dampfire

HELENA’S JOURNAL (poorly) TRANSLATED [by someone with the handle elle18she/her on a site called punk rock no]: (Big thanks to google translate!!! Italicized are the parts I’m least confident are correct.) “But they are their own people. I have no control over that. What form they take. Their health, the shape of their noses they appear, then they will be children by chance. They will heal me/her, my little miracles, they must choose that horror, and I’ve been looking for so long…How far we have come, how much road there still is. And that’s all -” I can't vouch for it. But it's a starting point; it's something to work with.

My first reaction to the whole miserable MK fiasco was simply -- why the hell didn't she just slip out the backdoor with Sarah? Ferdinand was laboriously occupied with that door for quite awhile. MK's contention that changing outfits with Sarah was, "...the only way," made little to no sense to me. Sorry, Mika. No. Get the fuck out the back. BOTH of you! Far better option. I've seen criticism of Sarah for leading Ferdinand to MK. Sarah gets blamed for a lot of things...a lot. S (and not a few fans of the show) blamed her for Kendall's demise. But Kendall wasn't forced into anything by Sarah (and/or Cosima). Kendall consented to the bio harvest. Don't get me wrong. Totally get S's inclination, even need, to reflexively "blame" someone (beyond Evie Cho and Duko) for her mother's death. But I certainly don't think it was Sarah's fault (especially "exclusively"). Nor was MK's death. "I'm coming to get you. You're not giving up, MK," Sarah proclaims. "This isn't the plan," MK protests. Um, true enough, Mika. But, according to the plan, you were supposed to disappear down the rabbit hole at The Rabbit Hole. Had you, Sarah never would have led Ferdinand to you. (Then again, seeing as Ferdinand was tailing Sarah, she would have led him, instead, straight to the meet-up with S, Felix, and Kira. A whole new can of worms THAT.) Besides, a good part of this plan was yours, Mika. After Felix tells S, "...MK thinks that she might be able to get Sarah and Kira away," you, Mika, inform Sarah, "If you can get Kira out from under their surveillance, then I can move you today." The implication here is that you weren't coerced into this attempted extrication. Asked for your help and your input, yes, maybe...probably. But it sounds like you proposed, or at least suggested, most of the logistics. Sounds like YOU formulated the better part of the plan. Should have stuck to it, Mika! I don't mean to sound harsh. I love Mika. Whatever our Core Clones (save Helena -- a special case if there ever was one) have been through over the last year or so (show time), Mika's dealt with much of the same and more (much more) for a significantly longer period of time -- since Helsinki and apparently well before. "I've been running my whole life," she tells Sarah. It's not at all surprising that she's "tired" of it all. The onset and progression of her illness only serve to exacerbate this. I want her to find hope in the cure on the horizon. But apparently it's too late. Apparently, Mika has no capacity for hope left. It's thoroughly disheartening. But, sadly, I understand. What I don't quite understand is what the hell she was still doing at Felix's anyway. If she was done, if she wanted out, why didn't she just bug out and vanish...yet again? Was she just going to claim Scandinavian Squatter's Rights and stay at Felix's for(so to speak)ever? You know, when I rewatched 502's loft related scenes, I thought all this might have more to do with Ferdinand's unexpected appearance than I at first suspected. But after Sarah announces, "I'll take you to Scott," Mika counters, "No, you're not." The exchange takes place before Ferdinand shows up. Mika's made her decision already. NOW -- were the plan all along for Sarah to pick Mika up at Felix's, it might have made sense for Mika (on Ferdinand's arrival) to bail on the plan in favor of a last ditch effort to exact vengeance for Nikki and the other Helsinki victims. But the scenes don't bear this out. As depicted, Mika's attempt at revenge with the knife is pathetic and desperate and heartbreaking. Her murder itself is nauseatingly brutal. I can't readily recall having seen anything quite like it on TV or in film. (Hearing this season's brutal beating of a certain female character on another show -- set in the upper midwest -- was bad enough.) Even Chris's bloody-pulp beat down of Michael's mother's boyfriend in The Wire wasn't as bad as this. Part of the reason may have been that, in that case, we were witnessing a victim of child/sexual abuse beating just such an abuser. Here, in OB 502, we have a former special ops guy stomping (STOMPING!) full force a sick, frail, wisp of a woman to death. We can hear Mika's sternum and ribs cracking for godssake! Fucking Ferdinand! You whiny bitch boy! "You hurt me, Rachel!" Boo Fucking Hoo, Ferdinand. Talk to the Helsinki 38 about it why don't you! You can't? Precisely, you loathsome prick! It is interesting to speculate (as natyxg points out above) about what would have happened if Sarah (ostensibly as Rachel) had been waiting for Ferdinand in the loft. After he handily thwarts Mika's knife attack and manhandles her to the floor, Ferdinand quickly and easily identifies his foe as none other than Veera Suominen. "This is like two revenge fantasies in one! I even get to finish Helsinki." Are we to believe that this duality is what pushes Ferdinand over the edge? Perhaps so. But only perhaps. For the rage fueling Ferdinand's savage, and eventually lethal, assault is much more pointedly directed at Rachel. After spitting in Ferdinand's face, Mika defiantly declares: "You can't hurt me anymore." Ferdinand's response? "Oh yes, I can. You hurt me, Rachel." Mika is little more than an afterthought by then. Even IF things had progressed in much the same way (which I doubt) with Sarah plugged into the scenario, it's fairly safe to assume that she would have put up a better fight than Mika could manage. Sarah would have r-e-a-c-h-e-d out and grabbed a stray bong (hey, a rock on the island of Doctor Moreau is the rough equivalent of a bong in Felix's loft) to smash over Ferdinand's head. Sarah (at least until very near the end of the series) has plot armor. Mika, sad to say, was used, to far too great a degree, as a plot device. A clone had to die to demonstrate the danger the sestrahood is facing. Mika drew the short straw. She deserved better. She died in the ultimate clone swap. Her death (while she was serving in the end as a surrogate for Rachel) wasn't even completely her own. That aside, it wasn't Mika's death itself (its occurrence or manner) that was the primary problem. It was that her death wasn't given proper context. What ultimately made this schemer, this fighter, this survivor, this glorious ghost in the machine give up that ghost ("...there's no data, there's not enough data, we need more data.")? It was something we barely witnessed. It was, essentially, left to our collective surmise. Just hope it's better, or at least less cryptic, than Tony's message about Paul. And I really hope she doesn't follow Helena's lead and whisper it in S's ear. I don't trust Rachel. I'll never trust Rachel. But depending on how much credence one gives to Kira's prescience about and connection with the sestrahood, her assessment about Rachel that, "...it's different now," could give a somewhat more trusting one than me (AftermathTV for instance)...due cause for pause.

