***Contains Spoilers***

The hiatus over, today Serial Box releases episode six of the audio series Orphan Black: Next Chapter, narrated by Tatiana Maslany. The episode is titled “What a Living World Will Demand” and written by Heli Kennedy.

I was so excited for the series to be back after the cliffhanger from episode five, and thankfully the episode was fantastic. Performance-wise, this episode was definitely one of my favorites, because Maslany vocally performs as quite a few clones in this episode, including not only the addition of Helena and Krystal, but also more clones we’ve never encountered before. Felix also makes an appearance, which was a nice surprise.

The episode is a trip, as there is a lot going on simultaneously, which I loved. In one storyline you have Charlotte, who is still quite sick, and Alison, who want to come back home, and in another you have Sarah and Delphine who are stuck at the house after having been accosted by the press. Everything is crazy now that news of clones is out. Not everyone is happy with the revelation either, and clones are being attacked.

Then, of course, there is also Jaysara, who is still investigating the bombing at GRIT and learning the truth from Art (I love that she’s been brought into the fold). They have their own mission, which hopefully will help them exonerate Cosima.

That thread is intertwined with Kira and Em’s trip to the Nasgwine’g’s village, as Kira realizing that Sauveterre has possibly embedded a computer virus into his genome gives Delphine the realization that Sturgis could have hid information in his DNA, which they have a sample of now, thanks to Art and Jay.

And then there are other threads woven throughout, like Vivi’s story, and although she doesn’t feature much in this episode, she could become a big problem if she gets ahold of the bioweapon.

Then you also have Eloise Thibault who seems to be involved in whatever Greg Kurzmann is up to, having taken Cosima from Jay.

Alexander Davis also makes an appearance, though it seems minimal with regard to the overall story.

I’m really loving all the twists and turns with the story, and it once again feels so much like an episode of the original. I’m still shocked though about the discovery of clone club and am wondering if they are going to even be able to deny it, or if this is the sisters’ new lives now.

It’s getting harder and harder not to read ahead about what’s coming next, but so far (for the most part) I’ve restrained myself and waited until I’ve gotten the audio with the text, as the performance makes it all the better. It’s also making me really want to bust out my Orphan Black blu-rays and start the journey all over again.

As always, I’m super eager to see what’s next for the sestras and their friends.


RECAP:

The episode opens forty-eight hours after exposure with a news report by Sally Winters’ of HINDSIGHT showing what happened when they burst into Cosima and Delphine’s house, asking who the person is “behind the face.”

The footage jumps around to different clones around the world being recognized and harassed. One of the clones, who is from Brazil, is doused and burnt with bleach when being attacked by a member of 46 Pure, an international group of genetic purists who are against genetic modification of any organism. The public has polar viewpoints; some are scared, and others are interested in the knowledge.

Winters interviews Krystal Goderitch, who is her usual bubbly and ditzy self, who denies being a clone, calling the idea, “loopy.” Charity Simms also is on talking about being Alison’s neighbor, how she always had a bad feeling about her, and spreading gossip.

Sarah and Delphine are watching and are not happy. They are also on a Clone Call using various devices with Donnie and Helena. Helena is driving back to be with her sisters.

Sarah wants to find Kira to protect her, but Delphine convinces her that she is better off not dragging her into it. She does end up texting her at least, but Kira ignores her. She worries that the way she was growing up contributed to Kira’s behavior.

They also talk about who could have went to the press, deciding that it likely wasn’t Rachel.

Sarah takes some of the pot truffles to calm down.

Delphine’s BioThreat group watch the news as well. Cosima and Delphine are also talked about on the exposé. The men are upset because they gave Delphine information and don’t trust her now, as they think she’s married to a terrorist. Eloise Thibault tells them all to go get a drink and come back when their heads are “screwed on straight,” except Greg Kurzmann, who stays behind.

Although it’s still not explained what Kurzmann’s plans are having taken Cosima from Jay’s interrogation, it seems like Thibault is somehow involved. She tells him she wants regular reports every thirty minutes.

