Orphan Black “Scarred by Many Past Frustrations” 

“Scarred by Many Past Frustrations” lived up to its name this week in Orphan Black. Everyone had some kind of grudge to carry and they weren’t afraid to show it, including Helena in full on She-Ra mode as she broke out of the military compound. Which couldn’t have been possible without the help of her “seestra,” Sarah, newly imprisoned and reeling from how she could have possibly ended up there. But it wasn’t quite the reunion we would have hoped for Sarah and Helena. In fact, things may never be the same between the twin-clones after this episode. (Isn’t that a bit redundant? Twin clones?)

The episode started with Helena and her spirit animal scorpion discovering their new cell neighbor, Sarah. Kidnapped by Mark and Rudy, Sarah is now in Dr. Coady’s greedy little paws. (Of COURSE Dr. Coady wants Sarah’s blood. Everyone does.) Poisoned for weeks believing Sarah sold her out, Helena doesn’t take too kindly to Sarah’s appearance. But even that frustration with her twin doesn’t stop Helena from enlisting Sarah’s help on an escape plan. Helena and Sarah scheme up a way for Sarah to get her hands on some tweezers in the infirmary. Straight up McGyver-style, Helena squirrels away enough butter to grease up her body, uses tweezers to undo her ankle shackles, shimmies her way out of her jail cell through a 10-inch gap in her window and brutally murders the guard. (Okay, that move wasn’t so McGyver.) Yet, when it’s time to release Sarah and escape together, Helena’s grudge is alive and well. Helena leaves Sarah locked in her cell and manages to make it up the compound walls just as the alarm goes off. She has a quick moment of guilt perched high on the wall. Sister Spirit Animal Scorpion is all “Save yourself, you fool!” but Helena has doubts. Can Helena actually leave her twin there, no matter how pissed she is?

Back in Casa de Mrs. S, Art has dropped off a new charge for Mrs. S and Felix. An abandoned and lost Gracie shows up on Art’s doorstep, now shunned by the Proletheans for losing Helena’s baby. When Felix was setting out clothes for Gracie, who else wanted a brand new Felix makeover for Gracie?? Gracie had her own ideas for a makeover. Fed up with constantly being told what to do by her stringent religious parents, Gracie is ready to break out of the floor-length skirts and button ups and into fishnets and heels. She’s just a regular old teenager who miscarried her father’s artificially-created fetus and married a military clone. Time to drink some Mai Tais, experience a little bit of the good life and break free of those judgy Proletheans. God bless Mrs. S and Felix, who manage to throw Gracie a dance party in the living room instead of down at the local club. After a few gin and juices, Gracie has properly embraced alcohol. All is going swell until Gracie mysteriously collapses.

Cosima is off having a party of her own. Determined to move on from Dyad power-player ex-girlfriend Delphine and shake off her past, Cosima meets holistic healing hottie Shay (Guest Star Ksenia Solo from Lost Girl and Life Unexpected) on an online dating site. The two manage to hit off pretty quickly and end up back at Felix’s for a little energy rub down, courtesy of Shay. Even as Shay listens sympathetically to Cosima’s frustrating romantic history, Cosima isn’t quite ready to dive in to anything, except for a pretty searing first kiss with Shay. She’s still tied up by her lingering feelings for Delphine. It makes sense. Delphine broke up with Cosima to focus on protecting all the Leda clones and to not be distracted by her feelings for Cosima, not because their relationship was over or broken. While Shay looks like fun, is Cosima really as free from her past as she’d like to be? Doesn’t seem that way when we discover someone is spying on Cosima. Or were they spying on Shay? Either way, some photos are taken and they don’t look too friendly.

Back at the military compound, while Helena is busy escaping and screwing Sarah over, Hot Paul is on the case. Are we actually starting to see Hot Paul grow a little backbone and question the legitimacy of what Project Castor has been up to? Affected by the fact that Sarah is now imprisoned, Paul gets Dr. Coady to swear Sarah won’t be harmed. Ah ha, the old Sarah/Paul spark is still there. Yes! (I was always a fan of those two.) Sarah pleads with Paul to do the right thing and let them go. While he’s not quite ready to go against direct orders yet, Helena’s comment about how Castor clone Parsons was being held spikes Paul’s radar. There is an underlying feeling that Dr. Coady isn’t operating on par. Paul digs his way through Parsons’s personal affects and discovers his log book. The same type of log book Rudy used when assaulting the girl a few weeks back and the same type Mark was given by Dr. Coady after she learns he consummated his marriage to Gracie. As Paul flips through the log book, we see Parsons was quite busy with paramours (hopefully all consensual) and kept locks of hair, stats like weight, coloring and how they met.

The whole sexy time log book thing would be creepy on its own, but things take a turn for the chilling. Art re-questions Rudy’s victim, only to discover she’s now disturbingly sick with red eyes. As Gracie rolls around on Mrs. S’s floor with gripping pain, we see her newly bloodshot red eyes. Red, bloody eyes are the after effect of Castor sex? With the Castor clones actively seducing, assaulting and kidnapping women, are they on a mission to spread their seed? So clone STD’s are a thing, now?

Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 9pm on BBC America.