Just as Krystal's been sayin'.

More than with you on this. Fact is, at first I was wondering if Mary Elizabeth Winstead was, like Ewan McGregor, playing dual roles in this. I knew MEW had been cast in the show, but I was totally unaware that Carrie C*** had been. Can't deny that I (a diehard Clone Clubber) would have loved to have seen MEW playing two parts. But I'm absolutely thrilled that CC's in the cast. Much love, respect and admiration for both actresses.

Tatiana Maslany. True, a lot of people probably still don't know who she is...even after she finally nabbed her much deserved and long overdue Emmy. She is, to state the obvious, a great actress. She has extensive experience in improv. She's displayed -- on Orphan Black alone -- that she can portray a diverse array of characters. Plus she's shown (time and time again) in the dramatic context of OB that she has serious comedic chops (with her Alison, Helena and Krystal iterations especially).

Bliss.

Tatiana Maslany: where the impossible and the inevitable converge.

The 23rd ep was 303: "Formalized, Complex, and Costly". A lot of stuff about Mark and Gracie. Assorted visits to Willard Finch's farm. Rudy returned to the Castor Compound after having offed Seth...requiring a certain amount of debriefing. Bonnie and Alexis resurfaced. So, yeah, while it was a comparatively Leda Lite ep, Tat was still on the screen for better than half the running time. The only thing close (and it wasn't really even close) to a major multiple clone scene was an impromptu skype conference (what to do with Seth's body) involving Sarah and Cosima (plus Art and Felix) early on in the ep. Sarah and Cosima also had a brief telephone conversation (Castors and Ledas are siblings) near the end.

Yeah...don't want to beat a dead horse (even less so, a live Hannah), but feel somehow compelled to take one last whack anyway. It's pretty hard to watch Jennifer move from the relative optimism of, "...the amazing news is Dr. Aldous Leekie of the DYAD Institute says he can help, so they're going to fly me out for treatment," to her puking her guts out before demonstratively peeling off her head covering and bitterly stating, "Dr. Leekie couldn't even help me. He lied. How am I doing? I'm going to die here," and to reconcile oneself to the fact that this is screentime destined for the discard pile.

Oh, you silly chocolatine wabbit, you! I'm about as good a tweaking things on the computer as Tat is bad at acting. As impressively informative as your post was, most of it (paragraph one especially) went whistling right over my head. Never so much as heard of GitHub until I clicked on a link (courtesy of Allisonmac) on reddit yesterday. Am glad to hear that the site is collaborative in nature and that Hannah wouldn't in all likelihood, "...take the update as criticism." Just gave the Jennifer Fitzsimmons stuff a quick once over, and I came up with 3:14. Most of that came in ep 203. 2:43 when Delphine first tells Cosima about the Jennifer vids. 10 seconds at the autopsy (only counted the actual "face time" of Jennifer's corpse). Plus there was a 21 second snippet of one of Jennifer's vids in ep 204. Cosima's watching it but is interrupted by Sarah, skyping from Cal's RV. If you want get involved, chocolatine, feel free. In the interest of absolute accuracy, I suppose it would be a good thing. But it's hardly necessary in the more general sense. Hannah's data, whether or not 3 minutes are added, confirms what I think we all pretty instinctively knew already. Amazing as well: in 17 out of OB's 40 eps (if I'm reading the chart correctly), Tat actually logs as much (3) or more (14) screentime than the show itself is long! (ETA: Perhaps you can stand down, chocolatine. See below.) Ummm, Not Beth...a quick admission of utter stupidity (and outright negligence)...I completely missed Hannah's explanation for all this down near the bottom of her page: I decided to exclude home videos and corpses (RIP Beth and Katja) because including those scenes often repeated footage and also made it appear that Beth was alive and kicking in several episodes. For consistency, Jennifer's appearances via video and autopsy in season two had to be treated equally and therefore her scenes are not included in this analysis. My bad for failing to notice this. Nonetheless, I'm not sure I entirely agree with Hannah's rationale for these exclusions. I kind of get why she didn't want to acknowledge repeated Beth-related vid footage more than once. But none of Jennifer's vid footage was repeated. Furthermore, whether or not the characters were "dead" when the vids appeared seems relatively irrelevant to me. Those characters were "alive" when the vids were made. More importantly though, Tat had to "act" those parts. So I don't see any real reason not to credit her with "acting" screentime. Same goes for the corpses. If Tat was actually "playing" the corpses (not all that easy to do as an actor), I'm not sure why such work should be categorically dismissed. All of which is undeservedly argumentative hogwash on my part. Hannah explained her methodology, accounted for these exclusions. That's more than good enough for me.

Just in case there's any doubt about who the hardest working person on TV is.... http://hrecht.github.io/orphanblack-update/ ETA: Certainly don't mean to criticize. Totally blown away by Hannah Recht's painstaking analysis. But she actually might have been able to credit Tat with a couple more minutes of screentime (which would have put the total over the1600 mark) if she counted the Jennifer Fitzsimmons vids...which I'm not sure she did. Regardless, BRAVO, Hannah! Great work. I thank you. And I'm sure all of Clone Club thanks you.

After MH's nearly two season physical absence from Orphan Black, the running joke in Clone Club has pretty much been some variation on: Where's Cal? In Meereen. After Daario asks in this ep, "Who comes after you? Who follows Daenerys Stormborn, the Mother of Dragons?" and Dany answers, "A great number of women, I imagine," I just couldn't keep myself from immediately registering it as a meta-reference. Not that I'm seriously suggesting that it was. But it made me chuckle anyway. You're right, Daario. "Fuck Meereen!" A great (and growing) number of women do indeed await you, Da...ahh...Cal. So get your self-pitying, absentee ass back to the Many-Same-Faced Acting God, Tatiana Maslany, and thank your luckies (not to mention the Old Gods and the New) that she might still be willing to do a scene or two with you! (Besides...Kira misses you.)

