The Women of Orphan Black by Valerie Estelle Frankel

Author:Valerie Estelle Frankel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2018-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

As the series begins, Helena murders the other clones, targeting two in Europe and then following Katja and killing her when she meets Sarah. Next. she targets Sarah-as-Beth, but when Sarah shrieks “I’m not Beth!” Helena realizes her assumptions have been wrong. Further, she feels a connection, a stirring instinct competing with all she’s been taught. However, Sarah stabs her with a piece of rebar, halting Helena’s attack and forcing her to withdraw and reconsider.

Her fundamentalism has left her deranged, as she follows the Proletheans’ agenda to destroy the sisters she should be protecting. When Sarah tracks her down, Helena waits in a bloodstained white shift with dyed blonde hair—she resembles a corrupted angel, one rejected from heaven. “It’s a little bit Virgin Mary, a little bit Joan of Arc, a little bit an archangel, a little bit a fresco…” Lynch explains (“Send in the Clones”).

Sarah enters and confronts her sister. “Kneel,” she orders. “I’m guessing you know how.” As they ask each other, “Where did you come from?” Sarah says she’s from the atheist-inspired “out of the woodwork,” while Helena says, “God sent me.”

“Right. So you don’t know either,” Sarah retorts, tearing apart Helena’s carefully built fundamentalism. The angry, skeptical punk throws out all the patriarchy’s attempts to dictate to her. Meanwhile, Helena clings to Sarah’s knees and tries to break through and share her religious beliefs. When Helena offers to save her, Sarah knocks Helena’s hand from her knee, rejecting her. “Right, because we have a connection,” she says tightly. She presses her gun to Helena’s head, as Helena whispers that she can see a light in Sarah, her new potential savior.

“There’s a light in all of us,” Sarah says emotionally.

“No!” Helena shouts. “The others. Poor copies of God’s image of human beings!”

Sarah realizes, “They told you you were the original, didn’t they?” (“Effects of External Conditions” 104).

After this, Helena becomes obsessed with Sarah, contacting her repeatedly and insisting she has something special about her. At the end of episode four, she collapses from the injury Sarah gave her and Tomas carries her off. He berates and comforts her alternatingly, insisting Sarah and her connection are “nothing. Just one of your fingernail clippings, like the rest of them.” Helena repeats Sarah’s revelation that Helena is not the original. However, when Tomas presses her with “How could you believe such a thing?” and tortures her, she cowers and he cradles and forgives her. Vowing to be strong, she repeats after him phrases of self-hypnosis and compliance, giving her mind and will over to him. He tells her and she repeats, “I am the original. I am the light” (“Parts Developed in an Unusual Manner” 107).

At cult services, the charismatic leader convinces his followers he has more spiritual authority than they do and that they are unworthy in the eyes of God. The only path to salvation is to do whatever the cult asks of them. With this, the followers trust him completely. There’s often an ultimatum—be saved and give money, pledge a new level of devotion or prove oneself a sinner.

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