Orphan Black S5 E9 One Fettered Slave

Tatiana Maslany as Sarah and Helena in Orphan Black

Orphan Black episode 9 “One Fettered Slave” is a funeral with no happy weddings. Helena’s (Tatiana Maslany, a multitude) early history is explored. This is a recap. There are spoilers.

We begin moments after Helena’s kidnapping. Helena’s drugged up in a moving vehicle. Everything’s fuzzy to her. She remembers her childhood. We see young Helena (Habree Larratt) stealing chocolates in nun’s room. Helena is dark haired with normal skin coloring.

Why wasn’t Cynthia Galant playing young Helena? Young Helena should look like all the other young Leda clones.

The nun comes in, plops down on a cot and begins to masturbate. Young Helena walks up to her and sees it. The nun calls her a devil and pours bleach all over Helena’s hair and face, burning her eyes and skin. Then the nun throws Helena in a closet. Sister Irina (Eileen Sword) was there, disapproving of what the other nun did.

I don’t mind nuns who masturbate, but I really hate nuns who pour full strength bleach over children. Who’s the devil here?

Kevin Hanchard, Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, Skyler Wexler and Jordan Gavaris in Orphan Black

It’s the funeral for our beloved Siobhan, Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy). There’s a small crowd around the coffin, a woman sings an Irish song, and Sarah and Felix (Jordan Gavaris) struggle to read aloud the note she left. It said, “Just remember my loves, death is nothing at all. I’ve only slipped into the next room. You can call me by my old familiar name. Put no sorrow in your tone. I promise we will laugh at this difficult passing when we meet again. All my love, S.” *

Kira (Skyler Wexler) is sobbing and so am I. Cosima and Alison aren’t there, but talk about it via Skype. They both cry, too.

Tatiana Maslany as Sarah and Kevin Hanchard in Orphan Black

Later at the house, people from the funeral are gathered around. Sarah watches news reports on the worldwide Neolution scandal. Art (Kevin Hanchard) lets Sarah know that he’s there for her. He looks at her with such tenderness, I wonder if he’s transferred his love for Beth onto Sarah. Does it matter? Sarah is lovable on her own, and Cal is nowhere to be seen.

Eileen Sword and Jordan Gavaris in Orphan Black

Sister Irina comes in and gives Sarah Helena’s journal. Oh, oh.

We’re back in the ambulance with Helena. With her are Mark (Ari Millen) and Virginia Coady (Kyra Harper), who discuss her cervix, the state of her pregnancy and “getting it done right away.”

Habree Larratt in Orphan Black

Helena flashes back to when Tomas (Daniel Kash) came to get her from the orphanage. He told her she was special and took her away from the nuns.

Jordan Gavaris, Kristian Bruun, Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, and Kevin Hanchard in Orphan Black

Everyone is trying to figure out what’s going on with Helena. Cosima and Alison are on Skype. There’s a lot of back and forth as they try to understand what’s happening. Adele (Lauren Hammersley) shows them something Sister Irina wrote about blood in Helena’s room. Scott (Josh Vokey) says the babies are just coming to term. Cosima thinks they want cord blood. Felix points out that the last time Gracie sold them out it was to Coady. They don’t think Helena would be on the island because it’s chaos there.

Art and Felix head off to see if Rachel knows where Helena is. Sarah will stay with Kira.

Tatiana Maslany as Rachel in Orphan Black

Felix and Art find Rachel, who looks pretty bad. Even Felix feels sorry for her for one second. Rachel doesn’t think they would take Helena to the island.

Mr. Frontenac (Andrew Moodie) gives John (Stephen McHattie), the charlatan formerly known as P.T., an injection. Apparently he is so close to death, he needs immediate help to keep going. John (we’re calling him John now, okay?) is shaky and upset. He takes off his toupee and reveals a completely bald head.

John bursts into a plastic draped space in what looks like a warehouse. That’s where they’ve taken Helena. She’s surrounded by medical equipment and fettered to the bed. John is in a hurry to get what he needs from her.

Tatiana Maslany as Sarah in Orphan Black

Sarah wanders the house alone, missing S. I wish I could smell her jacket with Sarah because I miss her, too.

Art and Felix continue to question Rachel. They decide Det. Enger (Elyse Levesque) took Helena. They leave Scott there to keep Rachel from bolting with the plane tickets she already purchased.

Jordan Gavaris in Orphan Black

Art and Felix and go to the police station. Felix calls Sarah with the news about Enger.