I understand that Evie was suffering from shingles. I understand why she'd choose to have a bot implanted. I understand, in general terms anyway, the purpose of the bots. What I don't understand though is the purpose of the toxicity. For the tadpole test subjects, okay, I kind of get it. And there might even be some nefarious ulterior motive for retaining (yet not disclosing) the fail-safe feature when the tech is openly and enthusiastically marketed to the public en masse. I just don't understand why those "in the know" like Evie and Leekie and Nealon would willingly expose themselves to that toxicity. It seems to me that the "kill switch" is an ancillary function of the device which has nothing whatsoever to do its "medical" purpose. I mean, implant the bot, sure. But remove the toxin and its delivery system (described thusly by Leslie to Sarah at the Dental Implant Clinic: "I've penetrated the device, which now means that the slightest movement on your part will cause it to erupt....If you do move, a burst of tendrils will release a fatal dose of tetrodotoxin...."). Yikes! As if the toxin ain't bad enough! But...tendrils! Yikes!

Anybody else see what looked like a female body (a "swap-out" body for Delphine?) in the back of the van when the door was opened? Absolutely thought I saw a body on first viewing. The more I look at it though, the less convinced I get. A little disappointed that Duko turned out to be the one who shot Delphine.* Sure, it makes objective sense if Evie was the Neo tasked with eliminating Delphine. But Delphine asking Duko, "What will happen to her?" makes less sense. Delphine (as Leekie's protege) in all likelihood knew who Evie was. And she may have even been vaguely aware that Duko was Evie's henchman. But why would she assume that Duko knew to whom she was referring when she asked the question? Henchmen and hitmen oftentimes are merely acting on orders and don't necessarily know a lot about the reasons behind those orders. (During the course of S's interrogation of Duko in 408 he pleads ignorance saying, "That's not my end of things!") Then again...Delphine really didn't have anyone else to ask under the circumstances, did she? * Hey, JohnSmithSensei. Looked to me like Duko was moving in for the head shot before Krystal's "ringtone" distracted him. ~~ Good grief!!! Was Rachel w-w-working that cane of hers for all it was worth or what? I'm inclined to agree, at least in part, with Ferdinand's assessment: "I like the cane. Elegant. Multi-purpose." [emphasis mine] ~~ Where the hell is the Island of Doctor Moreau anyway? Initially, I was under the impression that it was located at a significant remove from most of the action. (If Delphine's account of Rachel's journey after her escape from DYAD is correct, that is. "We know Rachel flew to Austria as 'Krystal Goderitch,'" Delphine tells Nealon. "She took a car to Innsbruck, was admitted to a private hospital, and disappeared." Why take Rachel all the way to Austria for eye surgery only to bring her back to, essentially, the place where she started?) I just kind of assumed that the island was off the coast of England (Susan being from England) or something. But the way people just seem to be hopping on helicopters to go and come (rather quickly) to and from the island, I'm thinking it's in Lake Ontario. Or maybe Lake Erie or even Lake Huron. One way or another, it seems it's in a substantial body of water. Not just some little lake with an island in it. No biggie, I know. But this show makes me think this way. ~~ I understand the rationale behind Sarah going to the island alone. Nonetheless...WTF was she thinking!?! Okay, maybe she didn't want to take Helena because she's pregnant. Or because Helena's on a new path (a path she's negotiated so successfully already that she's managed to only kill 5 or 6 people while on it!) Or maybe Sarah thought Helena's solution to the problem at hand might escalate, be it figuratively or literally, to OVERKILL. Maybe she didn't take Felix because she wanted to keep him out of danger...or it might merely have been because, typically, the comically caustic nature of any interaction between Felix and Rachel tends to suck some of the seriousness out of any situation. (Rachel's, "You're not immune to me, you cockroach!" nearly managed to do this all on its own.) Might be that Art couldn't accompany Sarah because (a little late for this line of thinking, Sarah!) she didn't want to get him that directly involved in this mess. And maybe she wanted to continue to keep Alison (cocked and loaded and raring to go as the Special Extended Scene showed us she indeed was) as insulated from the main action as possible. And maybe she didn't want to bring Krystal because, well, Sarah's just not used to being so summarily dismissed. (Gotta admit that the prospect of this pairing going on a "mission" together is actually so awesome that its sheer entertainment value probably would have mitigated against the dramatic intensity F&M were shooting for in the subterranean showdown between Sarah and Rachel.) MK might have flat out torched the island, reducing it to little more than 4 billion year-old Precambrian rock. Goes without saying that Benjamin was unavailable because he was attending a memorial service for Kendall's driver...a person nobody else in Clone Club seems to have given a flying fuck about. And yes (of course, of course), S has to watch Kira...just like she was when Sarah was confronting Van Lier while Art and Felix were searching for Rachel. Oh, wait.... And what BTW was Sarah's Exit Strategy? Is there some Special Fucking Neolutionist Regulation that helicopters can't land on this island and just...fucking...WAIT? ~~ I suppose Evie's fatal comeuppance was ironically apropos. Killed by her own tech. Agree with others though that it was a bit anti-climatic. Would have loved to have seen S be the agent of Evie's demise. Duko's exit was satisfying. And he was, no doubt, despicable. But he was (or at least may have been) something of a pawn (a pawn, to be sure, who seemed to enjoy his work a helluvalot more than a little too much). It's just that S dispatching Evie with extreme prejudice would have been so, so, so much sweeter. What I kind of don't get is the actual method of Evie's death. I mean, seriously? The latest iteration of the bot -- the one Brightborn apparently intends to mass market -- still employs the "kill switch"? Really? I kind of understand why the prototypical versions experimentally implanted in the "tadpoles" were engineered to attack the hosts when removal was attempted. Even that seemed a fairly risky practice to me though. Too many tadpoles (with fucking maggot-bots in their cheeks!) start turning up the victims of lethal doses of tetrodotoxin...before the likes of Frank and Roxie and Duko can intervene...and the whole sinister scheme could have, so to speak, exploded in Evie's face...long, long before before her own bot did exactly that. (I mean, look what happened when two plucky dreamers, Brightborn "carriers" named Tabitha and Kendra, made an impromptu vid, hit the road, and managed do their damage with a more than respectable survival rate of 50%.) Furthermore, it just seems to me that if millions of people are supposed to have these things put in their bodies, the scandalous (and, oh yeah, legal) consequences for Brightborn could and would grow exponentially even if people were just getting socked in their jaws or having car accidents or faceplanting after one too many tequilas...and were, oh by the way, being poisoned to death in the process. I mean, WTF? And why the hell would Evie allow herself to be implanted with a potentially toxic bot (unless, I guess, Van Lier did so surreptitiously)? Why, for that matter, would any of the Neo bigwigs (Leekie, Nealon, et al) agree to having toxic bots? I don't get it! Efficacious, maybe. But dangerous, definitely! Am I missing something? Is there some reason that I can't imagine that bots sans tetrodotoxin couldn't be designed and manufactured? Is there some reason that the bots wouldn't properly function for genetic therapy without the toxin? If so, it's beyond my understanding. So too with the design of the bot. Does it really have to look like a maggot or a worm? Sure, a lot of potential customers would opt for the benefits of the treatment regardless of the appearance of the device. But don't tell me that a good chunk of business wouldn't be lost simply because of the "creep out" factor. I mean, Ewww. Gross. Couldn't the device look a little more innocuous? Look like a capsule or something? ~~ Totally surprised by Krystal's reaction to the revelation of her clonehood. Expected her to friggin' freak. Instead: "Right, whatever." Personally though, I would have loved to have had her fill in what happened to her after Delphine discovered her captive and comatose at DYAD. What happened to her between that point and Delphine's shooting? How and why did she end up in that parkade? True, that might not have added much of note to Delphine's inarguably important story. But it would have expanded on Krystal's. Which, although it may not exactly have been vital information, would certainly have been fun to listen to. Hell...fact is, I'd pay good money to hear Tat as Krystal doing kind of an e-book recap of the entire series after it ends next year. So Sarah gets off this train. At Huxley Station. I've been there before. But like only once I think. Place smells. Like, baddd. Anyways, Sarah makes a call to what turns out to be Siobhan...about Kira. But that doesn't go well at all. Sarah's been missing...out of the picture for going on a year. Not good. Not good at all. So she like slams down the receiver of the pay phone -- I swear, a pay phone! -- and she's kind of muttering, "Bitch!" to herself -- about Siobhan -- when she notices this other woman a little ways down the platform. The woman's sobbing. She puts down her bag. Then she steps out of her heels. Then she takes off her jacket, folds it...very neat, and puts it by her heels. Sarah finds herself like moving towards the woman without really realizing it. Then the woman turns and looks at Sarah. They look exactly alike! I swear! Well, not exactly exactly. Beth, the other woman, is normally like an 8. No question. And Sarah's a 7 on her best day. Sarah's kind of shocked. But Beth is a blank stare walking. She's not looking good. At all. This is definitely not a normal day for her. Beth's a 6 -- tops! -- as she turns towards the tracks.... ~~ "I worry about all the sisters," Kira tells Sarah in this ep. "There's so many we don't even know." Sarah answers: "We're doing this for all of them, too. I want us all to be free." Which leads me to wonder about just how many of the remaining clones MK may be aware of. How exhaustive is her list? Is it anywhere close to comprehensive? I'm under the impression that, at least since the Helsinki Purge, MK's been obsessively monitoring and scavenging every scrap of information about the clones that she's been able to access. She was probably the first to identify Helena's European killing spree. And she probably contacted Katja after determining that Katja was an imminent target. Cosima tells Sarah in 103 that, "...six months ago, Katja contacted Beth with this crazy story about her genetic identicals being hunted in Europe." Yet in 401, after MK asks Beth, "Did you tell the others about me?" Beth answers, "I never reveal a source. That's why you brought me into this in the first place, isn't it?" Which would seem to contradict, at least partially, Cosima's version of events. Which, in turn, is understandable. Because Beth is quite intentionally withholding information about MK's existence from Cosima and Alison. While it's still possible that Katja was the first clone to contact Beth, it's probable, even if that's the case, that Katja did so at MK's urging. MK was the conduit. MK was orchestrating things. Hence Beth saying to MK, "...you brought me into this...." Beth knew about other clones too...clones she didn't bother to tell Cosima and Alison about either. Tony, certainly. Sarah and Krystal quite probably. And others, it's likely, as well. Exactly how many others we don't know...and may never find out. Alison was probably Beth's first physically verified identical...mainly because of the convenience proximity afforded her. Beth probably made the effort to contact Cosima because of her Evo-Devo status. Why bring all this up? Well...'cuz. But it does seem kind of important because if Clone Club is indeed finally in possession of the cure (kindly allow me to indulge in a little optimism over the 40-some weeks of the show's hiatus), they'll have to find a way to distribute it to, "...the many we don't even know," to whom Kira refers. That, of course, is assuming that Clone Club doesn't decide to go public. If they don't, an effort will have to be made to find out who the Clones Unknown are. Which is why I find myself wondering how extensive MK's list might be. And how much Beth may have additionally known. In my most current meta-fantasy, I find myself imagining Sarah and Cosima (in the Series Finale?) showing up at the door of a modestly successful actress originally hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan. Which does raise an interesting question. What was the DYAD/Topside policy regarding "fame"? One or more of the clones becoming famous...or infamous (as a modestly successful actress, as an assassin, as a notorious soccer mom slash school trustee slash drug dealer slash manslaughterer, as the first scientist to ever appear on the cover of Scientific American... just to float a few thoroughly arbitrary hypotheticals) could certainly draw the attention...at least of other clones and those who know them. The whole thing could snowball quickly out of control after that. Was it DYAD and/or Topside's general practice to hasten the demise of clones flirting with fame? Or was it more usual to merely conspire influentially against such personal notoriety ever coming to fruition? If it's the latter though, that would go a long way toward explaining why the modestly successful actress from Regina in my meta-fantasy has yet to snag the fucking shitload of Emmys that she so richly deserves! ~~ Delphine! Delphine! HEY! DELPHINE!!! I'm feeling pretty damn hypothermic myself here!

