***Contains Spoilers***

Today Serial Box released the fourth episode of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, “To Ignore the Oblivious,” by Lindsay Smith.

The last episode left off with quite the cliffhanger, with Charlotte stuck at the hospital with the clone Dana, potentially exposed to the unknown illness with no cure. This episode takes straight off from there and is filled with just as much suspense.

This episode really starts to connect the dots to all the puzzle pieces, showing how everything is related. Not only is it confirmed that Dana and her sisters (yes there’re more!) were the target of GRIT’s genetic attack, but in my opinion, it seems like there could potentially be a connection to GeneKeep where Kira is working. While trying to stay away from the whole clone business, did she inadvertently put herself back in the middle? Regardless, I will say that her storyline has gotten much more interesting this episode.

I was really happy this time to get Tatiana Maslany’s performance in time for the review, which I didn’t last time. It really makes a difference hearing her voice the characters. I was also pleasantly surprised that we got another familiar face this episode, even if only briefly.

There is quite a lot going on in the episode, but one of the parts that was most intriguing to me was the man who questioned Dana in the hospital and caught Alison trailing him. It turns out this mystery man who tells Alison he wants to help the clones is actually Arun! I can’t wait to find out exactly how much he knows. It seems like he has perhaps more information than even Vivi.

The other exciting part of course is Cosima’s search for Sturgis and what happens when Vivi finds him first. Have they walked into another conspiracy? Can Cosima prove she’s innocent of not just the bombing, but murder, without giving all her sisters away?

This episode left me feeling like a lot of questions were answered and so many more were raised. I’m so eager to get to dig into the fifth episode next week.


RECAP:

When the episode picks up, Charlotte is still with the sick clone Dana, while Alison is texting her to find out what’s going on. Charlotte realizes the quarantine procedures made sense - for an illness that it seems had no cure at all. She realizes she is trapped until she gets answers - or treatment.

Charlotte looks at Dana’s chart and sees that she was born in 1993, confirming what they suspected, she didn’t come from Project Leda.

Dana at first mistakes Charlotte for someone named Bridget, and Charlotte quickly realizes that Dana is self-aware; she knows she is a clone. Dana realizes that Charlotte is like her but younger. She tells her that she thought they knew everything, but then they got sick.

Charlotte asks her if it’s contagious, and she says it seems to only affect her and her “cousins.”

Meanwhile, on a video conference, Donnie talks to some of the sisters and Art. Donnie’s shared footage from their security camera of Vivi going into their house acting like Alison. They realize it has to be the CIA operative that Alison and Charlotte had a run in with. They know that she had to have been the one in the last video conference, so even if she didn’t know she was a clone before, she does now.

Art thinks that Sturgis might be able to fill in some gaps, but Cosima still hasn’t found him yet.

They agree that Alison will keep them posted on any progress Charlotte makes with the sick clone and Art on anything more he can find out about the investigation. Cosima will follow the Sturgis thread.

After their conference, Delphine voices her concern to Cosima. She’s worried about her, because it will be dangerous. She knows Cosima is their only suspect now since they know Katja and Beth are dead.

Cosima does think that since Sturgis knew about DYAD he could know about the sick clone.

They continue to discuss what their options are, as Delphine is worried about Cosima getting arrested. They can’t prove it wasn’t her without exposing everything. Cosima reluctantly agrees that Delphine will talk to General Thibault and try to see if she can get access to GRIT’s files. Cosima promises not to do anything that will make things worse.

At the hospital, Charlotte has told Dana more about the original clones’ situation, leaving out some of the conspiracies and such.

Dana tells her that the clones in her group all grew up together. Their parents all worked for various government departments and each one was given a baby as perhaps some sort of social experiment. She says that their parents were probably the ones who took down the SpareADime page. She says they have rules, which she doesn’t elaborate on.

Dana talks about getting sick and that as she and her sisters seem to be the only ones who caught the virus, they have started to think it was some kind of targeted disease. If they are being targeted, it’s a good chance that Charlotte will get sick too.

Meanwhile, Kira is still at work after having slept in the supply closet again. She spends some time with Em and then finally decides to tell Dr. Bai about what happened on the network the night before. She explains that it was an unauthorized connection to a data center in Saskatchewan, and they downloaded a lot of data from the Nasgwine’g set after hours. He comments that he thinks that’s where they have a new backup service and will find the information for her. He says it’s good she told them, as they need someone like here managing these kinds of things. He ushers her out of the office.

Kira sees all the texts from her family, but only pays attention to Charlotte's saying they have clone trouble. She doesn’t want to deal with it, but needs to talk to Charlotte, so she calls her.

Charlotte gives her the run down on what has happened and tells her she has to stay for a few days, because she could be infected. She assures Kira that even if it was an attack, the illness isn’t fatal.

