Orphan Black - I say we divide and conquer.

Orphan Black: 2x07 Knowledge of Causes, and Secret Motion of Things.

The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible. 

Francis Bacon: The New Atlantis

What drives these characters? What is at the core of their being? Knowledge of the situation that they are in and knowledge as self, both to regain control and for the sake of knowing itself – and the way that works both ways, knowing their history and biology becomes essential for finding a way out, but knowing each other intimately and the bonding that goes with it is equally one of the few weapons that the clones have in their fight against the forces pulling at them, trying to control them. Sarah is driven by wanting to protect Kira at all costs, but sometimes that means walking directly into danger’s way. Cal proposes the escape, but this new version of Sarah, changed by events, no longer has the luxury of simply running away: she cares about other people, and she knows that Cosima’s safety and well-being is intimately connected to her own, to Kira’s, in case they have inherited the same disease that is slowly killing Cosima, and  either way, she cares too much about her sister to just pack and leave. Alison in in rehab for her children, in the most literal way, threatened to lose them by Donnie. Cosima is struggling for literal survival, using all the capacities that she has to find a cure. Delphine is driven by love, and willing to risk things that Cosima specifically asks her not to do because she sees them as the only option to keep the person she loves alive: in the face of death, anything becomes justifiable, regardless of how innately connected survival and agency are on this show. On the fringes of the story, some of the characters are harder to read. Siobhan does things for love but her fight against DYAD and what they represent, and have represented for ever, is so old that it’s hard to imagine her doing anything else. Ethan Duncan, trapped like the birds he keeps for company, used to do things for the love of his daughter until all that was left for him was the fear of Leekie, flight and hiding, with no way out and no way to win back what has been taken from him. Leekie presumably does things for science, but at the same time acts out of paternal instinct to protect his project, to remain in a position within DYAD that still allows him to inscribe his interpretation and meaning on the clones rather than whatever it is that Rachel’s side of things (or Marian Bowles’, a new addition – there’s always a bigger fish) are trying to make of what remains of Project Leda and the women born from it. And Rachel herself, both DYAD and result of DYAD, is turning into a mystery even to the man who raised her (after killing her mother, and attempting to murder her father): no longer entirely dedicated to whatever cause the Institute gives her, she is off on her own path, searching for meaning the same way that Sarah, Cosima, Helena and Alison do, but with entirely different resources at her disposal. 

The conflicting goals and forces are not just working to control the clones (and those intimately involved in their lives), but also working within the characters themselves, in their choices and decisions. Rachel was brought up by Leekie to be DYAD, to represent the Institute in the most profound way, but his re-programming of her, his attempts to delete her past, weren’t entirely successful. She still has the videotapes of a past that she thought was now lost to her, and Sarah and Siobhan have been playing this game long enough to see leverage where it’s available: Sarah proposes they use what little they have to play with the divisions within DYAD, to identify the fault lines and use them to their advantage. Ethan Duncan, a pawn in their game: Leekie needs him for what he knows, for the all the early knowledge about Project Leda that he thought lost, Rachel needs him because of what she lost, because he provides a sort of meaning to her that Leekie never could. Knowledge of the “secret motions of things” is the only strategy that remains to those objectively weaker and in a worse position to fight, but Siobhan knows exactly what she is doing in pitting the two sides against each other. 

The idea is that knowing what makes a person tick, what drives them, also means having power over them; it’s how Leekie found monitors for his clones, picking each of them according to his needs and identifying what made them likely to stay and behave the way they should: Paul, regardless of how much he claims he loves Sarah, is always going to be too self-interested to risk having his past exposed. Donnie isn’t inherently evil, but he’s the kind of person who would believe that secretly informing on his wife for the rest of their lives together, holding that secret, was justifiable if it happened for science, for a benign experiment. Delphine is an even better monitor now that she is in love, invested, because there is nothing she wouldn’t do to make sure that Cosima was cured – and Leekie knew that, when he left those files, and he probably also knew that Delphine realizing whose DNA they were using would not stop her. 

In Donnie’s case, the crime is that he did not care enough to realize what constantly lying (and constantly making decisions for someone else), for whatever reason, does to a relationship, regardless of the fact that he didn’t know about the experiments or about the reasons behind it. Delphine is a much more difficult case, because everything she does is for love, going behind Cosima’s back, not giving her the vital piece of information, commanding Scott not to tell her, allowing an extremely invasive procedure (Cosima literally having genetic material implanted into her that she would not consent to, if she knew) to go forwards in spite of knowing that Cosima would object. It’s so heartbreaking and yet perfect for this storyline that all of their intimate moments happen in the lab, during medical procedures performed on Cosima (and often with another person present): Cosima’s body as problem, as pathology, leads directly to Delphine taking her agency from her and making decisions for her that she knows will save her life, but that Cosima would also never make if she had all the information (and at the same time, Cosima is acting too – brave for Delphine, and certain for Delphine, with these small moments of doubts, where presumably she remembers both that the outcome of the procedures is uncertain and that Delphine isn’t just her lover, but also her doctor – and still her monitor). It’s always for each other’s benefit, the lying and the pretending, but it also makes a genuine, balanced relationship based on mutual respect and trust impossible. 

