Season 2 April 19, 2014. Woooot!
It was great to see Tatiana back on the screen again, but I thought the episode was meh. Maybe it was all that time away from Season 1 because I didn’t feel engaged as it tried to pick up right where it left off. I dunno…something about the direction.
While the first episode back wasn’t bad, it did feel like it was struggling a bit to find its footing. That said, I was quite pleasantly surprised by the bloody mess stumbling into the ER at the end.
I’m really liking the new bunch of Proletheans as a threat. Their patriarch especially is fascinating. He’s so affable and practical and seemingly reasonable and even pro-science but he doesn’t even blink at murder and body disposal. Or strongly-implied rape of a feral psychotic, for that matter. And that was, uh, one way to end an episode.
Shouldn’t the first question Cosima asked when they promised full access to their research material be like, so what’s the deal with the whole clone thing, what’s the point of it all? Even if you only care about a cure that would be incredibly relevant information.
I’ve been speculating on the overall mystery of the show, like, what is special about the clones themselves? Are they super smart, long lived, immune to disease, something like that. But that doesn’t fit the relationship the parent company has with them – they seem like resources rather than the product in themselves. So whatever is valuable about them must be valuable to others rather than being a quality available only to the clones.
We know they were taken during the night for tests. Maybe the tests are a way of extracting that value from them. Potentially their eggs. This theory fits with them being infertile except for Sarah and Helana, who didn’t have a monitor. (The Proletheans seem to be interested in Helena for giving birth with that scene where the leader impregnates a horse, man helping along God, etc).
The other thing I was thinking about is how strange is it that one of the clones is in charge. How would that happen? I don’t remember hints that there’s people above her she actually seems to be the top. I can’t really see how a clone would end up in this position without a larger organization around them. The only thing I can come up with is that she’s actually much older than she appears – she isn’t a clone she’s the original. And the reason for the whole project is to keep her looking that young. I can see some sciency mumbo jumbo about harvesting eggs of your genetic clones as part of a fountain-of-youth project.
Doesn’t explain the Proletheans though…
I don’t know, I don’t think there’s as much mystery as all that… I think the only thing special about the clones themselves is that they’re clones. They’re the first human clones, and they have a defect, namely that they can’t have children and apparently don’t live long. Sarah, and I assume Helena, are special because they seem to not have that defect. The parent company is invested in them just because they’re the first human clones and they created them.
That’s how I’ve been seeing things, anyway. I don’t see them as having any kind of hidden super powers or anything like that. But who knows.
The Proletheans I have a harder time understanding. Not sure what their motivation is, other than the patriarch is also some kind of biologist, if I’m remembering right.
Rachel is definitely not the head. They covered this - she’s the clone they kept and indoctrinated. Also, there definitely seem to be hints that at least Sarah and Helena and possibly the others heal quicker than normal, and Kira’s clearly unusual in ways that go beyond just being the daughter of one of the only two fertile clones. We’re not talking full on super powers necessarily (or if we are, they seem to be invested in Kira rather than any of the clones themselves).
Everything the company does seems incredibly over-the-top if they are just clones. Why care so much about them? The process of cloning is the important part. It sucks to lose some test subjects but they are humans like any twin.
I thought they hinted towards super-healing until Helena’s reversed heart reveal which scratched the most obvious example.
We’ve been told that’s what Rachel is, by surrogate mom, that may simple be what she was told. Unless I missed it I haven’t seen anything suggesting a hierarchy above Rachel. In scenes by herself she’s negotiating with foreign partners and stuff but not bosses. Though it’s hard to tell what the show is deliberately showing and what’s simply a product of a low budget. I guess they reveal that never-before-shown neolutionist secret society is actually in charge of everyone but that would feel a bit cheap. Certainly Leaky is well below her in rank.
I’m trying to imagine her being raised by them and ending up in charge of everything, acting like she’s entitled to the world, like a saudi royalty or something “nobody lays a hand on me”. I guess they could raised her like that but why? Leaky acts like a douche but not like that.
Course it could have been as simple as, “Hey writers let’s keep finding new ways to use our awesome actress. Head of the big corp? Do it!”
In the second season premier when Rachel pretends she has Kira and Leakey goes something like, “Did you really kidnap the girl? The child might be useful but it’s the mother we’re really after.” like they weren’t particularly after the daughter she was just a nice side benefit.
The most obvious example is Kira, and the Helena heart reveal only explains how she wasn’t immediately killed by the shot. A chest shot would still be really debilitating and get e.g. a lung and such. I guess she’s mostly been lying around since making it to the hospital under her own power so we can’t be -sure- she’s healing abnormally quickly but it still seems that way.
Also, the neolutionists are an outgrowth of the Dyad Institute, and you are correct that Leekie is under her command and not vice versa, so they’re definitely not the ones in charge. Conversely, Rachel is far too young to have initiated the project or be the original, who would be 20+ years older than the clones, and there’s been no sign or suggestion that she’s concealing age under makeup or similar. It’s much more likely that she is simply a high ranking executive (more than enough qualification to meet with foreign VIPs) because, among other things, she’s so indoctrinated that they can trust her more than they might someone less completely under their thumb. Also, I strongly suspect Daniel is her monitor.
Is anyone still watching this?
I’m almost done with the second season and still enjoying it, though its not as good as it was in the beginning. Curious to see where they go in the third season, as the second one was already losing steam and struggling to expand the mythology.
I enjoyed the second season for the variety of roles they placed Tatiana in. But agree that the plotting started losing focus. Started to feel like an onion being peeled to reveal more layers that were almost exactly like the first.
For whatever reason, season 3 doesn’t seem to be airing on proper BBC yet. At least it wasn’t on iPlayer when I last looked and a Google search at the time said no air date announced.
I really enjoyed the first season. I stopped watching season 2 after the jump-the-shark-trans-clone episode. Season 3 is OK but I wish they would wrap the whole thing up very soon. Tatiana Maslany continues to be amazing but the plotting is getting silly.
I agree, Season 3 is sputtering. It feels like the plot is stuck in a loop.
I finally just discovered this show on the recommendation of a number of people. Mildly interested in the first few episodes but it never grabbed me at all. Finished out the first season and watched the first episode of the second just to make sure I gave it a fair chance, but I’m done. I give the lead actress a lot of credit, but the show itself strikes me as too poorly thought out or poorly executed in a number of areas to stick with it.
Still no sign of season 3 in the UK. It’s getting weird.
Season 3 is finally airing this Saturday. But the real reason I came here is to post that Tatiana Maslany and costar Kristian Bruun are on the latest Comedy Bang Bang with Paul F and Lauren Lapkus and it turns out they are big fans and it is crazy bonkers great.
I binge watched most of it this weekend. The season’s a bit of a mess, but it was worth it for Alison and Donny dancing on the bed with the cash. I don’t really get the villain’s plan though. She’s trying to weaponise sexually transmitted CJD, basically? Wouldn’t existing weapons be more effective, not to mention cheaper?
My wife and I powered through the first two seasons of this show in the last couple weeks and absolutely loved it.
The dance scene at the end of season 2 was just so unbelievably awesome. In technical achievement, incredible acting by Tatiana, and just the overall catharsis it provided.
We watched episode 1 of season 3 last night and it does seem to be wildly spinning its gears, but honestly I’m perfectly happy just watching her acting regardless of how weird the story gets.
Is season 4 expected to start in April?