Okay. Duko may be a PDA rep. I don't know. I'm mostly going by what Art said this ep: SIOBHAN: Cosima said the man who pulled the trigger was tall, bearded. She thought maybe the detective you tied to Beth. ART: Martin Duko. Beth's union steward. Additionally, in 401, the lieutenant told Beth after the Maggie Chen shooting: MIKE: They'll take you down now to get your statement. This is Detective Duko. He's with the union. Yes, Duko is a detective. And as such, he no doubt has "police" duties above and beyond anything he does for the union. And (although he's not referred to as a lieutenant or a captain or anything higher than that) perhaps he is a "detective" of a slightly higher rank. Just seemed a little odd (but hardly impossible) to me that Duko would be the one in the position to order the Slumber Party Raid. The case belongs to Lindstein and Collier. Who are both detectives too. Sure, Duko might be their direct superior in some way, but that would seem pretty coincidental to me. I'm thinking more along the lines that Duko nudged Lindstein and Collier along, that he fed them some scale-tipping information that prompted the bust. Duko did seem to sort come slinking in at the end -- like he'd been along for the ride, rather than heading up the operation -- to get all creepy and ominous with Alison after the general chaos was beginning to subside. Very much reminded me of the time Paul came strolling into Felix's loft (to frame him for Tom-the-Cop's murder) when the cops were executing their trumped up search warrant.

