‘Orphan Black’ Clone Club MVP of the week: Helena and her teeth of steel
We were only about 10 minutes into this week’s Orphan Black episode and I already knew who the Clone Club MVP was going to be. While Sarah patches up Mark, Alison confronts an old boyfriend, and Cosima contemplates finding a new girlfriend, Helena is all alone with her imaginary scorpion and yet seems to have more control over her situation than any of the others.
Helena is a wonder. She was previously abused, learned self-abuse, spent most of her time alone and far too much time locked in cages. The result? A childlike development and an extreme wariness of others. But despite all that she is smart, she’s resourceful, and she’s empathetic.
Helena pays close attention to every single thing. She notices the sharp bone in her steak and from it fashions not a weapon, but a key. She then puts her arm in a tourniquet and trashes her cell, forcing “mother,” Dr. Coady, to come and sedate her — in the very arm she smartly roped off. They send her to the infirmary, where she, with the guidance of her snarky scorpion, decides to take a look-see at the compound where she is being held, all while the drugs are slowly setting in.
Helena comes across a room where one of the “Mark-face boys” is being examined, but she has to go back to her room before she is caught. Back in her cell, she finishes making her key (BY BITING THE BONE INTO KEY SHAPE. WHAT!) and takes another walk. She finds the Castor clone — Parsons — hooked up to the machines and learns that they are attached RIGHT TO HIS BRAIN. His OPEN brain. As in they removed his cranium! Parsons is strapped in and in pain and he begs Helena to put him out of his misery.
The scorpion tells Helena she’s wasting her escape time on Parsons, but she ignores it. “We’ve both been abandoned by our families, left to suffer. I will make it go away. No more pain, little one.” A “Nearer My God to Thee” chorus hums in the background as she stabs a scalpel in Parson’s open brain; less messy than slicing his carotid and destroys the tests.
Helena is back where she started, but has given peace to one of her brothers (though she doesn’t know that yet), cut short one of Coady’s military experiments, and realized that Dr. Coady is not the benevolent mother she tried to make herself seem. Next week we reunite Sarah and Helena and I am all for it!
Sleep now, lamb chop. Sleep. Who was YOUR Most Valuable Clone for this week’s Orphan Black?
Fun fact: Helena’s scorpion is named Pupok.
Also, check out our previous Orphan Black Clone Club MVPs: Art, Seth, and Sarah Manning.