The police are in chaos over the Neolution situation as well. Art sees Enger and she winks at him. Bitch. Art decides to trust the Lieutenant (Ron Lea) and they talk.

Stephen McHattie in Orphan Black

John declares he can’t wait for Helena to deliver her babies naturally. He tells Coady to cut them out. Coady argues against it. He then says he wants hormone induction.

John tells Coady to eliminate Mark, the last Castor. He says they have synthesized his pathogen and they no longer need him.

Daniel Kash and Habree Larratt in Orphan Black

Here’s another memory from inside Helena’s drugged up mind. We see young Helena with Tomas. He’s teaching her that she must kill all the copies who walk the earth. He teaches her to protect the original from science devils.

All the Neolution board members are dying, thanks to John. Only 3 are left. Rachel thinks Hashem Al-Khatib (Elie Gemael), the money man, may know something. Art and Felix find him just as Mr. Frontenac is threatening him. Mr. Frontenac turns his gun on Art and Art shoots him. Al-Khatib claims not to know where Helena is.

Art calls Sarah with the news. There are so many phone calls in this episode. They’re all in it together in real time. I hope they all have unlimited calling plans.

Ari Millen and Kyra Harper in Orphan Black

Coady kills Mark. As she injects him, she tells him it’s the cure. He talks about how Gracie wants to be a dental hygienist and he want to be a teacher. He says he’s happy. When he gets tired, she tells him to take a nap. She strokes his head as he dies. Bitch.

The Pitocin works. Helena has the first contraction. Flashback to Helena’s past. She’s now grown and fully indoctrinated by Tomas. He tells her she’s ready and puts a knife in her hand. She promises to make him proud and cleanse the copies from the earth.

Tatiana Maslany as Helena in Orphan Black

Helena kills her first copy. In a church. When she sees they look alike she is shocked. She goes back to Tomas, freaked out. He convinces her that she is the original, she is the light. That’s when she takes a razor blade to her back for the first time.

Helena wakes from this memory having a contraction. She’s muttering she isn’t the original, she’s a copy. The tells Coady her babies need their mother. Coady tells her she’s going to be a terrible mother because she’s a killer and she stinks like an animal. Helena believes this shit.

Al-Khatib is with Rachel and Art and Felix. They have Sarah and Kira on the phone. Kira tells them Helena’s in trouble. She feels it. Al-Khatib says Rachel is the one they want. Sarah says, then let’s give them Rachel.

Al-Khatib calls John. He offers him Rachel in exchange for his life. Enger picks up Rachel (actually it’s Sarah) tied up in the back of a car. Art follows them with a tracking device.

Art follows to the old wing of Dyad where Cosima and Scott used to work. Hell Wizard (Calwyn Shurgold) used to work there in security and can get them in.

Helena gets hold of a pair of scissors. She tries to cut the thick leather fetters holding her in the bed. She cannot. Then she tells her babies she won’t let them become an experiment like her and cuts her wrist. Blood spurts everywhere. Oh my god, Helena can’t die! They can’t do this.

Sarah is with John. She manages to take a swipe at his neck with a knife and draw blood. Enger restrains her. John wants to shoot her. Coady runs in saying they need Sarah’s blood because of an emergency with Helena.

Calwyn Shurgold and Josh Vokey in Orphan Black

Scott and Hell Wiz run through the police all around Dyad, claiming to have a human organ to deliver. Our heroes! They break into the old wing. Scott lets Art in through a side door. That sets off alarms. Art says that’s a good thing.

Sarah’s blood runs into Helena. Sarah keeps saying, “Come back to me, Meathead.” Helena wakes up, (Hurrah!) sees Sarah and gives her a look. A follow my lead kind of look. The alarms in the building distract everyone and they go off to check.

Helena asks Coady for water. As Coady is giving it to her, she grabs Coady and smashes her head into a metal tray about 5 times. “You are a shit mother,” she tells Coady, who is no longer listening. If we’re lucky Coady’s dead, but at least she’s out of commission.

Tatiana Maslany as Sarah and Helena in Orphan Black

Sarah and Helena unhook the tubes linking their veins, unlock Helena’s restraint, and prepare to run. Helena’s water breaks. “Babies coming.”

And we’re out. Only one episode left. A lot left to do.

Poetry Footnote *

It bothers me that Mrs. S, who survived so much, had the premonition that she would die and wrote down bits of this poem as a farewell. She’s too tough to give up.

Death is nothing at all…

Death is nothing at all. It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.
All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

by Henry Scott Holland (1847 – 1918)

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