6) Evie. She doesn't have "wounds" as such. She has shingles. The condition (which can be extremely painful) is, as Evie describes it, "A side effect of leaning on immunosuppressants most of my life." As far as Evie's pending treatment goes, Dr. Van Lier explains that the outlook is good. "You have pending approval for the world's first gene therapy implant," Van Lier says. "It's affordable, it's effective....You'll be first to take the new generation of bot this week. Those shingles will be a thing of the past." Hard to say at this point if Van Lier is a major player...or whether or not he can be trusted. He certainly seems to be Team Evie. Might be significant though that, when Susan and Rachel have their Skype conference with Evie, there are four people behind Evie and none of them appears (not to me anyway) to be Van Lier. At the outset of the conference, Susan directly addresses, besides Evie, two of the others appearing on the computer screen: Laura and Raymond. (Apparently Susan doesn't deem the other two worthy of mention.) Van Lier's first name (Evie uses it in their meeting) is Ian. So, all in all, it's pretty difficult to say how important Van Lier might end up being or what further part he might end up playing. Doesn't appear though that he was important enough to be part of the conference call. The conference call though may have been more for the suits...whereas Van Lier may be a high ranking lab coat. 7) Looking at the drug dealing investigation in terms of a typical police investigation, you're right, kat, it doesn't make much sense that Alison isn't taken into custody too. But Duko seems to be orchestrating the whole thing (although exactly how a "union steward" has this much sway is a little befuddling). As such, the arrest has much less to do with the drug dealing and/or the Portuguese Massacre than it is a Neo power play. Duko's fucking with Alison. He's manipulatively illustrating to Alison the reach and influence of Neolution. Alison isn't arrested for much the same reason that Evie let Cosima go in 406. (In this ep, Cosima tells Scott, "She [Evie] had her [Kendall] killed right in front of me. She kept me alive so I could tell everybody that Kendall's... gone and Delphine's dead.") How else to explain Duko's parting message to Alison? "Kendall was quite a loss," he says. I mean, what the hell does Kendall have to do with the drug bust? And how the hell would Duko even know who Kendall was or what happened to her if he wasn't "connected" to Neolution -- the New Order? As far as the "cell phone" goes...have to go back to the premiere. Beth's on the fire escape watching Frank and Roxie perform the mysterious cheek chopping "procedure" on Aaron (Trina's boyfriend). Duko joins Frank and Roxie and is there when the the bot is actually extracted. Beth, still watching of course, freaks when she sees the bot and backs away. She bumps into something...creating a clatter. Realizing she's given her presence away (as Duko moves toward the window), Beth hastily retreats down the fire escape. Duko dashes out of the room...presumably heading outside to find out who was spying. Beth ducks in an alleyway, hears someone behind her, then turns and shoots Maggie Chen. It's easy enough to imagine Duko hearing the gunshot at or about the time he's exiting the building. Just as easy to imagine him cautiously approaching and secreting himself away until he can determine what happened. When he sees Beth and Maggie Chen's body, he decides to hang back and observe. He sees Beth make a phone call. He witnesses Art's arrival and the subsequent planting of the cell phone. That (or something like it) is what I figure happened anyway, kat. (Hell, I don't know, Duko may have even made it out of the building in time to actually see Beth shoot Maggie Chen.)

Okay. I just watched Delphine get shot again...and (ff) again and (rw) again. Shortly after Delphine emerges from her car, an out-of-focus figure (a person) crosses in the foreground of the screen and moves (it appears to me) parallel to but AHEAD of the route that Delphine seconds thereafter takes. It takes Delphine 22 steps (no editorial cuts) to move from her parked car, across a single parkade driving lane, and finally to the White Car of Apparent Doom. She stops when she hears footsteps approaching from BEHIND, then turns to face her fate (a fate with a face that she obviously recognizes). Obviously, I think, we were supposed to assume that the blurry figure we saw was the shooter. With good reason. I thought it was the shooter then, and I still think it was the shooter. Nonetheless, it is a little strange that the figure first appeared ahead of Delphine, yet ultimately approached her from behind. In order to do so, he/she would have had to reverse direction and swing back around (back and to the left, back and to the left....) in very little time -- again, 22 steps. It's certainly possible. But why move ahead in the first place? Then again, maybe the shooter didn't expect Delphine to go toward the white car. Maybe he/she assumed she was headed to her office...in the other direction...maybe. And why the hell did he/she feel compelled to approach from behind anyway? Why not just approach her from where the hell ever his/her original skulking in the foreground had placed him/her? Unless the blurry figure wasn't the shooter. Unless the blurry figure was, in fact, Krystal! Delphine may have hastily sent Krystal on her way after the clone swap was discovered. Quite a bit happened with Delphine after that discovery (she had her fateful "meeting" with Nealon; she visited Shay; she had her bittersweet goodbye and final [???] kiss with Cosima). But we don't know what happened with Krystal after the discovery. She may have left in dither, but then thought better of it once she had some time to decompress. She may have -- hmmmphh! -- decided she wasn't satisfied with that French doctor's bullshit explanation. At which time she decided to go back to DYAD and get the truth. Krystal's dogged if nothing else. And she's no dummy (as evidenced by her ready admission that she's not that smart either). She certainly wasn't dumb enough to actually go back into DYAD itself. Somebody in there had been holding her captive and in a coma after all. So she went back to DYAD and waited for that French doctor to leave. She could trust her, couldn't she? The good doctor might have given Krystal a bullshit explanation about what all was going on, but she had helped Krystal escape. So Krystal waited in the parkade. The French doctor didn't come out of the DYAD offices though. But she did show up. She pulled up in her car. Krystal slipped cautiously behind one of the parkade support beams, and just as she was about to approach the French doctor and get some real answers, somebody else appeared. With a gun. "What will happen to her?" the French doctor asked. The gun fired. Suppressing the instinctive urge to YELP, Krystal ducked tightly back behind and against the support beam...while somehow managing to furiously fan her face with her exquisitely maintained hand. Nahhh. The blurry figure in the foreground was the shooter. Can't wait to hear Krystal's version of the shooting though. It should be both priceless...and heartbreaking. (We better get the story, F&M! Straight from the whistleblowing manicurist's mouth!)

