BWW Spoiler Alert!: 5 Major Takeaways from this Week's ORPHAN BLACK

Welcome to BWW Spoiler Alert! In this new column, I am going to share five questions and takeaways from the most buzzworthy television episodes of the week (i.e. whatever shows I watch). By definition, these columns will contain SPOILERS if you have yet to see the episode in question, so don't say that I didn't warn you!

On Saturday night, BBC America aired the third episode of ORPHAN BLACK's second season, "Mingling Its Own Nature with It." As always, the show provided plenty of twists, surprises, and award-worthy performances. Here are my five biggest takeaways from the episode.

SPOILER ALERT! I will be discussing things that actually happen on this episode, so if you haven't gotten around to watching it yet, click on another one of my interesting articles instead; like this, this, or this.

1) I love that the writers are taking their time in revealing that Kira is a freaking genius. It would have been really easy to beat us over the head with it from Day One, which they haven't done. One of the central mysteries of Orphan Black is, why is Sarah able to give birth while all the other Clone Club members are sterile? Is she the original? Is she from a different test-tube? And perhaps more importantly, what results have her mother's unusual origin had on Kira?

Since the first time we heard her speak, we knew she was special. From calmly telling Auntie Allison that she knew she wasn't her mum to asking Cal if he was her father, Kira has had an other-worldly intuition. While this could just be lazy writing disguised as a precocious 8-year-old, nothing on Orphan Black has ever been lazy or cliche, so I'm guessing Kira has a bit of Claire Bennet in her.

2) How on-the-nose was Detective Angela referring to Helena as the "Shakira-haired" lookalike? Our favorite crazy clone does have a bit of "Whenever, Wherever" in her. While I am on record as saying that I want to sit and listen to Shakira talk for hours on end, every scene with Helena makes me feel uncomfortable, and more than a little creeped out.

3) I was really excited to see Jordan Gavaris (Felix) get to play a scene where he wasn't just the sassy gay friend. The scene where he said goodbye to foster-sister Sarah was extremely well done. With as spectacular as Tatiana Maslany is, sometimes it is easy to forget that there are some other really good actors on the show. I am glad that Jordan got a moment, be it ever so brief.

4) BroadwayWorld is primarily a theatre site (obviously), so one of my burning questions from this episode is, what in the heck is the plot of BLOOD TIES? Alison and (Not Clone) Sarah's characters are singing and dancing about covering up a murder. What kind of community theatre is this? Where is GODSPELL, and STEEL MAGNOLIAS, and NUNSENSE? Also, I am really impressed with the set designer of that community theatre.

5) Was I the only one that thought something much creepier was going to happen when Johanssen had his hand bound to Helena's as his Proletheans welcomed her into "the family?" I was getting a Branch Davidian-SISTER WIVES' feeling, and man am I glad I was wrong.

So, what did you think of the episode? Do you think that there is something special about Kira, and maybe that is why the Dyad and Proletheans are after her? Let me know what you think in the comments below, and on Twitter @BWWMatt.

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