Orphan Black returns in just a few days. If you don’t have enough time to binge the whole series before the premiere, then here’s a nifty guide of all the things you need to remember.

Orphan Black is one of my favorite shows. It’s filled with action and beauty and provides fantastic examples of inclusion and diversity. But that mythology is so confusing!

If you’re anything like me then you’ve definitely watched all four seasons but still can’t remember exactly what’s going on. Did they find the original? Who’s Topside, again? What is exactly is happening with all of these clones?

Those are the kinds of questions you can learn all the answers to right here.

Kira’s uniqueness

This is a plot that they’ve kept going since season 1 and we still don’t know exactly why Kira is so special.

It first started when Kira got hit by a car in season 1 and then had ridiculously fast healing abilities. She should have been disabled, if not dead, from the speed that the car hit her and yet she survived as if it was a simple fall on the playground.

Most notably in season 2 Kira’s bone marrow was discovered to be the key to getting Cosima to feel better, and to help the clones with their genetically engineered disease that caused so many of them to die.

Kira’s bone marrow also had the properties required to cure the Castor clones’ mental illness that killed them quickly once it took hold of their brains.

And all along throughout the series Kira has shown unique mental capabilities, like being able to easily tell all the clones apart and knowing when bad things were going to happen. So there’s a chance she may be incredibly smart as well!

Proletheans & Helena

It’s hard to forget that Helena is pregnant, but it’s not hard to forget how that all happened. For those of you who may have forgotten all about the Proletheans I hope this jogs your memory!

Helena was raised by Proletheans under a sect that taught her to murder the other clones for the reason that they’re unnatural and that she is the original.

In season 2 she was kidnapped by a different sect of Proletheans, the leader of whom kept producing children because he believed it was his destiny. He fertilized Helena via in vitro fertilization using his sperm and his daughter’s eggs, and Helena retaliated by killing him and setting the entire complex on fire.

I’m not sure if the Prolethean storyline is going to come back but they are still responsible for Helena’s pregnancy and if anyone survived that fire then now is their final chance to try and get the baby back.

At the moment Helena is safe with Donnie and Alison, somewhere in the woods. That should go… well.

Who is Topside?

This is one that has always stumped us when we try to remember what’s happening, but we’ve finally figured it out! “Topside” is essentially the code name for several people who were controlling Neolution’s involvement with the DYAD.

DYAD was the medical research facility that was responsible for working with the clones and “Topside” was handled by Marion Boyles, Ferdinand, and what looks like Susan Duncan.

Marion started feeling for the clones after raising one of them (Charlotte) and had started to work behind Topside’s back, and Ferdinand is now on the loose after finding out that Susan and Neolution were just using him.

The ‘original’ is dead

Last season we followed Sarah, Mrs. S and Kendall Malone as they hid from Neolution and Project Castor because Kendall turned out to be the “original” clone, so to speak.

Both male Project Castor clones and female Project Leda clones come from Kendall’s unique biology (she ate a twin in the womb) and because of this Kendall and Kira’s own biology is the key to not only healing the clones of their genetic defects but also creating new clones entirely.

At the end of season 4, Neolution caught up with our heroes and killed Kendall Malone in the back of the van as Cosima watched, and they set the van on fire afterwards so now Kira is the only biological anomaly left.

Rachel is, essentially, the head of Neolution

Remember the whole Bright Born initiative from last season that was really a front for Neolution experiments? Yeah, well Neolution was run by Rachel’s mother.

Rachel’s mother got tied up, quite literally to a chair in the basement, and Rachel has taken over for her. Rachel then announced to the board of Neolution she was going to go forward with the human cloning trials and the bot therapy, aka the worms that were installed in people’s cheeks.

The worst part is that Rachel wants to no longer keep the autonomy of the lab trials, meaning she’s not going to let the rest of the clones live their lives — she’s going to bring them in house and keep them with her bots.

Cosima has the cure

After a year of trying to survive it Cosima has finally been able to engineer a cure for her and Charlotte, but she hasn’t taken it yet. She stole the sample after having a fight with Susan, who was holding her hostage to work on the science.

She managed to escape Rachel’s house though, and was taken to a commune on the island where she was able to finally reunite with Delphine, but Cosima was taken to the medical tent too soon to let us revel in it.

Cosima hasn’t taken the cure yet and Delphine suggests they don’t tell anyone about it, so we’ve no idea how long it’ll take for her to actually ingest this cure this next coming season.

Sarah has to fight for family

At the end of the season Sarah called Mrs. S for help after being stabbed by Susan Duncan, Rachel’s mother. However, it wasn’t Mrs. S that picked up but rather Ferdinand.

Ferdinand has Mrs. S and Kira hostage at the safehouse, so now Sarah and the gang have to find a way to get to them.

The creator of Neolution is still alive over 100 years later

After Sarah escaped from the clutches of Susan Duncan Rachel came home to find her mother bloody and beaten. Still alive, her mother tells Rachel that the board she went to has no power and the man in charge of it all is running out of patience.

Then she continues to explain that the writer of the original book of Neolution, P.T. Westmoreland, is still alive somehow.

Presumably we’re going to meet Westmoreland this season. Has he experimented with human evolution so much that he’s figured out how to live for over well over a hundred years? I guess we’ll find out!

What do you remember about ‘Orphan Black’?

Do you remember a piece of info about a character we didn’t include in this update? Let us know what you know in the comments!