Jeff Alexander made a good point in the PTV article when he wrote: "Hey, remember how mad Sarah got when Mrs. S. bartered Sarah's twin to the bad guys? And Helena came back. Well, now Sarah has just traded away S.'s mother, and there will be no backsies this time." Hell, on first watch, when S said, "You bartered my mother behind my back," I totally expected Sarah to retort, "You bartered my sister behind my back!" So, yes, a good point by Alexander. But not, given further consideration, an entirely valid one. A false equivalency lurks. S made her "war time" decision unilaterally. She didn't (understandably, understandably) ask Helena if she was willing to sacrifice her freedom for Sarah and Kira's release from DYAD (which Helena might well have been willing to do). In this ep though, those most directly affected by Susan's proposal -- Sarah (bot); Cosima (dying); Kendall (donor) -- discussed the matter and decided, together, what to do. SARAH didn't trade Kendall away. Furthermore, S sent Helena into captivity, while Sarah, Cosima, and Kendall were only offering genetic material...not Kendall herself. Sure, everything went up in flames, ending tragically. But that was only because Evie, an outlier, intervened. And speaking of Evie...let me, for the fun of it, engage in a little false equivalency of my own. At Evie's behest, Duko puts a bullet in Kendall's head, and her body (along with Benjamin's red-shirted compatriot's...let's not forget him) is immolated. Why, Evie, why? Evie's answer: "...we've confirmed all her samples are destroyed.* There will be nothing left." Evie, simply put, wants to sabotage Project Leda (and Castor for that matter). Which wouldn't be that bad in and of itself. Clone Club would be finer than fine if the cloning crap itself were stopped. The problem is that, in doing so, Evie also makes finding a cure for Cosima's disease way, way, way, way, WAY more difficult. And the more immediate and deeply distressing problem is that, in order for Evie to accomplish her ends, she (via Duko) flat out fucking EXECUTES Kendall and incinerates her remains. Then, to add sadistic insult to heartbreaking injury, she decides in the aftermath that this is the perfect time to engage in a little knife twisting and inform Cosima that, "Delphine Cormier was shot dead at the DYAD parkade." (Rachel apparently gifted Evie the Cold Bitch Digest version of Emily Post.) The general consensus here (and elsewhere on the Internet) seems to be that Evie should suffer a prolonged and painful and appropriately gruesome death for what she did to Kendall (and possibly Delphine!). Hey, I'm not here to argue against it. I'm all for it. I hate Evie for what she did.** BUT... If Evie's actions in this ep are compared to what S was prepared to do in the London ep (309), Evie doesn't come off looking nearly as bad. Consider: Mere moments after arriving in the London pub, S is unwrapping a handgun (a "welcome home" gift from Terry). "You get right down to business, don'tcha?" Sarah observes. "When we find the Castor Original," S says, "there's only one way this can go. I'm gonna kill him." It's pretty clearly implied that it doesn't matter to S if the Original is a relative innocent. Doesn't matter if he (presumed male at this point) is unaware that he'd been cloned. Doesn't matter if he was duped or coerced. Moreso than the Castor Original himself, S is in London to kill Castor ITself. She's fully prepared (and fully intends) to put a bullet through the Original's head. (Not suggesting that doing so won't bother S. Just that she's steeled to ACT.) Then, at the end of the ep, S is faced with what would appear to be an horrendous decision. Yet she doesn't so much as blink. SARAH: S. SIOBHAN: Yeah. Time to go. SARAH: What are you doing? SIOBHAN: We need to destroy every shred of DNA in this house. We can't leave a trace of her. KENDALL: Oh, there she goes, threatening to burn my house down again. SIOBHAN: Not just the house that has to go. SARAH: Jesus, S. SIOBHAN: You said it yourself, Sarah. Castor has to be stopped. SARAH: But that's your mum. KENDALL: This is what it's come to, Siobhan? SARAH: Castor and Leda are... Are siblings, S. SIOBHAN: So what? SARAH: So if your mum has two cell lines, that means that she's our original, too. We need her. She's Leda. It's not until Sarah finally gets through to S...makes her understand that Kendall is vital to the Leda clones' cure that S is finally dissuaded from ruthlessly taking action. Before that, she's ready and willing to torch the place...with her own (admittedly estranged) mother in it. (Not that S wanted to do it. After Terry told her whom the Convict # belonged to, S wanted to leave London posthaste.) So, looking at Evie and S in these situations, it's very easy to see the similarities in their intentions (put an end to Leda and/or Castor) and methods (bullets and fire). Evie follows through. S doesn't. But that's only because unforeseen mitigating factors prevent S from proceeding. She would have. Yet Evie's a villain. And S is a badass. Why? Well, we, as viewers, are invested in S. But we're not in Evie. That's the subjective reason. There is though an objective reason as well. And that's the more important one. There's a false equivalency at play in this comparison. And it mainly has to do with motivation. S wants to stop the Castor pathogen. Evie wants to further her career, her reputation, and her legacy. * Not entirely sure how Evie was so certain that all Kendall's biological samples had been destroyed...even if she was only referring to the samples collected that day at Felix's. Frank was her lone associate on site, and he wasn't actually in the room. Immediately after Sarah "bleached" the samples, Benjamin "escorted" Frank into the loft from the hallway and restrained him in the bathroom. How could Frank have reported to Evie? And even if Evie was speaking more comprehensively and, say Roxie, broached the Rabbit Hole lab and lifted any samples on hand while Cosima was at Brightborn and Scott was at Felix's, how could Evie be sure that additional samples hadn't been stored elsewhere? PLUS, assuming Evie responsible for the data wiping trojan, how could she reasonably assume that Scott and Cosima hadn't backed up their work? Unless Scott...NOOOOOOOooo!!! ** Jessalyn Wanlim (Evie) seems to be handling things with good humor. She tweeted: "Thanks to all you #OrphanBlack fans for showing your hateful love to my #eviecho !!! I feel like I did my job!" ~~ Under-the-radar line of the ep: After Sarah starts expressing trepidations about having the bot removed at Brightborn, Cosima tells her, "I'll take you for ice cream, if you're good." Totally missed this the first time through. Which wasn't all that surprising. I was a nervous wreck (in the best sense of the cliche) while watching. 406 was, truly, edge-of-your-seat viewing.