Cosima: Did you ever stop to think once that this is my decision and not yours?
Delphine: There is no decision, Cosima, you have one way forward and this is it.
[…]
Cosima: This is my lab. My body. I’m the science, get out.

“I am the science”, which is a perfect parallel to that moment last season when she talked to Leekie, about how scientists never make the cover of Scientific American, but of course Cosima is both, the scientist and the science. 

To an extent this is also an episode where characters win back the upper hand and take control of a situation after almost losing it entirely: Alison finally confronts Donnie (after Sarah as Alison as Donnie confronts Donnie as Alison), and in making him understand what he did, she changes the game. Cosima tells Delphine to leave, and tells Sarah that she needs her help, needs Kira to ensure all of their survival. Rachel is in danger of becoming the victim of whatever moves Leekie is planning to execute with the help of Marian, but gets a step ahead with the information that she gets when she meets her father – a deeply personally affecting piece of information, learning that her mentor had her mother killed, and yet she immediately realizes how to use it as leverage against him, using the fact that Marian already mistrusts him for his obsession with Sarah Manning. 

I think in part Rachel thought that the way to gain back control over her life was in determining what DYAD would end up doing with Project Leda, it would be control in a much bigger sense than Sarah and Alison can imagine, and it’s not quite what Leekie brought her up to be (and maybe she died her hair blonde because, knowing how many there are who look exactly the same, she just really wanted to be different). Rachel allows Leekie to leave – “It’s foolish to spare you, but you raised me. Nurture prevails”, but he is robbed of all his power, without help – and someone else is now holding a grudge against him too. 

Donnie: You came into my house and probed my wife.
Leekie: Listen to me, you turnip. In a hundred years’ time, no one will care in any way about Donnie Hendrix except as a foot note in this experiment.
Donnie: You ruined my marriage, my wife hates me.
Leekie: I gave you your wife.
Donnie: I won’t participate anymore.
Leekie: Thank you.
Donnie: I quit.

It’s the last demonstration of Leekie’s hubris, that he never takes Donnie seriously enough to consider him a force to be reckoned with, that he isn’t even someone he fears when he points a gun at him. The details get lost in the bigger picture, and human beings become foot notes in Leekie’s science, just like the clones become numbers – so it’s a fitting ending, really, an accidental gun shot.  

Random notes: 

I think Vic works as a good example for “conflicting emotions” – he hates spying on Alison but it’s necessary for the way he wants his future to be, and that trumps any kind of moral consideration that might go into it. He’s still comic relief, covered in glitter and feathers, a burden to be dragged around once Felix drugs him, but in his own way, he goes through what everyone else has been experiencing this season. 

Also, jfc Alison confessing to criminal negligence over arts and crafts: “And then I killed her. […] I could have saved her but I didn’t. As she clawed at the counter top, begging for her life, I stood there until it was over.” Probably not quite what Victor was fishing for. 

LOBSTER GLOVES!

How perfect that Leekie is developing an “artificial womb”, so he can do away with all these troublesome, bothersome mothers altogether. 

Alison: I can’t go to jail, Felix. I don’t have the temperament. In the showers if they touch me, I will cut them!

Michelle Forbes is always awesome in that terrifying way, but gosh how perfect was that costume, the closest thing you could probably get to a haute couture interpretation of a lab coat for a character who presumably started in science but has now completely embraced the business side of DYAD and whatever future they are considering for all their projects. Leekie is tiny beside her.  

“Where is my name tag? Honey, can you pass me my name tag?” OH DONNIE with your hilariously undecorated name tag. Could there be a bigger slight?

(tiny moment but still hilarious, Sarah as Alison of course not remembering the names of Alison’s children – “Hello…kids”)

Donnie as Alison: Don’t stammer Donnie, and stand up straight, or I’ll withhold affection. 

KIRA!! Just, without hesitation, acting when she realizes that Cosima needs her. The perfect combination of both parents arguing about her future, Cal’s intuition and insight, Sarah’s strength. 

I FEEL IT IN MY FINGERS, I FEEL IT IN MY TOES. LOVE IS ALL AROUND ME.