Orphan Black “Variations Under Domestication”

Vic just exists to get hurt at this point, doesn’t he?

OK, in terms of long term plot from what I remember when I first tried to go through the series, Cosima’s plot here seems the least interesting, but it has the most long term repercussions.  She and her new…friend Delphine go to a lecture from one Dr. Leekie (hey, Matt Frewer!), where he talks about Neolution and Dyad and we learn Delphine is probably Cosima’s monitor.  Like I said, it’s all important for later, especially as Leekie seems to take an interest in Cosima.

But then back in Canada…

Alison still suspects Donnie is her monitor, and Sarah has confessed her first name (and nothing more) to Paul.  Paul is ready to interrogate her, and as he later does to Vic, it seems he is really, really good at that.  As it is, Paul does eventually get more information on Sarah out of Vic in Alison’s garage, and Sarah under pressure confesses that she’s a clone.  Heck, by then Paul had seen Beth, Alison, and Sarah.  He knew something was up.

But as for poor Donnie…

He got up in the middle of the night according to Alison’s nanny cam, and we know he was burning papers in the woods.  As it is, the Hendrixes are having a potluck in their house, and Donnie doesn’t know why Alison didn’t get ready for the party.  As he’s about to head out for ice, she clocks him with a golf club and knocks him out.  Then she ties him up in her basement crafts room, dripping hot glue on his chest to find out what was in his Mystery Box, asking about medical experiments and other things he seems to know nothing about.  All this is a bit much for button-down Alison, so she starts drinking and calls in Sarah to interrogate Donnie in the basement while Alison tries to entertain everyone upstairs, and local busybody Ainsley sure seems like another likely monitor.  Paul and Vic both find their way to the party, which is how Paul gets the drop on Vic in the garage and convinces him to go away forever.

Also at the party?  Felix.  He’s serving drinks since Donnie, you know, can’t.

What was in Donnie’s box?  Why did he get up?  Sarah finds out he got up at a weird time to watch a cricket game from the other side of the world, and Donnie eventually, tearfully confesses the papers were letters from an ex-girlfriend he kept secret because the poor woman developed lupus and never wrote back after that, leaving her a mystery he never solved and wanted to keep secret.  Something about Sarah’s much gentler manner in asking Donnie what Alison means to him actually means that after the torture and abuse, he apologizes to her.

Damn, Sarah’s good at that.

Too bad Paul seems to be better.