Orphan Black Recap: “Natural Selection”

by Kevin Ranson:

Orphan Black Recap: “Natural Selection”
Original Air Date (BBC America): Saturday March 30, 2013
Season 1 Episode 1

Send in the clones… why must there be clones?

We meet Sarah plugged into a headset, startled awake by the announcement of her train stop at Huxley Station. We’ll assume for now this unidentified city is Toronto, Canada, since all the cars have Ontario plates and the next train was heading for NYC. The long-haired brunette dressed in all black and leather seems both sad and standoffish, the kind person you’d be afraid to offer money to because she might knife you for the rest.

Using a payphone located on the platform (read: no mobile), Sarah calls someone about seeing “Kira” and tells them that she’s back in town, but they hang up on her. There’s another woman on the platform, crying while ritualistically folding up her coat next to her purse and pumps. Moving closer, Sarah realizes the woman looks exactly like her!

After their eyes meet for a moment, the crying lady walks off the platform into the path of an oncoming train. Horrified but seeing an opportunity, Sarah snags the woman’s purse and makes a hasty exit. She finds her twin’s identification, “Elizabeth Child,” along with a set of house keys and two uniquely different cell phones: a black mobile and one in a pink case.

Meeting up at a bar with prettier-than-her foster brother Felix, Sarah convinces him to sell some drugs she stole from “Vic the Dick” to finance getting both them and her daughter, Kira, to someplace safe. Felix doesn’t think that “Mrs. S” will be willing to give her up, especially since Sarah dropped her daughter off “for the night” and disappeared for a almost a year; he makes a fair point. When Sarah tells him about the stolen purse and the train jumper who could be her twin, Felix laments that every orphan dreams about finding their lost family. The pink cell rings, but Sarah doesn’t answer it.

Sarah uses the driver’s license address to find her twin’s flat, presumably to search for cash or anything to sell, but it doesn’t look like Elizabeth lived alone; who’s Paul and what is he doing out of town? Felix calls Sarah to tell her about Vic looking for her and that the low-quality dope she stole won’t sell for much. Conveniently, there’s $75,000 in her twin’s savings account; if only there was someone who looked enough like Elizabeth who could go to the bank and draw it out (cue mandatory makeover montage scene). In addition to ignoring the ringing pink phone, someone named “Art” keeps texting the black mobile; where all the battery chargers for these things?

While Felix phones the police claiming he recognize the jumper as a young woman named “Sarah,” the real Sarah visits Elizabeth’s bank and flirts with the clerk to smooth over any discrepancies. A safety deposit box there also contains identifying paperwork for Elizabeth and two other women; maybe that will be important later! As she leaves the bank, a police detective cuts her off and demands that she get into his car with him; the cop seems to know her. Hoping he thinks she’s Elizabeth, she complies, recognizing the name “Art” on his paperwork inside the car as he speeds off.

While Felix meets with the coroner to misidentify the body, Sarah finds herself being walked into a police station, the last place she wants to be. People start calling her “Beth” or “detective.” Beth was a cop? Art was her partner and has brought “Beth” in to give a deposition, but Sarah knows nothing about what they’re going to ask her. Slipping off to the restroom, she calls and tries to stop Felix; it’s too late, but at least the coroner seems to like him. After learning that the hearing is regarding a civilian shooting, Sarah feigns being sick to get out of it.

At his place, Felix tells Vic that Sarah was the train jumper all of the television news. When he isn’t convinced, they go to the morgue; Vic seems genuinely broke up about it. Really, Vic? Back at the station, Sarah convinces the station psychiatrist that she’s having trouble recalling details due to a mental “glitch,” effectively suspending the hearing.

Later at Beth’s flat, “Paul” comes home and catches Sarah off-guard. He is immediately suspicious of her choice of t-shirt and the length of her hair; wasn’t “Beth” supposed to be the detective? Sarah throws herself at Paul to distract him, stripping off and snogging him right on the kitchen counter. Good thing neither Sarah nor Elizabeth have any scars, marks, moles, piercings, or tattoos that could give the ruse away!

Sarah tries to make a post-coital exit from Beth’s flat while she thinks Paul is asleep. Surprising her again, Paul grills Sarah for more details, but she manages to leave with the keys to a nice ride. Sarah completes her ruse with the bank clerk and heads off to meet Felix, but Art has been tailing Sarah. Art jimmies his way into Beth’s luxury car while Sarah is inside Felix’s place. No car alarm? Really? Art discovers the cash in her briefcase and looks rather pissed off about it, but why is he carrying a stack of folders?

Learning about the wake Vic insisted Felix have for Sarah, she decides to crash at a safe distance through a pair of binoculars and scold Felix for it over the phone. Then the worst happens: Mrs. S has heard about the wake and brought Kira with her, a sure-fire way to ruin any chance of getting her daughter back. With everything falling apart, Sarah heads back to her car to discover another twin with a thick German accent named Katja; she’s the one who’s been calling on the pink cell.

Katja starts going on about a briefcase before coughing up blood and asking to see Beth’s “scientist friend.” Understandably freaked out, Sarah tries to leave, but Katja gets into the car with her and says she saw Art following Sarah. “You’re police, Beth… we need you.” The instant Katja realizes Sarah isn’t Beth, the German is killed by a bullet to the head through the windshield. After more bullets shatter more windows, Sarah ducks down and drives off. She hears Katja’s phone in the back seat start to ring, but when it goes unanswered, Sarah’s pink clone-phone starts ringing instead…

Kevin A. Ranson is the author of The Spooky Chronicles and the upcoming vampire thriller The Matriarch. He also the creator/critic for MovieCrypt.com and the “ghost writer” for its horror host Grim D. Reaper (often seen skulking around horror conventions). Find him on Facebook, on Twitter @KevinARanson, and his author blog at ThinkingSkull.com.