Orphan Black finally arrives back on BBC America tonight, April 19th, and will hopefully start to answer some of the questions we’ve had for the past year. For those still not watching the best show on television, Orphan Black features Sarah Manning, a young mom with a troubled past who discovers that she’s a clone when she witnesses another version of herself jump in front of a train. Along with her foster brother Felix, Sarah takes on Beth’s life and starts to uncover the truth behind their history. This ultimately leads Sarah and her closest clones, Cosima and Allison, to the Dyad Institute, lead by Dr. Aldous Leekie and yet another clone, Rachel. Oh, and all these clones? They’re all played by the amazing Tatiana Maslany.
Which leads us to the never-ending Orphan Black question: how many clones are there? Let’s take a look at the clones we already know:
SARAH: Our main clone. Sarah was a rebellious British orphan who was once the foster child of Mrs. S (who we now know was a key scientist involved in her cloning process). After she witnesses her clone Beth’s suicide, Sarah takes on Beth’s life, including her police detective job with Beth’s partner Art. Sarah uses this position to get cover up details on her true clone intentions. She works with Alison and Cosima to uncover the truth behind their origins. She kills crazy-clone Helena, only to return home to find that her daugher, Kira, has been kidnapped. We can expect to see Sarah facing off with Rachel, searching for Kira, and figuring out Mrs. S’s history in season two.
BETH: A police detective who jumps to her death in a train station in the first five minutes of episode one. She was working with Cosima and Alison at the time of her death to figure out their origins. Though she seemed to know that she was being hunted, it is still unknown why she decided to end her life. She was also in a struggling relationship with the super-hot Paul (who it turns out was her monitor all along). Beth, we barely knew ya.
KATJA: The German clone. She sneaks up on Sarah in the backseat of her car but is quickly shot and killed by a sniper rifle. Before she’s shot, Katja tells Sarah that she was working with Beth to figure out who was killing the other clones in Europe. She also suffers from a respiratory condition that causes her to cough up blood and is likely fatal.
ALISON: Everyone’s favorite uptight housewife. Alison lives in the suburbs with her husband and two children where she coaches soccer and has her own arts and crafts room. She is secretly working with Cosima and Beth (and now Sarah) to figure out their history. Once she discovers that Paul was Beth’s monitor, Alison becomes obsessed with finding her own monitor. Alison believes it to be her husband, Donnie, but once he throws her off his trail, she becomes convinced that its her friend/fellow housewife, Aynsley. She then strangles Aynsley with a scarf in Aynsley’s own compacter. Quite a scene, let me tell you. In season two we’ll find Alison feeling pretty guilty over this Aynsley situation, once again suspicious of Donnie, and discovering quickly that she is Dyad property.
COSIMA: The brainy/hippie clone. Cosima is a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota where she studies evolutionary biology, but mostly she’s studying the science behind her and her sisters. Cosima begins dating another student, Delphine, discovers she’s her monitor, dumps her, and then get back together to take on Delphine’s boss, Dr. Leekie. At the end of season one, Cosima begins coughing up blood, the first sign of Katja’s respiratory disease. She also discovers that her and her sisters were patented by the Dyad Institute, meaning they truly belong to Dr. Leekie. Season two will find the secretly sick sister searching for her own cure while discovering the inner workings of the Dyad Institute.
HELENA: The totally psycho assassin. After being raised in a Ukrainian convent, Helena begins killing her sisters as she believes that their cloning is wrong and sinful. She believes she is the original. She is incredibly unstable and disturbed. She realizes that she and Sarah are actually twins and feels they share this connection. After she kills their birth mother, Sarah kills her.
RACHEL: The Neolutionist clone; Rachel works for the enemy, the Neolutionists (meaning that she believes in evolution through cloning) and the Dyad Institute. She and Sarah meet in the final episodes of season one when Sarah tries to uncover more information, leading her straight to Rachel and the Institute. Little is known about Rachel, but the first few trailers for season two include a lot more of her.
JENNIFER: The new clone!
Entertainment Weekly has recently released photos and a clip of this newbie (http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/03/13/orphan-black-new-clone-jennifer-fitzsimmons/). Told through medical video journals, Jennifer is a midwestern school teacher who has the same respiratory condition as Katja and Cosima. The healthy Jennifer video is juxtaposed with a very sickly Jennifer, attached to a drip, and sadly angry and suffering. The trailer includes what appears to be a very dead Jennifer.
While these are the six (now seven) key clones, Cosima discovers that there were at least three other clones who Helena killed.
So again, we ask: how many clones are there? We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to find out, but my theory is that there are likely a few more, but not too many more. The Dyad Institute and Dr. Leekie must keep careful observation over each clone, providing them monitors and cautiously contained lives. If they exceed say 20 clones, I don’t think they’re going to maintain the same level of care and control over each clone. Even if there are more clones beyond our main girls (Sarah, Cosima, Alison, and now Rachel), I don’t think they’ll take on a leading role. They’ll likely follow Beth and Katja’s leads; both characters provided their lives and various information, but ultimately have just supported Sarah, Cosima, and Alison’s work. From what we’ve seen, Jennifer fits this mold. She’s not about to join their Clone Club ranks, but she will be able to help them gather more information to piece together other parts of their very large, insane, and addicting story.
The Nerdy Girl 