Orphan Black “Formalized, Complex and Costly” 

They should have really titled the new episode of Orphan Black as “GASP.” That’s pretty much all I did while watching. Some juicy gasps, some hilarious gasps and some heart-breaking ones. If there’s a take-away from the new episode, I’d call it: Beware the Proletheans.

Let’s dive into gasp-worthy moment Number One. Felix and Sarah manage to hide dead Castor clone Seth in Felix’s bathtub. Cosima, always thinking, recognizes the opportunity to do a little clone research and convinces them to let her do a little encephalectomy on Seth’s dripping corpse. (Yes, I had to look that up.)  After a little down-and-dirty brain extraction (in which Scott had to be the cutest, most reluctant assistant there ever was,) Cosima gets her hands Seth’s brain and does a little experimenting to test out her hypothesis on the Castor’s genetic defect.

Next, we join Sarah and Art on the road to track down Castor Clone Mark, aka Prolethean Clone, as he is their only lead to the Castors. Mark and Gracie, daughter of the deceased Prolethean leader Henrik, haven’t had the best honeymoon one would hope for. Shacked up in a grungy hotel, it turns out Mark is actually on the hunt for an old contact of Henrik’s. Henrik supposedly had the original Castor genetic material in his possession, hence Mark joining the cult many moons ago. Now that Mark wants out of the whole thing, he’s got to track down the material through a grizzly old coot named Willard Finch and hopefully turn it over to the military in exchange for his freedom with Gracie.

Here’s where I became Team Gracie-Mark. Gracie, all aflutter with new matrimonial power, actually bluffs Willard out of a tackle box of Henrik’s possessions. The shy girl we met last season never would have been able to pull that kind of move. Gracie’s got some spirit. Too bad the box isn’t exactly what Mark was looking for. But come on, how cute are Gracie and Mark? All making promises to love and protect each other and the unborn Helena child cooking in Gracie’s womb and everything. Even as he’s telling her bits and pieces of his complicated past, she’s standing by her man. Atta girl.

Back at Team Hendrix, the pill pushing business is up and so are Alison’s votes. You have to commend how enterprising Alison really can be sometimes. She and Donnie create a soap business to cover up the pill exchanges, much to the chagrin of Alison’s school trustee competitor Marcy. As business thrives, Alison shows no signs of slowing down. Which makes you wonder how long she’ll be able to stay out of the clone business and in the pill business before it all comes crashing down on her? She and Donnie are off doing their own, albeit entertaining, thing but how long before the rest of the clone business manages to make things even messier in suburbia?

Back in Hicksville or wherever Gracie and Mark are holding up, Sarah and Art manage to have a heart-to-heart as he tried coaching her on real police work. She deduces pretty fast that Art’s motivations have less to do with her and more to do with someone who used to look a whole lot like her. We hear about Beth Childs again for the first time in a long time. Art confesses he and Beth were an item, which suddenly makes a whole mess of sense. When Sarah was first posing as Beth, Art’s reactions never fully made sense. He commandeered the cash Sarah/Beth was trying to use, he would act severely bothered whenever Paul’s name came up. Sarah convinces Art to get back to his real life and real work.

Sarah just happens to encounter Gracie and manages to drop some clone knowledge on her. Her dream hubby is actually a clone as well. This proves just a little too much for Team Gracie-Mark. (Really need a better nickname for those two.) Stunned and frightened by the news her husband is not who he says he is, Gracie preps to abandon Mark. Just as she’s about to take off, Prolethean Mama Bonnie darkens her doorway. Now, Mama Bear here was the one last season who sewed Gracie’s lips shut. Why do I get the feeling she’s going to be a whole lot worse than Henrik ever was?

Cosima’s research is proving gasp-worthy results. Turns out that the Castors aren’t just any old clones. They’re actually the biological siblings of the Leda clones. The genetic source material that created both lines of clones were brother and sister, meaning Helena is going to have a whole lot more than just “seestras” to worry about. Sarah gets the news right as Mark has finished torturing old Willard to death. (Ok, it was a heart attack but still.) Armed with the info that the Castors and Ledas are related, she pleads for Mark’s help to find Helena. Mark, not surprisingly, doesn’t believe her and runs off. Keep in mind, this is a guy who has been raised in the army with his clone brothers. While he’s doing what he can to pull away from that world, they’re still his brothers and they’ve been raised to believe themselves to be superior, maybe even perfect. The news they have sisters is bound to shake up any good clone.

Mark doesn’t make it far before shots ring out! Holy-what-the-hell gasp! Bonnie, shot gun in hand, looms over a cowering Mark. You should know better than to take a Proletheans child, especially one carrying a “miracle” spawn in her womb. Another clone bites the dust, or so we’re to believe.

Watch Orphan Black Saturdays at 9/8c on BBC America.