Alexander Davis sits at home in a bad mood drinking. He thinks his wife will leave him for sure this time. He can’t tell her government secrets, so she thinks he’s having an affair. He thinks about all the stuff that has happened and what he would have liked to have happened on the clone front, as well as how he didn’t get the information from Sturgis that he wanted, and now it’s too late.

He eventually leaves to go to Toronto after throwing his glass against the wall. He can’t tell his wife where he’s going, because with all the news she would likely figure it out, but he does say that the trip will help him “ascend.”

Alison, Charlotte, Dana, and the other clones are brought to a warehouse in body bags by Arun to hide them. Dana seems to be in a lot better shape, while Charlotte is worse and covered in oozing welts. Alison can’t touch her since she’s contagious, but Dana figures she now has an immunity.

Alison sees the news report and is angry at Charity.

Arun admits to Alison that Vivi is his operative, but that the original assignment had nothing to do with the clones. Dana recognizes the name Vivienne and realizes that she remembers her as one of her “cousins,” but that she was sent away when she was young, because she was a problem child.

Dana agrees to help Alison to get her niece back home, as she’d also like to meet more of the Leda clones.

Arun asks them if they see Vivi to warn her that she can’t trust everyone at the agency, especially Davis.

Meanwhile, Vivi watches the news report. She thinks about the fact that a lot of her life has been a lie; she hadn’t imagined identical friends as she was led to believe. She wonders if she would have been happier if she had made different choices and had lives like the other clones.

She decides to call Arun, but it takes a long time for them to get him and she realizes they are likely tracing the call and hangs up. She gets on the subway. She thinks that the only thing that can protect her might be trading the bioweapon for her safety.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Jaysara Priyantha comes banging on Art’s door at 3 A.M. She is angry he lied to her. He tells her that she wouldn’t have believed him if he “cried clone” and admits that his daughter is one of them. She softens a bit.

He talks in general about what the clones went through, fighting corporations and the military and not being able to live normal lives. He knows she’s confused; he’s been there.

She tells him that she just wants to do the right thing, whatever that is. She wants to find out who bombed GRIT and killed Sturgis. He tells her that if she wants to “climb” at her job as well as get the truth, she needs to “get creative.”

Art agrees to help her and says that he can be more than her informant; he can be “hands-on.” At that she fantasizes about him for a moment but blows it off before agreeing.

She tells Art about what Cosima said about Sturgis keeping the platinum “close to his chest,” and he says that they need to go see him, regardless of the fact that he’s dead.

Colin, who is still with Felix, Sarah’s brother, sneaks him, Art, and Jay into the morgue. Fee worries about the lack of spark in his relationship lately with Colin, fearing he is too old.

Jay is not happy when Art tampers with the body to take a sample of the platinum hair from under his arm. They can’t take the sample to any official labs, and Cosima is gone. Fee tells Jay that they have a lab of their own.

By the time they leave, Felix feels more secure about his relationship again.

Back at GeenKeep, at 4 A.M. Kira refuses to answer her mother’s texts but admits to herself that she is scared about what’s been in the news, even though before she would have been happy for the secret to be out.

Emmaline discovers that she has been staying in the storage closet. Kira makes up a lie that it’s because her mother didn’t want her working there.

Kira talks to Em about having seen the Nasgwine’g’s genomes being downloaded, and they talk about how some of what Dr. Bai has said doesn’t add up.

They hear Bai yelling at the data recovery techs to leave. He makes a secret call and they listen. He wants to know what’s going on, telling whoever is on the other end that he agreed to give them access but didn’t expect them to wipe the servers. They tell him someone else did, but he asks why that person would have. He tells the person on the other end of the line that he will figure it out.

The girls talk about why he would give access to a confidential genome database to someone.

When Dr. Bai leaves, they decide to follow. He doesn’t notice them trailing him. They end up driving for over fifteen hours and end up in isolated place with spotty cell reception. They realize they’ve arrived at the home of the Nasgwine’g. It’s strange that apparently the donor of the genome that was being sequenced at the time of the hack and the hacker are from the same place.

