Orphan Black S1E2 "Instinct" Review

"Instinct" left us even more impressed with Tatiana Maslany as she continued to add roles as more clones popped up (and yes, she just keeps getting better and better). With Katya dead, she had to pose as the German to get into her hotel room—which was trashed, with a headless doll and red hair left behind—and fool hotel staff to get her briefcase, and Maslany was spot on in a way that let her pretend to be Katya while also reminding the viewer that this was still Sarah and she was still hustling. She was still set on getting out, getting her daughter back, and making off with the money, but first, she had to play the game a little longer, and that meant discovering more about herself and these other women. And the contents of the briefcase—vials of blood, records—just revealed that there were more women out there than just Beth and Katya. When the woman on the second phone hung up, Sarah went to Alison's address that she found in the briefcase and followed her to her kids' soccer practice. Yes, this one was an uptight soccer mom who really wasn't in the mood to deal with her—and had a gun she was willing to use to keep her quiet, especially around her kids. It was when Alison had her come over at the end of the episode that Sarah met the real voice on the phone, Cosima, another clone, and Alison realized that Sarah was completely in the dark. "How many of us are there?" Sarah asked, and the episode ended.

Something else this episode did was provide insight into Beth before she killed herself, and it wasn't a very pretty picture. In fact, it also helped to show why keeping Felix in her life is very important for Sarah. Beth clearly had no one. Paul didn’t know what was going on, and they had obviously been having problems before Sarah took over her life ("First you screw me wild for the first time in months, and then you don't even call me to tell me you're out all night?" He asked when Sarah returned to Beth's after burying the German.). In fact, things had apparently gotten so bad for Beth that he had been checking her nightly to make sure she was still breathing, worried she had been mixing pills and booze. Art was obviously in the dark, and it turned out that he had helped Beth cover up Maggie Chen's shooting because she had been tweaking that night. Beth was seemingly alone, trying to figure out everything and help other clones, like Katya. And that showcased why Sarah needs a confidante like Felix, someone to cover up what happened by lying to Mrs. S and telling her Sarah had faked her death to get away from Vic so her daughter wouldn't think she was dead, someone to serve as her backup (and provide some occasional humor for the show), and someone who provides ties to her old life as she gets deeper and deeper into Beth's and the conspiracy.

What the first two episodes have shown us so far is that this series has pretty much everything going for it, from solid writing and directing to an outstanding, very talented cast. There's just the right amount of humor in each hour, whether it's something Felix says (from "Vic, I have a knife and I will stab you in the face" and "Aren't you supposed to wait like three days before rising?" to his reaction to the suburbs), Sarah's "It's killing me" when the man from the front desk hotel asks if she's (Katya) enjoying the city, or Sarah's "I had to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond, okay? Nobody wants to admit that" to Art. At the heart of it, the show is about identity, about figuring out who you are, something Sarah was struggling with even before she became tangled up in the conspiracy as she tried to find a way to provide a good life for her daughter that didn't mean leaving her with Mrs. S. And it just keeps getting better. This show may be about clones, but at the same time, as these different clones have shown, from hustler Sarah to detective Beth to soccer mom Alison, it's very real too.