Orphan Black 4x4 'From Instinct to Rational Control': The Rationale of the Heart

Orphan Black 4x4 loses track of some of its heart, with so many clones, but maintains enough to keep the season's positive path going.

Reviewed while watching Keanu Reeves play himself acting. And while listening to Frameworks and... a new Radiohead song?!

How are your choices made? When there's a problem before you, what is the methodology of deciding how to solve it? More commonly, the question asked is: do you think with your heart (or gut) or with your mind?

Is there a difference?

Mika and Ferdinand are exhibits A and B that there isn’t. If anything, the heart drives calculated planning, a fastidious, technocratic approach to achieving one’s goal, to satiating its own desires. Some perhaps would jump into the fire to save a loved one, where Ferdinand would plot how to quench the fire before it consumed Rachel, all over a cooking frittata. Some, like a particular Duchess, would go on an enrampagement, whereas Mika is every bit meticulous and certain, with every measurement, on how to track Neolution and achieve her revenge.

And then there’s Sarah. Whose desperation to be free of her maggot-bot had made her distant, and zealously self-preservative. Rationality is often considered the cold, heartless approach to a problem. Sarah is cold. Sarah is not heartless, but is turning her backs on those in her heart with increasing frequency, to face a sociopath. It’s only rational that she work with Ferdinand to achieve her needs, and vice versa. There may be an argument for survival instinct in how she avoids calling Helena or fumes at Alison for not putting herself in danger, but in the end, what Sarah is doing is a rational approach driven by her innate instinctual desire to live. One does not lead to the other. They are the same. Survival instinct is the only rational way to combat an insidious threat that falls upon you. Like Neolution.

And, as ‘Instinct’ reminds us, rational thought can lead back to the heart. Sarah investigates Mika, and learns that Mika was a survivor of the Helsinki cleansing, but lost friends in the massacre. Mika, in her blind but calculated rage, is trapping Ferdinand to burn him alive as he did another clone, and Mika’s friend, Nikki. Using Sarah to get to Ferdinand, and taking Ferdinand’s money, are just the rational steps added to efforts to meet this end. Sarah suddenly understands what it’s like to be used, to be forgotten in selfish endeavors, and remembers that the only rational tactic to fighting back against Neolutiona is for the sisters to stand together, to bond over love and care for family to win out over the heartless Duncans who are apparently ready to let a child die to create a ‘more perfect human.’ Or at least, we hope Sarah’s remembered this. Otherwise, her preach at Mika to help the living sisters over avenging the dead ones is pretty hypocritical.

And therein lies the potential problem with where season 4 is going here. ‘From Instinct to Rational Thought’ loses focus at times, still vying like all of Orphan Black to successfully juggle so many plots. Some episodes make it seamless, some give us the bare minimum of our favorite clones. ‘Instinct’ makes up for neglecting Cosima somewhat by giving her the best comeback line ever: ‘Who’s the science now, Bitch?’ Also for letting Cosima’s surgery of Leekie’s tumor maggo-bot provide some solid exposition. Shortform: The maggotbot is sending highlighted DNA into Sarah’s genetics. Maybe it’s gene therapy, or maybe it’s something more sinister (proximity to the brain and shit). But that doesn’t negate the fact that little character growth can occur when we’re switching around so much. All Alison gets to do is sitting in a car and pretend to be 'Air Italia' to Donnie off on one of his fantasies. Though, to be fair, 'Instinct' continues the the wonderful trend of the Alison/Donnie plot providing a perfect dose of humor (Donnie has to play Felix's gay lover. DONE!). It helps level everything else, watching Donnie try his very best to be a gay man, and not realize that his suburban friends are probably gay in 'Bailey Downs.' It's good fun. It's just not deep enough to compensate for the other plots.

Sarah is the most prevalent character in ‘Instincts.’ But it’s not wholly clear that she’s learning anything, that her preach at the end is taken to heart. Orphan Black is at its best when it slows down on the conspiracy and reminds us who these people are. When it gets rushed to advance plot reveal, some of that heart is lost. Of course, Mika is still going the strongest in the heart department. Even though her objective is revenge, she does her spying and hunting while talking to a photo of Nikki, like an old friend. She makes sure to slow down in her killing of Ferdinand to feel the pain that drives her. ‘You burned her alive’ is said by Mika with the crushing weight her sharing in Nikki’s suffering. Otherwise, what’s the point of the powerpoint presentation and pressure bomb, if Mika does not feel burned alive herself?

It also should be noted how, before Mika learns that Sarah is working with Ferdinand, her distance is out of a goal to protect Sarah. ‘I’ll put you in danger,’ she says, trying to help Sarah understand. In this, she is Sarah’s current foil, as the Brit-punk girl is willing to drag her brother away from his heartfelt attempts to find his blood family and put him in danger because she needs a sidekick. Ditto for expecting Alison to go head first into a Neolution clinic. Sarah is losing it. It’s an understandable, rational reaction to her predicament. But she needs to remember why she was fighting in the first place. Beth told her to stop asking why and start asking who. Who is she fighting for? Mika is fighting for the memory of Nikki. She needs to learn to move on to help the living, but beyond that Mika is in a far more evolved place than Sarah right now. Sarah needs Mika. And if ‘Instinct’ is any hint, Sarah will get Mika’s help in the end, before she’s too far gone.

For Mika alone, as a center of the episode, ‘Instinct’ gets a higher mark than it otherwise would. It’s not completely cold and rational in its expository approach. But it’s not as touching and resonant as other episodes have been. It’s a little bit in between.

Grade: B

When I got sidetracked

-Only James Frain can be so dryly cavalier, and yet still grippingly charismatic, about professing true love 'What can I say? She pierced this armored heart... shall we have breakfast?'

-You definitely caught the obviously play on Donnie's climaxing seguing into white pus coming out of Leekie's tumor *It's sperm*. But are you catching the play with Leekie's name? LEEK-ie? Hahaha? Get it? I AM clever!

-On Mika: 'Given the right circumstances, I think she could be dangerous.' Then cut to Helena saying a sad goodbye to her eggs, AND the Hendrickses. Two similar characters, going in different directions. Helena and Mika should meet one day.

-Completely off-topic, and knowing nobody reads The Wheel of Time, much less this blog, but if you ever get around to both, know that Egwene al'Vere is just the fucking BOSS of everyone! You are not Egwene. Thus you are wrong. I just have to profess my love for the character somewhere.

#TV #review #OrphanBlack