After, back at Kira’s desk, her computer crashes as does everyone else’s in the office.

Back at the hospital, Charlotte finally calls Alison to answer her questions and try to calm her down, as her imagination is running wild.

Charlotte hears someone coming and jumps under the bed, switching to text. She tells Alison that a man came to question Dana, and he seems to know a lot about the clone program. Alison decides to tail him as soon as he leaves.

Alison isn’t apparently very good at tailing, and she gets caught by the man, who eventually comes over to talk to her when she ends up driving into a dead end. She threatens him, but he just wants to talk. He says she can call him “Arun,” and that he wants to help her and all of her “selves.” She’s afraid to talk to him, but he says they are in danger, and if they don’t act quickly, it will only get worse.

Meanwhile, Cosima, even though she agreed not to, decides to try to find Sturgis and heads to his condo. She has to avoid security cameras on the way, but she eventually makes her way to his building.

Back at GeneKeep, Dr. Bai tells everyone not to panic. Kira thinks he looks like he was expecting what happened. Em tells her that if they lose the data on the Nasgwine’g genome that he will be pissed. Kira comments that it’s good they have backups. Em tells her that’s news to her, because they can’t afford that.

Meanwhile, Vivi needs to be able to break into Jay Priyantha’s office at the RCMP, so she follows her when she leaves for a bathroom break while staking out the University of Toronto, where Sturgis was last seen. She scans the RFID chip on her badge and uses ballistics gel to copy her fingerprint while in the bathroom.

Vivi uses the ID to get into Jay’s office, pretending she’s fixing her computer. The only thing she finds after hacking her password are some emails. She discovers that Sturgis is still alive and reads emails saying that Jay’s data access requests for Elizabeth Child’s file, the GRIT research records, Bell’s case files, and information from the Ministry of Defence about her, have all been denied. She’s still worried though, because that means Jay knows who she is and that her cover has been blown. She’s on borrowed time.

She also sees that Jay had been granted surveillance of Sturgis. She needs to find him first.

Cosima eventually makes her way into Sturgis’s apartment. She hopes to find anything that can help exonerate herself or at least point to the real reason someone else would want to bomb GRIT.

At first, she only finds the irrelevant stuff that has already likely been looked over by the RCMP, but eventually she finds a hidden room behind a painting.

Inside is a safe, for which she is easily able to guess the code. Inside is a folder marked “Insurance Policy.” It’s full of his research at GRIT. She takes photos of everything with her phone. One chart she finds is labeled “Boston Test - TAG Proliferation in Gemini Population,” which means that the sick clones in Boston were the “live test” targeted by them.

Among some unrelated stuff, she finds information about DNA Malware encoding strategies for hair follicles. You could use it to hijack a sequencing computer for example, along with whatever network it’s connected to. (Could this be what happened at GeneKeep?!)

Cosima doesn’t want to press her luck any further, so she reassembles the file and goes to leave, but suddenly she hears the keypad on the door being used. She hides in a pantry.

It’s not just Sturgis that enters, but also Vivi, who has a gun on him. Cosima thinks she’s responsible for the bombing.

He has told Vivi that he has something “terribly valuable” he can give her in exchange for his life. He promises to go get it, but he wants to talk about her first. He asks how long she’s known about being a clone. She confirms his suspicions that she really hadn’t known about it when he last talked to her. She pretends to not know what he’s talking about. He thinks she’s there because of her sisters in Boston.

He wants her to believe that he didn’t design the technology for clones. It was supposed to be for targeted cures, but then they realized the military applications. He got nervous and talked about it, and they must have decided the clones were perfect test subjects, but it wasn’t his idea.

She asks about TAG, and he says that he didn’t know they were going to do a live test; he blew his lab to escape. He thought she might have been with them, sent after him once he told them he disagreed with their plan. He didn’t even know about any of it until it was over. It was just supposed to be modeling a simulated test with the Gemini population, not an actual attack. He realized something was funny about the genomes they suggested to test, which is why he gave them a non-fatal virus. Obviously though they could use it with a virus to target any genetic markers.

Vivi asks who ordered the test, but before he can say more, a shot comes through the window, killing him.

Cosima, watching from the pantry only hears the “ping of glass” and doesn’t realize what has happened, thinking that Vivi killed him. She hears Vivi break windows and realizes she is fleeing the scene. She rushes over after her but stops when she sees Sturgis’s body. She questions that all the damage came from Vivi’s handgun.

As she’s looking at Sturgis, she remembers what she read about encoding into hair follicles and remembers what he cryptically previously said that she needed to find the “platinum” under his arm. Poking his arm with her boot, she looks under his arm, and among the black hairs is a lock of blond.

Cosima doesn’t want to get her fingerprints on the body and assesses the situation.

Before she can do anything, however, the RCMP come charging in and arrest her.