ORPHAN BLACK Gets a Tony

Episode 2.08 “Variable and Full of Perturbation”

[photos: Steve Wilkie for BBC AMERICA]

Yes, they went there. And from the outset, let me say that this show continues to be a showcase for the talent of Tatiana Maslany, who proves yet again that she deserves an Emmy for her work as the Clone Club.

The setup this episode: two on-the-run criminals, one of them gut-shot, both of them looking a little seedy. Sammy, the one dying, tells his partner to get in touch with Beth Childs. The partner — another clone. But with a twist. This one isn’t a girl.

Turns out this is Tony — formerly Antoinette — who is very comfortable being a transgendered individual, thank you very much, even though Art and Felix have to work at wrapping their heads around it. A male clone? But figuring it out takes place off-site while Tony gets in Felix’s face about wanting to know what’s going on. Who’s Beth Childs? Why would Sammy send her a message? And oh, by the way, we’re not getting the message until all sides figure out if they can trust each other.

Let’s put a pin in this thread for a bit, because we’ll come back to it, gender politics and all…

Allison comes home to find Donnie asleep, curled up around several bottles. “You’re drinking on the day I come home from rehab?” Allison’s got quite a few choice lines in this episode, providing the comic relief this time out, as per usual. And this is where we get our slapstick for the episode, as Donnie and Allison confess each other’s crime. And the first thing to get a reaction out of Allison? The fact that Leekie’s not wrapped properly and is leaking all over the trunk of Donnie’s car.

Seriously, there’s potential for these two now.

Cosima is still dealing with the sense of betrayal that she feels from finding out Kira’s teeth were the source of the stem cells in her treatment, and has locked Delphine out. But in the midst of it, Scott proves himself worthy of friendship and loyalty when he finds out Cosima is a clone. “It’s an honor,” he says. And it’s not even a “Whoa, dude!” type of moment. You can see he’s sincere in his appreciation for both Cosima as a scientist and Clone 324b21 as a scientific achievement. And then to have Cosima impress Scott and his buddies in a tabletop D&D type of game… icing on the cake.

For Sarah, it’s now a question of getting Duncan back to Dyad with his floppy disks so he can develop a cure for Cosima and the other clones. Rachel, being the prim and proper cold-hearted ice queen that she is, determines that her relationship with Professor Duncan must remain professional at all times, and that her emotional outburst at their reunion should not be repeated. Of course, what’s going on in her mind is anything but professional and contained, as we see her internal reaction to learning that Sarah’s ability to have children is a mistake and that the clones were barren by design to contain the experiment.

Imagine that. The ability to have babies, a mistake. There could be a metaphor here for anyone who wants to imagine seeing it.

And now we get to the meat of the episode: Tony. Who really feels like nothing more than a gimmick, really.

First off, let me say it’s another wonderful display of Tatiana Maslany’s talent to be playing Tony as well as she does. And yes, it makes sense that a transgendered person is already going to have gone through the existential crisis of identity that would make being a clone seem like just another random day.  Within the context of the story, I suppose it even makes sense to have “Tony” be a transgendered Antoinette, since all of the clones have been female so far. But from a story sense, it would have been just as interesting (if not more so) to have Tony be an actual male clone, from the same batch certainly, but deliberately made with the Y chromosome. Because then you get to play with the science and the ethics of designer babies, which has been a controversial subject in the real world. If you could “design” your baby, what would you do? On the flip side, if you could “design” flaws out, what would you try to avoid?

Instead, we get a full episode of nothing with this character outside of a few “don’t forget I’m a dude” moments that really don’t propel the story anywhere. Tony has a message for Beth. Tony doesn’t trust anyone. I get it. We have to spend time earning Tony’s trust. But it really feels like the character is a little gratuitous; all that time spent for a message that’s not very clear. The cryptic “Paul’s like me. He’s a ghost.” message from Sammy is almost not worth the time invested in Tony. Especially since Tony feels like a one-and-done character. I doubt we’ll see him again anytime soon, even though Felix handed out another CloneFone.

Again, props to Tatiana Maslany and Jordan Garavis for their turns as Tony and Felix — dancing the dance and getting a feel for each other while we mark time to get to the message from Sammy. It just feels like the show decided to be more “culturally aware” and inject a message into the show. Not that it was as overt as Maleficent‘s rape scene, but a fair amount of subtle gender politics was there. Nature vs. Nurture, and it seems the show takes a “nature” stance, despite the fact that the clones are all designed by science. So is that a mixed message? Science can only go so far before something bigger steps in and sends a person on a path of development contrary to the design?

It’s not the fact that Tony’s a transgendered person, but assuming Tony’s a one-off — very much like Jennifer — then why get everyone invested in the character?

[Show web site on BBC]     [Previous recap: “Knowledge of Causes, And Secret Motion of Things”]