Orphan Black brings Krystal (Tatiana Maslany) back for episode 6 “Manacled Slim Wrists.” She’s hilarious, steals every scene she’s anywhere near, and learns some helpful info. The rest of the episode is less humorous and more inflammatory.
Instead of giving you a blow by blow recap of the episode, I’m going to divide it into on the island and off the island. The action flips back and forth between the two, but my recap will stick with one or the other to the end.
Off the Island
Krystal and her pal Brie (Cara Ricketts) have a vlog with 50,000 followers where they talk about big cosmetics ripping people off. The topic today is some straw-like things meant to curl your hair – supposedly a good product.
Oops. The straws thingies make your hair fall out. Obviously Krystal will take Brie to see Scott (Josh Vokey) and Art (Kevin Hanchard) about it. Obviously. Because Brie’s been poisoned by big cosmetics.
Kira (Skyler Wexler) hustles Mr. Frontenac (Andrew Moodie) by barfing on his shoes and pretending to have the flu. All she had was syrup of ipecac. But, she doesn’t have to go to Rachel.
Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy) tells both Sarah and Kira – yeah, Kira’s in on the whole hustle now – about Delphine meeting Felix and Adele in Geneva. Kira quickly understands that whatever she has in her genes is the same thing her mouse has.
Mrs. S and Sarah dig through the money trail that Felix and company have sent. Some of it’s odd.
Art calls. Krystal explains to Sarah about the hair loss in Brie. In passing she mentions a guy named Len Sipp she met at a trade show. He’s into her, yeah. He’s the owner of Blue Zone cosmetics. Totally vegan, organic cosmetics.
Mrs. S points out that Blue Zone is one of the companies Neolution money just paid for. Suddenly Sarah’s interested in the story.
Sarah thinks she should go undercover as Krystal and get the story from Len Sipp. She puts on a blonde wig and wears it for the rest of the episode. Sarah calls Art to arrange the undercover action. But Krystal thinks Len Sipp is her source and she should be the one to talk to him. That “rude Australian girl” obviously shouldn’t do it.
Scott wants blood from Brie to test for toxins. Krystal signals to Brie to distract Scott with sexiness, which is not very hard to do. While this is happening, Krystal leaves.
Ba da bing! Krystal is in her apartment. She’s managed to get Len Sipp to come over. She’s hooked up a spy kit with an earpiece and a visual connection on her phone so Sarah and Art can watch and comment. With Sarah in the car in the blonde wig and Krystal cavorting in the apartment it’s like seeing double. Oh, it is seeing double. Sometimes I forget.
Len Sipp shows up. He’s played by Tom Cullen, Tatiana Maslany’s actual boyfriend. Krystal grabs him and kisses him while Art and Sarah are yelling, “Don’t kiss him,” in her ear.
Tatiana Maslany has had to kiss practically every actor in Canada doing this show for 5 years. Let her kiss Tom Cullen if she wants too.
Sarah mentions Dyad in Krystal’s ear and she immediately says to Len, “You sold your company to Dyad.” He’s taken aback by this info but leaves the room for a minute to take a phone call.
Scott assures Brie she’s not in any danger and asks what she’s eaten or what new products she’s used lately. She dumps a tube of stuff she stole from Blue Zone out of her purse.
Horndog Len grabs Krystal’s ass repeatedly and struggles to get her horizontal. He finally reveals that he picked her up at the trade show, not for her vlog or her position on dangerous cosmetics, but because her dress was tight.
Krystal realizes Len is a bad guy. She goes in the bathroom where she tells Sarah and Art, “He didn’t even like my vlog.” Painful, that. Krystal tells them she’s peeing, then she’s going to kick him in the balls. They tell her about the cream Brie had. There should be another tube in Krystal’s place. She looks for it.
Len is in the living room, giving himself a beauty treatment with Krystal’s cosmetics when he finds the other tube. He bangs on the bathroom door. He’s angry. He tells her what’s in the tube is an experimental prototype. He tells Krystal she’s stupid.
If you tell Krystal she’s stupid, her martial arts training goes into action. A kick in the balls, a kick in the ribs, and she has him on the floor in a strangle hold. He confesses the tube contains a dermal delivery system Dyad wanted. But it didn’t work. It makes your hair fall out.
Krystal smears the cream all over Len’s beard and throws him out the door with another kick in the pants.
“It was great to kick him in the balls” – the love of my life @tatianamaslany. It’s a healthy relationship. https://t.co/yicphcBAsY
— Tom Cullen (@tom_cullen) July 16, 2017
Rachel gets a call from P.T. insisting they need the Kira piece of the puzzle right now.