The "funeral" was a sad, touching...funny scene. Agree with others here that Helena's motivations for leaving are admirable (if misguided...which isn't all that surprising seeing as Donnie was her guide). Yes, she wants to spare Alison pain. Don't think she even takes into account that she also happens to be leaving Donnie and Alison to deal with, all on their own, the fallout from and, potentially, the consequences of her Portuguese Massacre. Should Detectives Lindstein and Collier pay the Hendrixes another visit, we may get our wish fulfilled. Alison may indeed have to impersonate Helena. (This is how Tat gets me and gets me and gets me...time and time again. I fully realize that Tat plays both Alison and Helena. Yet I find myself getting absolutely giddy thinking about the actress who plays Alison playing Helena!) When Scott made the statement, I instinctively laughed. (Cosima's barb, "Who's the science now, bitch?" was even funnier.) And even when I thought about what Scott said and realized it really didn't make much sense (for the reasons you give, Loandbehold) I just assessed it as a bit of (as possibilities says elsewhere here) snark. The writers, I reasoned, simply liked the line more than they cared about the ILLogic behind it. THEN AGAIN... There's been a theory floating around (and steadily gaining metaphor-mixing traction) for awhile that it was Scott who shot Delphine. To which I protest resoundingly NOOOOOOOooo!!! No...I don't think it's so. And no...I don't want it to be so. But if such a thing were true, it would pretty much indicate that Scott's been a mole this whole time. He may have been placed at U-Minn as an interim monitor for Cosima after her transfer. He may have been in Leekie's raise-free employ for quite some time. His snark may have been more than mere snark. It may have been a slip of the tongue. But...NOOOOOOOooo!!! I ain't buying it. Scott DID NOT shoot Delphine! (Or -- dun, dun, dun -- did he?) Speaking of the shooter though... Does it seem likely that Delphine knew Evie? And considering Evie's ties to Leekie (Delphine's mentor) and Neolution, should she be added to the list of Delphine's possible shooters/killers? Evie might well have been aware of Delphine's complicated relationship with Cosima. Consequently, Delphine's question, "What will happen to her?" would make sense. Not suggesting that Evie definitely was the shooter. Just that she might have been. Most of what we currently know about Helsinki was revealed to us in 301 (more salient parts in bold): DELPHINE: Topside is sending Ferdinand. He lands in three hours. NEALON: Topside took action on LEDA before. There was an incident in 2006. DELPHINE: Helsinki. NEALON: Yes. DELPHINE: Marion briefed me... I'm here so it doesn't happen again. We find out when the Helsinki Purge occurred. This establishes that Marion and Delphine are trying to prevent another Helsinki. ~~ FERDINAND: Argh! It's got nothing to do with Castor, this is about Helsinki. You wanted this! Marion is too soft, you said it yourself. If we didn't act, your sisters could expose Topside. Helsinki's the only option. SARAH AS RACHEL: There are other options. FERDINAND: No, it's too late. Be strong, huh? The Helsinki girls were eradicated in 24 hours. 6 clones, 32 collateral. As soon as you have Sarah's ovaries, put her down. Induce Cosima tomorrow, she'll deteriorate rapidly. SARAH AS RACHEL: And Alison Hendrix? FERDINAND: It's underway. The family chloroformed, followed by a house fire. Proven effective by the Finns. This establishes that Ferdinand and Rachel are going rogue and planning another Helsinki. It also suggests that the reasoning behind the 2006 purge was to protect Topside and the Leda Program from exposure. Furthermore, Ferdinand's synopsis of Helsinki 2006 is corroborated by MK in the current ep ("You killed 6 of my sisters. You murdered 32 of our friends and loved ones.") What is a little confusing is how many clones were actually targeted in Helsinki. Both MK and Ferdinand say that 6 died. Ferdinand does say in 404 that he, "...always suspected that one clone survived the purge." But he's never been able to confirm it until now ("Hello, Veera Suominen."). Which begs the question: did Ferdinand include Veera in his tally of 6 dead Helsinki clones when he was talking to Sarah-as-Rachel? If so, MK's agreement that 6 clones died doesn't make sense. She knows she escaped. Had 6 been targeted, MK should have revealed in this ep that the real number of dead was 5. But she doesn't. She too says 6. In which case, taking her own escape into account, 7 would be the actual number of clones targeted. In order for Ferdinand's 6 and MK's 6 to verify each other, Ferdinand would have had to subtract one of the targeted clones from the death total based solely on his suspicion that one of those targeted got away. Which would still mean that 7 were originally targeted. As I said...a little confusing. Well, actually, MORE than a little confusing. ~~ DELPHINE: Shut up and stop squirming. FERDINAND: I am sanctioned by Topside... DELPHINE: To conduct a security review of self-aware clones. Not screw our product. SARAH AS RACHEL (SORTA): Helsinki's happening, Delphine. DELPHINE: Won't Marion be impressed? Conspiring with one clone to murder the others. Now who will pay for this, hmm? Her? Topside's favorite pet? Or you, Ferdinand? Because they will kill you. FERDINAND: What do you want? DELPHINE: Marion will meet us in Zurich. You report to Topside that Dyad is secure. FERDINAND: And self-aware LEDA clones, an essential evolution of the program. I know how leverage works. Again, it appears that Topside's major concern here is the threat "self-awareness" in the Leda clones might pose to the cabal and the program. I think this is the crux of the problem. This is why Ferdinand has been sent to conduct a security review (although the fix is already in with the fixer). MK and Ferdinand could go a long way toward clarifying this and other issues concerning Helsinki in future episodes. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for them to do so though. I haven't read the comics. Perhaps there's an explanation there. Like you though, Triskan, I'd like an in-show explanation. Or better yet, an actual episode about it. I used to think such things couldn't happen. For three seasons we followed Sarah on her odyssey, garnering tidbits and fragments of the backstory as Sarah and Clone Club discovered them. Then, out of the blue (as the skies of Lesbos), the Beth Prequel dropped in 401. And suddenly an essentially untethered past became accessible. (Subjectively speaking, I absolutely LOVED 401. Objectively though, I thought it was something of a storytelling cheat.) So there's no real reason anymore why an ep taking place in Helsinki in 2006 isn't possible. Bring it on, F&M! Until then though, Triskan, we're left to feed on crumbs...and speculate. Here, more or less, is what I think might have happened: Somehow MK and Niki found each other. From what they could initially determine, it didn't seem they were separated twins. They dug deeper. Found out they were both born via IVF. Further investigations (generated by MK's apparently Salanderesque hacking skillz) into their IVF origins led to the discovery of other (Scandinavian?) identicals. Contact was made. Communication grew. Finally the group decided to meet in Helsinki. Topside deemed this dangerous. And Topside intervened...with extreme prejudice. Wow. True. Never thought of this either! Not only would the police have been called to the scene, but it seems the Homicide Division would have to have been called in to determine whether the victim had jumped (suicide), had slipped (accident), or had been pushed (murder). And Beth's a HOMICIDE cop!!! Not to mention the fact that the incident was newsworthy enough to warrant TV coverage ("Authorities have cleared out the station after an unidentified woman fell onto the tracks and was killed. Now, witnesses aren't sure how the woman came to be on the tracks or whether foul play was involved....Police have not released any more details.") I suppose it's possible that Colin (Morguee) didn't personally know Beth. But it seems, moreso, doubtful. Homicide + Morgue = Familiarity. We do know though, conclusively, that Beth knew Janis (the coroner/medical examiner...or head of forensics...or whatthehellever her title or position is). Hard to believe that Janis never so much as saw the relatively high profile (again, TV coverage) body. kat165, your point about multiple police precincts makes a certain amount of sense. Just not sure though if each and every precinct would have its own Homicide Division and Morgue. (Correct me if you think I'm wrong.) Regardless, both Colin and Janis are present when Art and Angie go to the Morgue and witness Janis straightening Katja's fingers for a new set of prints. It's apparent that all four parties are fairly well acquainted with each other. Stands to reason that if Colin knew Art and Angie, he would have also known Beth. Plus, the finger straightening scene takes place in what seems to be the same morgue (round windows in the wooden doors, round lights on the walls, large "viewing" window, a red bin or cart of some sort against the wall) in which Felix identified Beth's body as Sarah's (101). All in all, it's a little hard to believe that Colin wouldn't have known Beth and/or that Janis never would have seen her corpse. Thanks for pointing this out, Not Beth. I feel pretty stupid. By rights, when Sarah called Felix from the restroom in 101 and told him to, "Abort! Abort!" the the whole premise of Beth being a Homicide Detective should have been aborted (or at least reworked). Does it make me stupider still that it doesn't (not at this point anyway) bother me nearly as much as it should that it wasn't? Ambiguous at present. MK's ritualistic behavior with Ferdinand would seem to strongly imply this. Yet in Marion's case, it doesn't seem to apply. In the cold open, MK seems to "discover" that Marion Bowles is dead. "Look Niki," she says before adding Marion's pic to her chart and X-ing Marion out. "Another puzzle piece." Seems that if MK had herself hastened Marion's demise, that puzzle piece would already be an X-ed out part of her chart. (Anybody else think of Cosima's Clone Chart when seeing MK's for Topside?) The Dyad Profile of Marion that pops up on MK's computer screen is headed, "Recent Esteemed Collegues." She's referred to as, "Formerly on the Board of Directors." The profile doesn't flat out say that Marion is dead. But -- who knows? -- maybe MK accessed the profile in some sort of Obit Section on the Dyad website. However MK makes her determination, her X would seem to indicate that she is convinced that Marion is dead...assuming, of course (perhaps incorrectly?), that Red X = Death. MK might have dispensed with Marion if she'd had the opportunity. But apparently somebody (quite possibly somebody named Susan) beat her to it. (BTW: Delphine's Security Level is, "Employment Suspended." Rachel's is, "Employment Suspended Special Interest." The Employment Status of each is, "Classified.")

