‘Orphan Black’ Recap: Bright Born’s Eleven

Warning: This recap for the “Human Raw Material” episode of Orphan Black contains spoilers.

Gun to my head (or, for this show, genetic worm in my cheek), my all-time favorite episode of Orphan Black would have to be “Variations Under Domestication” from Season 1, when the Alison and the Clone Club took Donnie hostage while a party raged in their living room. Part of the reason I adore that hour is that it’s played as a full-fledged farce — complete with slamming doors, repeatedly swapped identities and a hostage — embedded in the middle of an ostensibly straight-faced sci-fi series. It was an early example of how Orphan Black would happily switch up its tone and style to keep the audience engaged and off-balance.

Creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson have tried to do an Alison-centric variation on “Variations” every season, whether it was her bungled foray into amateur theater in Season 2 or Cosima’s near-disastrous Alison impersonation at a big school trustee election event last year. They throw yet another curveball in Season 4’s version of “Variations,” “Human Raw Material,” having Alison take a backseat while Krystal and Cosima carry the comic and dramatic weight of the episode, respectively. And instead of a farce, “Material” is more in the vein of an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist narrative, one that involves the Clone Club reps Cosima and Donnie, and freelancer Krystal, separately infiltrating the Bright Born offices to pilfer information.

Specifically, Cosima and Donnie have gone undercover at Bright Born HQ for details on the genetically enhanced babies that the company is peddling to fertility-challenged parents. Meanwhile, Krystal is pursuing her suspicions that Dyad is putting “stem cells in cosmetics,” resulting in such tabloid-reported mutations as eyelid teeth. In a fun twist on the heist formula, their identities are clocked almost immediately by Bright Born head honcho, Evie Cho, although it takes a visiting Susan Duncan to set her straight on which clone is which. Evie’s confusion allows Cosima — in full Danny Ocean mode — to penetrate Bright Born’s inner sanctum: the delivery ward where deformed babies are pulled out of hysterical mothers. “Positive for BP Syndrome,” the doctor is overheard saying as the gasping, nose-less infant is spirited out of the room, giving the show another potential mystery medical condition to inflict body horror upon the characters and the audience.

Krystal doesn’t make any similar breakthroughs on her own mission, but she does get a chance to practice some martial arts moves on poor Donnie, who drops his carefully crafted “Douglas Andrews” persona to improvise as Bright Born masseuse Ronnie. And like Cosima, she also spots a face that makes her jump: Ira, the member of the Castor clone family that tried to kidnap her last season. Seemingly more docile than his brothers, Ira serves Susan in all ways … and I do mean all ways, based on their swimming pool lip-lock towards the end of the episode. Before that moment, Susan attempts to mentally seduce brainy Cosima into a partnership, emphasizing what they could achieve if they applied their big brains to cracking the secrets buried in Kendall’s genetic makeup. Cosima protests, but you can also see the wheels in her mind turning as she weighs the benefits (like not dying, for example) against the costs to her Clone Club allegiance.

As the Bright Born heist was playing out, Sarah and Kira are enjoying a much-needed mother/daughter day. Well, Kira is enjoying it, at least. Sarah spends much of the time trying to coax the little girl into revealing more details about her dreams, to the point where Kira heartbreakingly begged her mom to shut up and just play with her. And when she isn’t worried about Kira, she’s coming up with ways to sabotage the growing bond between Felix and his recently discovered sister, Adele.

That culminates in a frosty family dinner at Mrs. S’s place, made frostier by the fact that Sarah is waiting on a call from Scott, who is reluctantly running a last-minute genetic test to determine whether Adele is a big ol’ faker. (She’s not.) The slow-motion implosion of Sarah and Felix’s relationship has been painful to watch this season, but it’s a testament to the strength of the writing and Lauren Hammersley’s performance that we’re not blaming Adele as the instigator. If anything, Adele seems like a much more positive presence in Felix’s life than Sarah … so much so that is she does turn out to be evil, I, for one, am gonna go on my own heist mission to infiltrate the Orphan Black production offices and convince them to change their minds.

On to the weekly Clone Power Rankings! And isn’t it all time we admitted that Ocean’s Twelve is actually a really clever sequel?

1. Cosima
“Put me in coach,” Cosima says early on, convincing Alison that she’s prepared to get out of the lab and into the field. And she more than proves her readiness, handily mastering such “Sarah things” as skulking around and finding her way into places that should be off-limits. And in the wake of her meeting with Susan, she now literally holds Kendall’s future in her hands — her ultimate decision has major ramifications for all her sisters.

2. Krystal
The Brad Pitt to Cosima’s George Clooney — actually, she’s closer to the bumbling Matt Damon — Krystal couldn’t go incognito if she tried. But boy, is she a pip to have around. You do you, Krystal!

3. Alison
Her acting career might be over, but Alison has a clear future as a director. She gave Donnie lots of much-needed notes to help him get into character, and expertly choreographed their invasion of Bright Born, right down to the fake ID cards.

4. Sarah
The Adele/Felix relationship has completely thrown Sarah off her game, rendering her the least reliable (and least likable) she’s ever been. Hopefully Scott’s confirmation will help her move on, since she has more pressing concerns … like the one in her cheek, for example.

Non-Clone MVP: Evie Cho
Meet the new Dr. Leekie, not the same as the old Dr. Leekie. In her most prominent episode to date, Evie managed to elicit feelings of both sympathy and intimidation. The sympathy comes from of her history as a “girl in the plastic bubble,” susceptible to all manner of infections and diseases. That background prompted her mantra: “When I see a flaw, I want to fix it,” which she delivers with just the right touch of menace.

Orphan Black airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on BBC America.