They follow Bai into a micro-brewery where he talks to the mayor, Gilles Sauveterre (thought by BioThreat to possibly be responsible for the explosion at GRIT - see episode two recap), who agreed to give him his people’s DNA even though not everyone agreed. Bai accuses him of wiping the servers, but he denies it.

Sauveterre argues with a woman at the bar, Aggie, who is angry that he gave the village’s DNA. She also wouldn’t be surprised if he did do what Bai accused him of and says that he has been involved in other things, such as dumping dead salmon into GRIT’s front lobby. He admits it but says that GRIT didn’t accidentally put the GMO’d salmon in their river. They own the rights to the fish, and he thinks they would have eventually come after them for fishing for them. They would end up with a river full of fish that they couldn’t touch.

Aggie argues that he says he’s all about preservation but didn’t want them preserving their genes. They fought him over it.

When the mayor goes to punch the woman, Bai tries to stop him, and he punches him instead. Bai says if he can’t get him for hacking, he’ll get him for assault. Sauveterre just laughs telling him that the police won’t come out that far.

Someone eventually coaxes the drunk mayor outside.

Em tells Kira that she now remembers that the name on the sample they were sequencing during the breach was Sauveterre. They think maybe Dr. Bai pressured him into giving him his DNA. It doesn’t make sense to them.

Kira thinks about how handing anything over to GeneKeep is sketchy. She can relate to the fish problem and remembers the intellectual property markers that were put into the clones and that she is the derivative genetic material and was DYAD’s property. It gives her a hypothesis, and she tells Em she needs to make a phone call.

Back at the house, Delphine looks at the hair under a microscope but doesn’t find anything at first that is helpful. She needs to run tests but contemplates faking the results while Jay is there, when she gets a call from Kira.

Kira refuses to talk to her mother, but says she is fine. She asks Delphine if it’s possible to store more than messages in DNA like they did in the clones. Kira wonders if you could store a computer virus or malware. Delphine tells her that it is possible.

Sarah pulls the phone away from Delphine. Kira tells Sarah that she’s fine. Her mother starts talking about the attack and tells her to come home, so Kira hangs up on her. Sarah keeps trying to call her back, getting more frustrated when each time it goes straight to voicemail.

Delphine thinks about what Kira said and realizes that Sturgis could have hid information in the DNA, perhaps his research or something connected to GRIT. She tells Jay that it might contain evidence that will exonerate Cosima and help her catch the real terrorist.

She says, however, that she won’t work for free and gets Jay to tell her that it was Greg Kurzmann from the Ministry of Defense who took her wife. Jay doesn’t know why; that’s what she’s trying to figure out. She knows it doesn’t make sense that he didn’t go straight to the source, Delphine, but she tells her he was worried that she leaked information to Cosima.

Meanwhile, Kira and Em talk about the possibility that Sauveterre had a computer virus encoded into his genome. When they sequenced the genome it launched the virus, which deleted GeneKeep’s data. Em thinks it’s too far-fetched, but Kira says that she will prove it.

They follow Sauveterre’s trail to his cabin. In his garden, Kira steps on dried out dead dragonflies. It is strange that he would protect the river but spray pesticides on his flowers.

They find him asleep inside. Em doesn’t want to go in, because she’s still not convinced. Kira reluctantly asks her that if there could be two hundred and seventy-four clones, why someone couldn’t hide malware in their DNA. Em finally agrees with her but is puzzled, because according to the news, there were only around forty clones found so far.

In the cabin, the girls take some beard clippings and more to get some DNA samples.

On the way out they see Sauveterre smack himself in the face repeatedly in his sleep and think it’s funny, until they notice he’s covered in small splatters of blood. He’s getting bitten repeatedly by mosquitoes that are acting oddly.

Em gets Kira to leave; however, outside, they see a figure start towards him. Kira tells her to run.