Spoiler alert: this blog discusses plot points from the first two seasons of Orphan Black.
When Canadian sci-fi drama Orphan Black returned for its second season, I was concerned that they would not be able sustain the pace they had established. The first season was a rollercoaster of a ride, all centred around a stunning performance from Tatiana Maslany, who played four leading roles and a number of supporting ones, and made it look effortless.
Thankfully, season two has upped the pace and then some. Tight (for the most part) and cleverly written, it has built on the show's mythology, fleshing out the backstory of the aptly named Project Leda and blurring the lines still further as to who the real bad guys are. Is it the science-obsessed Dyad Institute? The fanatical Prolethean religious sect? Some other as-yet-unknown shady operation? All of the above?
Along the way, writers John Fawcett and Graeme Manson have continued to ask searching questions about the ways in which society appropriates and misuses women's bodies. Whether it's Helena realising the bleak truth about the Proletheans' reproductive programme, Cosima confronting Delphine with the words, "This is my lab, my body. I'm the science," or Rachel's despairing reaction to the news that Leda's clones were supposed to be barren, few shows are as openly concerned with female agency and the battle for control.
This is not a drama that deals in moral certainties. While we feel Cosima's pain, we also understand why Delphine, who loves her, hides the truth. Our nominal heroine, Sarah, is as capable of doing bad as she is good, and even her foster mother, the supposedly saintly Mrs S, is more than she seems. Most interestingly of all, "proclone" Rachel's ice-cold facade has slowly been peeled back to reveal a woman far more out of control than she seems.
Increasingly unable either to accept that Sarah, whose ability to bear children makes her an outlier, may be more important than she is, Rachel's actions have been largely fuelled by a cocktail of rage, bitterness and jealousy. Yet when she broke down while watching home movie footage of herself playing with her father as a child it was hard not to be moved. Even proclones have feelings, it appears.
The uncovering of Rachel's shrunken heart was just one of this season's small pleasures. Jordan Gavaris, whose warm-hearted, witty Felix steals each scene he's in, deserved his increased screen time. For all of Orphan Black's clever juggling of an increasingly complex mythology, it's actually at its best in the quieter moments: the brief Skype chat between a dying Cosima and a concerned Alison; the half disbelieving, half sexually charged conversations between Felix and trans male clone Tony; Helena and Sarah's road trip, during which Sarah warms to her malign twin in spite of herself. When the characters reach out, grasping for human interaction even as this great murderous conspiracy swirls furiously around them, the show is at its strongest. It even managed to make me like Michiel Huisman, who turned up as Sarah's ex Cal and proved far more fun as a resourceful former tech-head living off the grid than as a moody junkie, a bad-boy music producer or a swaggering mercenary chief.
That's not to say that the big conspiracy itself isn't hugely enjoyable. After taking a big risk by offing Dyad Institute head and putative big bad Dr Aldous Leekie, Orphan Black has ramped the plot twists up to 10, introducing Rachel's mysterious boss Marion, putting poor Kira, the most abducted five-year-old on television, through yet another kidnapping, driving a rift between Cosima and Delphine and ensuring that nobody is completely sure just who to trust.
The plotting hasn't always been perfect – why aren't Art and Sarah more concerned about what Helena, a killer despite her lovable side, might be up to? – but it's also proved refreshingly irreverent, filled with slick one-liners ("Holy Tilda Swinton"; "Do we have a boat? Have you ever seen Dexter? I mean random scuba divers are finding everything,") and willing to slow everything down for a lovely character moment (the finale has probably the best of these).
There are a number of questions still to be answered – can Mrs S be trusted? Did Helena kill all the Proletheans when she burnt the house down? Will Cosima live to wipe the floor with everyone at Runewars again? Does anyone care about Paul? – but as Sarah and her clone siblings head towards a confrontation with a rogue Rachel, who in turn wants more answers from her father, one thing remains clear – this season of Orphan Black has been a blast. Here's hoping Wednesday's episode closes it out in style.
What do you think? Has this second season successfully built on the first or did you prefer it when the focus was on the original mystery of the clones? Who's worse: the Dyad Institute or the Proletheans? Is Rachel bad or just misunderstood? And most importantly of all, are Alison and Donnie actually going to get away with manslaughter? As always, all speculation and comments welcome below.
• Orphan Black season finale, Wednesday, 10pm, BBC3
