Orphan Black continues to throw the curve balls as the season progresses, and tonight we got more mysteries in the form of nursing rhymes.
There’s a mole
The episode begins with Delphine getting a manicure from the newest clone in the club, Crystal. She’s a total valley girl and, like, is really bubbly. Delphine is assessing Crystal and her involvement but Crystal is still very naive, and so she meets with Dr. Nealon who tells her Rachel is getting better, but Delphine sees that as a threat.
We next see Virginia looking for Sarah and Helena, meeting with the guy in charge of Castor, David, at the same bar Helena and Sarah were in just last week. She tells him that without the original genome the boys will all be dead in a year and a half, two if they’re lucky.
David then says he has a source inside Leda.
Science, love, and trouble
Cosima and Sarah video chat and Cosima says that her issues last week were totally normal and it’s a trend, so she should be fine. Sarah says she can’t lose another one, and Cosima says they won’t lose anyone — but whenever someone says that we worry.
Cosima gets off the phone with Sarah to hang with Shay, and she asks Shay if she knows about near death experiences. Shay says that normally when you have one you see the one thing you truly love, like love your soul can’t live without, and if it’s strong enough then it pulls you back. This strikes a chord with Cosima since the last thing she saw was Delphine, but then Cosima decides to get her mind off of it.
So she takes Shay to the lab where she introduces her to Scott, and Shay finds Duncan’s book on the shelf as she’s exploring. Luckily, Cosima takes it away before she can get a real glimpse — but she did get a small look at the first few pages. Delphine comes into the lab and asks Shay and Scott to leave because she has really bad news for Cosima.
After getting off the phone with Cosima, Sarah calls Scott because Cosima recommended that she do so. Scott tells Sarah all about Duncan’s book and how Rachel is the only one who can translate it — but she’ll only talk to Sarah. So Sarah video calls Scott while he’s in Rachel’s room, and Rachel proves that she can indeed translate the book — the first page Scott gave her says, “In London town we all fell down, and Castor woke from slumber.”
Rachel will only translate the rest of the book if Sarah gets her out of the DYAD — she wants Sarah to steal Crystal’s identity and get her to Taiwan. Mrs. S. doesn’t want to trust her, but Sarah says they have to so she works with Felix to help get Crystal’s identity.
American Felix
Sarah takes Felix to the salon that Crystal works at and he goes in looking for a manicure and pedicure from Crystal, but he lost his British accent and adopts an American one. He’s completely sexy and it’s throwing us off. He flirts with Crystal as she’s helping with his mani-pedi and he gets her to spill her pet’s name and mom’s maiden name before Crystal starts oversharing.
She feels like she’s missing something big — she’s not an idiot and knows something is going on, and Felix wants to tell her about the whole clone thing but Sarah tells him not to. So he heads to the back room to steal Crystal’s wallet and finds out that Crystal has been investigating the whole Castor thing and has been thinking about it non-stop.
On his way out he tells Crystal that he has to leave, but then she starts crying and he lets go of his American persona and tells Crystal that she’s one of a kind and a survivor.
The secret is out
While all of that is happening, Scott arrives home to find Rudy at his apartment threatening his cat. Being the mushy, gushy, soft guy that Scott is he totally breaks down and gives Rudy the book.
He calls Delphine, upset about the whole situation and ends up telling her about the book. Delphine and Cosima show up at Scott’s place, where Delphine gets pissed at both of them for keeping the secret. She asks if they made a copy of the book but Cosima says they didn’t — only she lied and they totally did. Scott also tells Delphine that Rachel is the only one who can read the book.
Sarah, Mrs. S. and Felix join in with Cosima on the phone and they want to know who told Castor about the book, and Cosima reveals that they did actually make a copy. They decide to move Rachel from DYAD to Mrs. S.’ house, just in time too because Delphine is, once again, pissed.
The escape plan
Cosima distracts Delphine while Scott and his friends help get Rachel out, and offers her a resignation. Delphine says that outside of the DYAD she’s just another subject, and anyone can be a spy. She thinks that Shay could be a spy, but then Cosima says if she’s not going to be with her then just let her go. That’s when things get intense — and Cosima tells her about her near death experience, which gets Delphine to kiss her.
Rachel ends up at Mrs. S.’ place, and starts translating more of the book. She gets a little bit done before Dr. Nealon shows up with a tactical team to take Rachel away. The bit that they did translate after the initial London town bit goes, “Find the first, the beast, the curse, the original has a number.” And then the code H46239.
Before Nealon can take them away, Rachel falls out of the chair and has a seizure, so Nealon takes her back to the DYAD and gives Delphine the copy before taking Rachel into surgery. Nealon tells Delphine that the stress was too much and they induced her into a coma, but she may never recover.
Afterwards, Cosima tells Delphine they didn’t want to give her the book because they didn’t want Topside to get it, but Delphine says it would’ve been safer with her. The copy is secure but now it’s useless since Rachel can’t read it, so Delphine accepts Cosima’s resignation and fires Scott. Before Cosima leaves, Delphine gives her a file on Shay.
At Mrs. S.’ house they realize that they need to go to London to solve the code. And at the end of the episode it’s revealed that Dr. Nealon switched out Rachel for Crystal. So it’s Crystal that is in the induced coma, and Rachel is back in her home country getting surgery to get an identical prosthetic eye.
Alison and Donnie babysit
Donnie does not want Helena in the house, but Felix says it’s their turn to take care of her so he gives up. While they have the discussion, we see Helena upstairs with Gemma picking out some new clothes and we see that she still has her eggs that were taken from her in season 2 in the nitrogen case — she carts it around everywhere. She takes it to Bubbles, where she hides it behind one of the storage shelves before helping Donnie with the soap making.
Donnie leaves Helena to confront Alison about Jason kissing her but she says it’s fine and she’ll talk to him. But Donnie doesn’t trust Alison, despite Alison indeed trying to talk Jason out of it. He takes her phone later in the episode to text Jason to meet her in the storage room. Jason shows up, thinking Alison wants to hook up, but meets Donnie instead and they get into a fight. Jason ends up knocking Donnie out and bounces, leaving him on the floor of the storage room.