'Orphan Black' Finale Recap: Shock of the Ordinary

Like the most sacred of pinkie swears, the word “season finale” is a promise to the viewer that we’re in for a shock. There’s a reason we actively avoid social media or cancel plans so we can stay in and be the first to know how a story twists or turns; years of experience has shown that the last episode not only tends to be the most memorable of the season, it sets the stage for future seasons. But when a show as unpredictable as Orphan Black takes those expectations into account, you better believe it’ll throw a curve ball. In the case of Season 3’s “History Yet to Be Written,” the most shocking ending was neither a twist nor a water cooler moment… It was simple clarity. Revealing that the Neolutionists have been the big bads all along wasn’t so much surprising as it was a relief, as it streamlined all the confusing power structures and warring factions under one umbrella. In other words: Escalation no, consolidation yes.

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That this streamlining strategy worked well as a finale revelation is a backhanded compliment, because it meant that much of what came before was an unruly mess. Season 3 as a whole was exceedingly entertaining scene-by-scene, but at some point the impenetrable web of secret organizations became too much to bear, and worse, less and less entertaining by the episode. So yes, positing the Neolutionists as the grand puppetmasters of Castor, Leda, Dyad, the Military, you name it, PLUS reminding us of their fondness for creature-feature body-mods, returned Orphan Black to the us vs. them dynamic that infused Season 1 with so many tense thrills. That first season’s Neolutionist night club — recall the series highlight of Helena dancing with a severed human tail above her head — was a surreal interlude in an otherwise straightforward thriller, so a return to that Cronenberg-esque madness is just what Orphan Black needs to prevent stagnation. It’s just too bad the writers couldn’t have reintroduced it sooner.

Instead, the finale mostly struggled to wrap up old, less interesting business. Sarah and Siobhan had kidnapped original donor Kendall and brought her back to Canada, where they extracted their MacGuffin, er, tissue samples. They also teamed up with Delphine and, of all people, Mark, to thwart Dr. Coady’s attempts to get a sample of her own. And in what could be considered one of the episode’s biggest surprises, Delphine was able to tip off Ferdinand that Neolutionists had infiltrated Topside, and that was all Ferdinand needed to hear before immediately aborting his plan, murdering his own henchman, and advising Sarah to hide Kendall away in a remote location. So basically by episode’s end, nearly everyone was on the same page: The Neolutionists were bad news, and if unlikely truces were necessary to defeat them, so be it.

In typical Orphan Black fashion, the episode was nonetheless jam-packed with brilliant character moments and haunting imagery. First of all, Rachel’s new bionic eye! She awoke in a secret hospital room adorned with taxidermied finches and zero bedside assistance, having been double-crossed by Dr. Nealon, a Neolutionist all along. But soon, not only was Rachel informed that she would now have to raise a girl-clone as her daughter, Rachel’s adoptive mother Susan — who’d been presumed dead — appeared in the room to say, “What’s up.” So yeah, Rachel’s now in deep with the Neolutionists, who have clones of their own. Plus, again, she has a BIONIC EYE.

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You know a fight scene’s going to be great when it starts with the phrase, “Prison rules?” That’s the only kind of fight scene we’d want to see between Helena and Rudy, and the fact that it involved a roll of duct tape kicked to the face and a screwdriver through a bicep only made it awesomer. This fight was a truly inspired showdown on Orphan Black’s part, and its denouement was even downright beautiful. “You are winding down like toy,” Helena remarked when Rudy fell to the ground, clearly succumbing to his neurological disease. But when she lay down beside him and gazed into his dying eyes to quietly debate how different their life paths had been, it was one of the subtler and more gorgeous moments of the season. No matter what anyone says about Season 3, Helena’s arc was truly wonderful. It made the seemingly random reappearance of her honky tonk boyfriend seem both earned and joyful. Helena used to be so broken and internal, but now she’s sharing herself with the world. It would take a worm-spewing Neolutionist to not be moved by that.

Alison had little to do in the finale but celebrate her slim election victory and serve a celebratory dinner in the soap shop. Meanwhile, Cosima mostly just apologized to Shay — whose military background was never satisfyingly explained — and share a stolen kiss with Delphine, who surprisingly had one of the more interesting arcs of the episode. First, Delphine almost immediately noticed that Krystal had been forced into Rachel’s hospital bed, and Delphine was the one to confront Nealon, and later shoot him when he tried to spit a worm into her mouth. His dying promise that Delphine “won’t live 'til morning” seemingly came true later that night when she was gunned down in the parking lot. Though we didn’t see the shooter, Delphine clearly recognized the person and asked, “What will become of her?” which seemed to hint that the shooter may have been Shay herself, but that’s one question Orphan Black would prefer us to stress over during the hiatus.

Again, the entertainment value of Orphan Black’s third season, and “History Yet to Be Written” is not and never has been in question, only whether it cohered to the extent we needed it to. The revelation that Neolutionists had infiltrated every company (echoes of how Project Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Marvel universe) certainly did render the overall conflict more coherent, but it also rendered much of Season 3 irrelevant. So we shouldn’t have cared what the military was up to, or what was going on at Dyad, or the myriad micro-schemes each company exacted upon the clones? Actually, yeah, we should’ve cared and still do. Because Orphan Black isn’t simply a flowchart of plotlines, it’s a collection of some of the best, most likable, and compelling characters on television. In that regard, this finale and Season 3 were rousing successes.

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Much like that final shot of Sarah reuniting with Kira in a state of almost ecstatic joy, that’s how WE’LL feel towards this show come Season 4. We may not have been shocked to our cores by this finale, but there’s still one thing we’ll all take away from it: Come back soon, you crazy clones.