Apparently...the S4 ep titles: http://324b21-clone.tumblr.com/post/141849659046/orphan-black-s4-ep-titles Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway

Thrilled as well that we're apparently going to get a fair amount of Beth's backstory. Just wondering how F&M are going to do it given that heretofore the plot has proceeded for the most part in a linear, chronologically progressive way. There have been some dreams and such (e.g., Cosima's near death experience, Helena's baby shower, Sarah's fever dream). But the few "flashbacks" in the show that I can remember off the top of my head (e.g., Sarah connecting Katja's impromptu burial and the quarry murder in her mind, Helena foggily revisiting her egg harvesting, Paul seeing images of Beth a second before releasing the grenade in the Castor compound) were pretty standard stuff. They were essentially depicted as memories. But Beth's dead. Memories (not hers anyway) don't apply. Will be interested to see what the conduit to Beth's past is. A diary or journal perhaps? Something Sarah reads which allows her to imagine what was happening to Beth. I suppose M.K. could second hand it to Sarah. But, really, is Beth going to tell M.K., "After you called, I went into the bathroom, did my best Nurse Jackie impression, took a shower, threw on some clothes, then headed straight here to you. After having a seriously uncomfortable conversation with Paul about dinner plans that is"? Doubtful. Seems a scenario unnecessarily weighted with mundane, innocuous, irrelevant...and potentially embarrassing detail. Beth might have told M.K. that she told Paul that she had to meet a source. If she even provided that much ancillary information. To just out of the blue (as the skies of Lesbos) start showing such significant and extensive backstory without a conduit in the "present" wouldn't make much storytelling sense to me. Firstly, it would be a drastic departure from three season's worth of established methodology (linear story with Sarah as the protagonist; a complex mystery pieced together scrap by scrap by excruciating scrap). And secondly, what real purpose would such content serve if we, the audience, became aware of what happened to Beth, while Sarah and the Sestras (or somebody "in show") didn't? Not going to sweat it...YET. Have faith that it will be reasonably explained.

Absolutely. When Negan said, "I got an idea," I was suddenly convinced he was going to go all Sophie's Choice on Rick. "I'm gonna let you pick, Rick. You've got a minute. No debate. I want a name. Nothing more. And no, Rick. You can't offer yourself up. You've got a minute, and if you don't give me a name in that minute, two of you are going to feel the wrath of holy hell. Then we'll start again. If you don't give me a name in another minute...two more will feel the wrath. And so on. I hope I'm making myself clear, Rick. Because your minute starts. Now." [sNAP TO BLACK. END SCENE. END EP. END SEASON.] THAT could have been the cliffhanger. Not that I'm arguing that a cliffhanger was called for. I, like most here, would simply have liked to have seen the scene that we saw play out to its dramatic grisly conclusion. I don't need all the manipulative #Whoisit? Bullshit TPTB are apparently hoping for over the hiatus. If we had to be left with such a question though, I just think that Rick's [Gut-Wrenching] Choice would be far more interesting to speculate about for half a year than Negan's [somewhat Arbitrary] Choice.

Promotional trailers for S7 should be interesting. Who the hell's gonna appear in the things?

Assuming Rick's survival is a given, only Michonne's demise would utterly devastate me tonight. The seemingly inevitable death or deaths of any to many from CDB will be tougher than tough to take. And that -- horrible as it is to even think it -- includes Lil' Asskicker. But Michonne? No. Just No.

Fish fingers and custard?