Orphan Black 4x9 'The Mitigation of Competition': Cutthroat Business

Orphan Black 4x9 has the familiar but positive message of solidarity over division, yet still squanders golden chances for sustained tension.

Reviewed while mourning another gun massacre, the largest in our country's history. Fuck Donald Trump.

Well, that was fast.

Honestly, we all knew Evie was a pretty incompetent villain, her myopia on achieving her world domination of genetics clouding her from proper respect for Leda and their tenacity. She was so set on getting her weird maggot tech out there as quickly as possible, but all she was hastening was her own demise. Her first failure, ultimately, was in actively disregarding technology that was not her own. Clones are outdated, body modification is crude, to hell with ethics on gene and germline alteration, AND WHERE’S THAT KID WITH MY LATTE?! (show of hands, who got that reference?). The press conference was meant solely for her own ideas, her own technology, that she forgot that things go friggin viral. Oh, and the necklace camera. We’ve had that for ages, Evie. Oldest trick in the book.

I begin this comically, because the whole thing in the end is almost comical. Evie’s lessons from her MBA were all about brute force and the more traditional forms of media manipulation where you put on a bright face and talk in front of the camera about your awesome new product with a script prescribed by Don Draper. Her second failure, and arguably the more damaging, was how this led to short term results that she then proceeded to shove it in Rachel’s face. Rachel. The very same Rachel who knows the subtleties of destroying a foe. And Evie went and insulted Rachel by saying cloens will never have power in her Neolution. Yes, she truly believes she’s won at that point. But that really only further highlights how bad at this game she is, and she poked the biggest bear in the conspiratorial genetics-business forest. Both are powermongers, but Evie is impatient, possibly because of her poor health history, I suppose, but it means negating the whole board and heading straight for the kill. It’s almost too easy for Rachel, who takes Sarah and Ira and a Brightborn mom, and just coils them into marionettes to help beat Evie for her. Using a multitude of technology, by the way, including GPS tracking, internet research and- Gods forbid- a HOME TELEPHONE!! The obviousness of the hidden camera necklace might have just been Rachel’s own way of shoving Evie’s ignorance in her face right back.

These are the results of competition. Of rivaling parties pitted against each other, especially in this particular industry. Evie started it, but had no idea how muddy it would get. She underestimated how determine all of Leda was to stop her. So much so that bitter enemies worked together. Sarah and Rachel were actually in a room together. Susan and Cosima are playing House. ‘Mitigation’ emphasizes the power of unity, even if such unity is tainted and very weak. In competition, the whole lone wolf approach rarely works, and this episode taught this lesson well. Not only is Evie undone because she wanted the future of genetics to herself, but the Cheek Killers are foiled when they split up, the woman trying to nab the escaped Brighborn mother, the man going to the Hendrixes’ and once again putting a sharp object on Donnie threateningly. Art and Sarah outwit the woman, and the man… well, he used to be a killer like Helena. But then he took an arrow to the neck (how about THAT reference?). Helena’s only there mercifully to save Alison because she was worried about Sarah and the Hendrixes, after foraging on her own, as she does. Sarah claims the sisters are falling apart, but these people are inextricably tied to each other. One will always be there to help, or reluctantly work with, another. This general message seems another hint that we are nearing the endgame for Orphan Black, and it’s fitting for ‘Mitigation’ to be the penultimate episode for this season, which itself may be the penultimate season. It’ll certainly be interesting to see where this strange and sensitive alliance between Rachel and the sisters she has previously tormenting will go. And maybe this was the way it was always meant to be. Rachel as the outsider, the damn near psycho, acquiring a rather insidious set of methods to besting her enemies. If the Ledas are to prevail, perhaps it will be in large part thanks to her malicious nature. It worked here, with Rachel taking down Evie in a way Sarah couldn’t. In this case, they did need each other.

That being said, ‘Mitigation’ falters, as so much of Orphan Black does, on the dependence on a rushed and convoluted plot. We have to get through so much to set the press conference stage for Evie’s demise that there was no time to savor in the moment of Sarah being face-to-face with Rachel. That should’ve been the staple scene for this week, with a kind of tension that could rival every encounter between Sarah and Rudy. It’s the perfect foil situation. Rachel is absolutely, diametrically everything Sarah is not, and abhors. And let’s of course not forget the pencil in the eye! So… why does this confrontation fall so flat? Why does their animosity seem half-hearted throughout ‘Mitigation?’ It does get good value at contrasting the approach each is willing to take in winning. But we’re talking about Sarah and Rachel, perhaps the two most tempestuous, unpredictable of the sisters, now that Helena’s gone domestic (albeit with a hut and a friggin bow and arrow). They probably would need near an entire episode just to hash out their issues. Which could have worked, because as much as I hate to say, Alison and Donnie could have taken a week off here. Yes, the Cheek Killers use them as a threat, but the show could have worked around that. For the greater good. The main problems plaguing this season have to do with a lack of tension, a decreased investment in what’s going on. Orphan Black’s at its best when the suspense wraps the audience in the conspiratorial plot, when the clashing personalities of well-developed characters set off sparks and complicate what are already very stressful existences for the clones. ‘Mitigation’ was given a golden opportunity to infuse the season with much needed tension simply by taking tame and care exploring the dynamics of Sarah and Rachel having to work together. Instead, it fell victim to bloated exposition yet again.

This negatively affects the science duo as well, out on the island. Cosima and Susan had little love for each other, but that’s hardly delivered at all in their screentime. Yes, there was anxiety and anger when Cosima confronted Susan about her motives with Charlotte. But really nothing else, when surely the writers could have ramped up the stakes here. Because the context of these unlikely ties does fit. Sarah and Rachel, Cosima and Susan, must work together to solve their respective problems. But the show must remember the drama that comes from such unexpected alliances. It didn’t, and that made much of ‘Mitigation’ feel like it was going through the motions to set up the season finale. Especially in its most promising scenes (Seriously, Sarah and Rachel could’ve done anything to ignite that scene). The episode is little more than a vessel to deliver two key plot points, capping off the hour. One involving a swan and another involving… something else.

In the end, we get another uneven, but not bad episode. It does enough to keep the train going. Just at a slow pace through sights that are not as gripping as hoped. Whatever Rachel is seeing, and how she’s seeing it, definitely leaves intrigue for guesswork. The mystery itself carries tension. And we are left with a lot of unanswered questions from that final moment. And Helena welcomed her badass self again. And the main thematic elements stay intact here. Evie left herself too isolated for things to be personal. For Leda, it is in everywhere too personal, giving them the advantage in the competition she stared. That’s another clear sign of what both hero and villain will do in the future. It just really needs to be more interesting, and ‘Mitigation’ squandered quite a few chances to do that.

Grade: B-

After the Review (since every has post-show shows now)

-'I can scarcely believe it. A Castor who favors slacks.'

-'Genetics doesn't really make a family, does it?' Adele, the outside, is the most observant today.

-I'm calling Ira being an absurd warrior. Just Rambo apeshit.

-NEVER IGNORE LEADS, SARAH, EVEN IF THEY'RE FROM RACHEL!!! BAD SARAH!!!

-Soooooo... what is Delphine now?

-I present to you Negro Huérfano, the Orphan Black Latin soap!!:

#TV #Review #OrphanBlack