says old Creepy McCreepface. Even Susan looks like she wants to smack him down. At this point, Rachel finally makes her entrance.

So Sarah and Kira are having some funtastic mummy-daughter time and getting Kira in on ‘the action’. They’re busy giving all the clones code-names, and for Kira chooses ‘Elephant’ for Rachel, because, ‘they’re scared of mice.’ Kira states she’s ‘going to be a hustler too’, S’s discombobulation. Kira needs to learn to ‘hustle’ so she can ‘gain someone’s trust, learn what they want, and then give it to them without them knowing that’s what she’s doing.’ It’s Rachel’s trust they’re after, and S asks the question – what is it that Rachel really wants? Cut to dinner on the island, “Lin28A, so called ‘fountain of youth’ gene,” says Rachel. “We’re decades ahead of popular science, you’re both lucky to be here, “she says to Cosima and Delphine. Suddenly – the penny drops for Cosima! They’ve isolated the mutation in Kira! “Bravo!” says old PT. Her healing abilities are the self-regulating mutation of the gene – she can’t get cancer, unlike Aisha’s whose cancer they’re manipulating.

Rachel tells her to shut up, old PT and Susan say they’re interested to know what else she knows, and then… and then… old PT tells her that Delphine told him she went down to the basement. If looks could kill! The clock strikes, and Rachel and Delphine have to leave, like right now. Cosima follows Delphine to the costume room and is all like, what the frock? Why would you tell him I was in his basement? I had to tell him something! He wanted info, and I couldn’t tell him nothing, but I have to get to Geneva, it’s important! Finally she tells her she’s meeting Felix and Adele and they have important endgame business, but we have to pretend he’s divided us so that he doesn’t guess, because this is what he does he divides women. They kiss and make up and it’s beautiful! If these two are not endgame then I WILL POP A HEAD GASKET I PROMISE!

Yes, we saw them too, Cosima!

Remember – protect and defy, always!

Well, why the frock not??

Mudd is dragged along on the ‘hunt’, and tries again to plead for ‘the bear’s’ life, but the guy she’s with says it’s dangerous, and if it comes anywhere near his family he’s going to put a bullet in it. Mudd’s not happy. Apparently someone heard something near the woodshed so off they go. Mudd’s mate forces her to go inside to look, but she comes out saying no one there. Next thing, the creature appears (there is so much Frankenstein’s monster going on here, I can’t even), and smacks down the guy with the rifle, grabs Mudd by the throat, but then lets her go when he realises it’s her and runs off back into the woods. Mudd’s mate is dead – throat slashed, and Mudd looks completely traumatised.

Cosima takes the tooth to old PT and Susan and gets some info about the lin28A gene. PT says “the subject” was found in a Latvian orphanage andis his greatest regret. Old bastard. Susan says she never partook of any testing on him, but she did synthesise the gene to put into Leda to see if it would cause accelerated healing, which is didn’t – only in Kira the unexpected second generation. At that point, Men With Guns burst in and tell old PT there’s an emergency in the village. Susan and Cosima are taken to Susan’s quarters where Ira is waiting and told to stay put. I reckon Cosima is very likely to sneak out…

NOW we start to find out stuff, that many of you who are more sciencey than me might have already worked out (although Cosima hadn’t so that makes me feel better)… With Cos and Susan locked up together, Susan tells her – we have to find out if the gene is heritable. Holy shit, that means those 1300 surrogates they have lined up are going to be impregnated with EGGS HARVESTED FROM KIRA! Kira’s children, Sarah’s grandchildren… you have to stop him! But Susan says the best she can do is mitigate, there’s no stopping him. So (like I predicted), Cosima decides she’s going to ‘stop him myself’. How she plans to do this, I can not begin to imagine… but right about now, poor old Ira picks a really bad time to start glitching. Mudd is running, terrified away from the basement, and begs Cosima not to go down there, telling her than not only does PT know that she was the one that let Yannis out, but that PT is sick and that this is why all this is happening.

He knows everything…

Of course, Cosima goes down to the basement to find PT sitting in a chair and Yannis trying to rechain himself in his torture chamber. Cosima confronts PT – you’re not that old, you’re sick, you’re dying, it’s all about you but it’s never about one gene, Yannis was a healthy child like Kira… and PT shoves a gun in her hand and says – well you end his suffering. Cosima, eyeballs him, as tears fall, “You gave me life, I know you can take it away. BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE AWAY MY HUMANITY!” Oh Cosima… you’re making me cry, I adore you so much!

And then, and then… as Cos crawls in to talk to Yannis, and she’s right up close, saying, “I’m so sorry, my name’s Cosima, I’m so sorry…” the frocking evil old bastard lifts the gun and shoots Yannis, not 12 inches away from Cosima’s head.

I am a human being!

Kira, Sarah and S are sleeping on Kira’s floor, all spooning like a set of three, and there’s a noise. Ever on the alert, S is up like a flash, grabbing the gun by the door and sneaking downstairs to find Delphine sitting in the kitchen. Delphine hands over a USB with all the info about the Kira’s gene, but she has gone already before Cosima got the info from Susan, so at this point they don’t know that Dyad are planning to harvest her eggs, although she does know that whatever they’re planning, it’s happening soon. Can they trust S’s source inside the village again? I don’t know, she says, I’m not sure we should have in the first place.

They’d be cute spoons if there weren’t a gun hanging on the door knob.

Meanwhile, in the basement of old PT’s Big House, Cosima has been locked in Yannis’s torture chamber, and is screaming for someone to let her out… Will anyone hear her?