#ob 3x05

[obsidian-thunder]

So Shay wasn’t the mole, but ...

“Prairie girl, hated the winters, two siblings, parents split when I was six,pescetarian, blue, Barcelona.” 

- Episode 3x05

“Dude you rock Rune Wars? I play this game with my brothers all the time.” 

- Episode 3x08 

Let me zoom in.

“Siblings: Two older sisters.”

- Episode 3x09

[spindleproteinproblem]

does Cosima have an apartment or does she just borrow Felix's for the occasional lesbian booty call

[mveloc]

Castor/Post-3x05 Reflection

Sorry if this rant seems a little negative, but I just watched last night’s episode and I have a few things that I need to throw out here. Maybe some of you can relate to them. Maybe some of you think I’m completely wrong and being too critical. That’s okay. This is just my opinion, but I’m growing super frustrated/disappointed with the way the whole Castor plot line is going down and I need to vent. Disregard or engage as you see fit.

I had to have been one of the very few who was actually really excited by the prospect of the Castor storyline, but now that we’re halfway through the season, I’m completely underwhelmed. Maybe it’s just me, but I have no idea where they’re going with this storyline (and not in the good way). We still know essentially nothing about Castor or their intentions and we’re already halfway through the season. Yes, they’re sick and they’re trying to find a cure... but is this really necessary? I mean, we’ve already hashed out the sick storyline with Cosima and the Leda clones so this is nothing new or shocking, nothing imaginative, and it doesn’t really add anything super significant to the underlying plot of Leda. I don’t really see the sense in replicating the same storyline, just with a different clone line. I thought it could have been potentially interesting to see the parallels between the two clone lines, but now it just bores me as it appears to me as though the writers don’t really know where they’re going, either. It feels like they just wanted an excuse to write some badass male characters, something very Call of Duty-esque or whatever. Yes, the Castor boys are ruthless. You’ve proven this time and time again. So... what? At this point, it just feels gratuitous, like violence for the sake of violence and shock for the sake of shock. “Look at how badass these guys are! They’re crazy! They’ll do anything!” We get it. Now make us care about the characters. 

Maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe we’re not supposed to care about these characters, but as a writer myself, I can’t accept this. Every character should be sympathetic in some sense. They tried to do this with Rudy and failed miserably, in my opinion. He’s just too much of a two-dimensional villain, like they’re trying too hard to force the whole “wildcard” type on us. Helena’s also a wildcard, but we can definitely empathize and connect with her, which is why we’re so invested in her journey. This comes back to the whole defect storyline, as well. We’re invested in Cosima and the others, which is why the prospect of illness/death is terrifying and has such an impact on us as an audience. I could care less if all of the Castor clones are wiped out and to me, that’s not good storytelling. Antagonist or not, the prospect of a character’s demise should invoke some sort of feeling within you whether it be hatred, sorrow, surprise, anger, etc, and with the Castor boys, I literally feel nothing. Mark might prove to be the only exception to this and honestly, he’s the best part about the whole storyline to me. I always thought Mark would turn out to be a good one. Okay, maybe “good” is too generous of a word, but I at least expected him to ally himself with Leda, to be a dubious character. He’s clearly conflicted with his situation and this is the kind of character that I (and I think most people) want to see; the conflicted ones, the ones trapped in a difficult situation that forces introspection. There is no introspection with Rudy, none with Miller, either. I really hope they do more with Mark as I feel he may be the only saving grace of this entire mess of a plot line.

Now, onto my next issue with the whole Castor plot line. We’re five episodes into the season and they’ve just been holding Helena, doing nothing. At first, it sort of made sense since they were trying to run tests to see if she possessed the defect, but once they realized she was pregnant and that she didn’t possess the defect, this storyline became pointless to me. They got everything they needed from her, so why just hold her? I thought that maybe they’d try to go for the reprogramming route, to try to turn Helena and bring her over to their side (which might have been interesting to see), but alas, this is not the case. I understand how holding Helena makes sense from their perspective, as they’re clearly some sort of black-ops division of the military so they can’t simply let her go, but I’m talking from a narrative perspective. In my opinion, the writers have wasted entirely too much time with Helena in captivity and they haven’t taken advantage of the potential character development at all. It’s very clear that they were just waiting for Sarah to get captured so the two could interact. Helena became a plot device, incentive for Sarah to interact with Castor, to work Castor into the story and to develop their characters further... only there hasn’t been much development on the Castor front, so it seems like a waste to me. To be fair, I really enjoyed the escape scene/sestra bonding and bickering that we got (butter ftw!), but my problem is that they essentially kept Helena dangling in purgatory just to give Castor a reason for their sudden involvement with Leda. And I don’t really understand how Helena went from not believing Castor about their lies regarding Sarah to suddenly jumping onboard the bandwagon. In the beginning, she clearly didn’t believe Coady when she told her that Sarah sold her out. She was fixed in her belief that Sarah would never do that. Maybe something did change within her and she realized that Sarah could have possibly sold her out, but they didn’t really show this or explore it enough. I would have liked to have seen this more.

Now that Helena is free, I’m super excited to see where she goes and if she’ll be back for Sarah with reinforcements (clone club) in tow, now that she knows how these guys operate. However, Castor still has Sarah. Why? “Because her biology is unique.” I’m sorry, but I’m so tired of this being the excuse used over and over. It just feels like a cop-out to me, like an excuse to keep the main protagonist in peril over and over again. I feel like the writers can be far more clever than this. We’ve seen this with DYAD time and time again. In fact, this is essentially the same storyline as last season, when DYAD wanted Sarah because of her biology. It was effective last time, but the second time around? Not so much. How many times can you rehash the very same plot before I start to lose interest? I’m still trying to remain optimistic. Coady definitely has other plans for Sarah and Castor so maybe she’ll prove me wrong, maybe she’ll be more than just another crazed eugenicist. I really hope so, because this entire Castor/military storyline has been handled super poorly. There was so much potential, bringing the military into all of this and I feel like they just didn’t deliver, especially after all the hype surrounding Castor.

[justlookatthosesausages]

FELIX’S FACE IS EVERYTHING

[theantlercouncil]

You killed their lab rat. What'd you expect, Cheesecake?

Pupok 3x05

[obsidian-thunder]

Helena escaping at the end of the episode doing parkour and climbing reminded me so much of Assassin’s Creed 1.

[chloeopoly]

Cosima's naivety and rashness was highlighted once again in this episode. She's very much an all in, instant kind of girl, without considering the consequences of her actions. Felix wanted her to find herself a 'scratching post' but instead she's already trying to build an emotional connection. If Shay has an agenda here, then once again Cosima is going to see the consequences of her blind faith in people. With Delphine she knew that something wasn't right from the beginning, but she continued only to be surprised and angry when the truth came out. She said she'd approach Delphine logically, but she didn't, she approached her emotionally, because that's what Cosima does. This isn't just a romantic flaw, she let Sarah in so much more easily than Alison did. Alison was cautious, Cosima was all 'welcome to clone club.' Cosima never treads lightly. It's not always a bad thing, trusting Sarah was necessary and right, but it's the pattern that Cosima follows. Something big is coming. She can't continue to glide through life head first. I'm sensing a big fall for Cosima. Kira's story in the first episode feels like a premonition...

[mysterygrl20]

“My Sestra, she tears my heart.” 

HELENA FEELS BAD FOR DITCHING HER.