Rachel promises to take care of it. She goes to pick up Kira. Kira tells Mrs. S to tell her mom not to worry, she’ll just keep writing her story. Don’t ask what that means, I have no clue. Maybe we’ll find out in the next episode. This episode ends with Kira in Rachel’s clutches again, dagnabbit.
On the Island
Cosima’s in the cage. Mud (Jenessa Grant) brings her food. Cosima tries to convince Mud that P.T. Westmoreland (Stephen McHattie) is a bad, bad man. Mud doesn’t see it yet. She’s just a druggie from Seattle who stole from her parents and deserves her punishment. Plus she thinks P.T. saved her.
Susan Duncan (Rosemary Dunsmore) and P.T. argue. Mud brings in a dialysis machine. P.T. says his kidneys are fine. So why the dialysis machine, you ask? Hang on, you’ll find out.
Oh, by the way, his real name is John and he bought Susan’s services in college at about the same time he bought Virginia Coady (Kyra Harper).
Tada, a grand entrance from Dr. Coady upsets Susan a whole heck of a lot. Susan thinks Virginia is a maniac. They hate each other passionately.
Virginia wanders to the basement where she tries to convince Cosima that the opportunities for crazy science and saving her family are so much better if she joins forces with the neolution triumvirate now gathered in Westmoreland’s big house. Cosima isn’t buying it this time. Even crazy science can’t tempt her now.
When Susan tells Ira (Ari Millen) that Virginia Coady is on the island, he’s interested. He wants to learn about himself. Susan slaps him and he turns away, which keeps her from noticing that he’s glitching.
The island residents are growing restless and rebellious. People are dying. They aren’t 100% believers anymore.
Ira goes down to the village where he sees Virginia. They go into the medical hut. She’s drawing blood from a child. She tests Ira for glitching, but he doesn’t respond to her riddle. She tells him she’s close to a cure for the Castor clones. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Ira tells Susan what he saw in the medical hut. She immediately concludes P.T.’s using parabiosis, exchanging young blood for old. Oh, the dialysis machine.
Ira’s glitching again but hiding it. He wants Susan to leave the island. She won’t go. She says Cosima is his best hope and gives him an envelope.
Aisha dies and the villagers grow more angry.
Ira goes to the basement. Mud shows up. Ira and Cosima beg Mud to help them. Ira mentions parabiosis. Cosima tells Mud what that means and how P.T.’s using everyone on the island simply to save his own life.
Mud is inserting needles for the parabiosis into P.T. Susan comes in. Mud hides Susan’s actions from P.T. while Susan poisons the IV bag. Mud went along with Cosima and Ira after all.
Ira lets Cosima out of her cage. He gives her the envelope. Cosima rushes to the medical hut to get her medicine. She’s surrounded by angry villagers when she comes out.
Cosima shows the villagers what was in the envelope. A photo of Susan and P.T. together as young people. She tells them the truth about what’s going on. About how P.T deceived them like he deceived scientists, governments, and military all over the world. They let her leave with Charlotte (Cynthia Galant).
The villagers set the place afire. The party’s over, P.T. old boy.
Virginia removes the poisoned IV from P.T.’s arm. Too bad that didn’t work out. He’s still alive.
Cosima gets Charlotte on the boat. She tells Charlotte she grew up on boats, she has charts and a compass, and she can get them out of there. Charlotte isn’t so sure. Cosima takes off in the boat anyway.
Ira’s limping and has one useless arm due to glitching. His nose bleeds as he finds Susan with an IV in her arm. She’s killed herself. He sits down beside her, presumably to glitch out completely. Ira was the best and last of the Castor boys. I don’t want to see him go.
Mud finds the discarded photograph of Susan and P.T. on the ground in the burning village. P.T. glaring down at the fires and at Mud holding the photo is the final scene.
Burning Questions
With only 4 episodes left in the wonderful and amazing Orphan Black, I have burning questions.
- Is Cal going to appear and be Kira’s dad again? Is Cal going to be Sarah’s fella again?
- Are Cosima and Delphine going to live happily ever after, because I really want them to.
- Is everyone going to be healed and healthy?
- Is Helena going to have her twins before the last episode? Will she live in the burbs near Alison and Donnie? Is the dude with the tow truck going to reappear in Helena’s life?
- Is Tatiana going to get another Emmy, because she deserves 5, one for every year of Orphan Black.
- Will the real world science of gene splicing and gene editing cure everything? Will it cure my grief when Orphan Black ends?
- Will karma finally come for Rachel?
Maybe in the next couple of episodes or so just saying. #OrphanBlack pic.twitter.com/4fAtQ0DZnH
— Orphan Black (@OrphanBlack) July 16, 2017
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