#notes9

- fear of specific object or situation

A Phobia is a fear that interferes with normal living. It is not necessarily irrational. Many people have phobias of snakes, spiders, lightning, heights, and other items that really are dangerous.

Treatment:

If you're all caught up with #OBspec, you're well aware that Rachel Duncan had an identity crisis breakdown to rival all breakdowns. 

How long have we been planning that reveal? A loooooong time. 

Let's take you on a guided tour of Rachel Duncan's descent into memory madness. Fasten your seat belts. Hold on to your eyeballs. It's gonna be a bumpy ride. 

So, we all know that canon Rachel likes to watch home videos of herself. She's got a whole collection of them in her apartment and a viewing room on top of that. Serious business. 

But, in #OBspec, we've got Rachel dealing with the suicide of her father. And that causes a huge cosmic shift in how Rachel approaches her perception of her own childhood. 

The first and last time we see Ethan Duncan's home videos in #OBspec is Episode 3: 

But, it's not for long: 

After tossing the video in Episode 3, Rachel then goes on to make quite a spectacle of denying any relation to Ethan Duncan. 

And after that, you never see Ethan Duncan again. Rachel's making like he never existed, and the videos that Rachel watches from this point forward in #OBspec are a clear and gradual shift away from Ethan. She's playing with her own mind, controlling her memories by erasing him slowly. 

First, in Episode 5, we move on to the videos of Rachel and her mother, where Ethan is never seen. Followed directly by the newest addition to the Rachel Duncan video archives: the Christmas video. 

FYI: The Christmas video is not Rachel. Nope. You know who it is? 

ALISON. HENDRIX. 

You know how we know? 

thE CHRISTMAS CARD. 

Next up, Episode 6. The return of the Christmas video: 

And the introduction of the one that's gonna send it all crashing down, the seaside video: 

Yup. Not Rachel. Not even close. Thanks, Episode 9: 

And it's not just these two either. We've got one more to seal the deal: 

Rachel likes to play psychological mind games. She likes to play them with Sarah, with Cosima, with Marion, with Topside. But, she also likes to play them with herself. 

The idea for this reveal came from something that happens to all of us. Ever have a memory that you couldn't possibly have organically? Because you've seen a picture of yourself somewhere, or heard a story about it a bunch of times. But you know, you know, that it can't possibly be real. The human brain's a crazy thing. And if Rachel knows this, knows how to control it, knows how to trick herself into believing it's true... well, she's the ProClone. It's no problem to get her hands on some clone archive footage floating around DYAD. She can pick and choose, decide for herself what she wants to remember, how she wants to have been loved. 

She's in charge now. Of everything. Even her own memories. 

Haf (thewetcloud) here! Welcome to the penultimate installation of this little project. It’s been fun so far, yeah?! Great. Let’s break it down.

First, let’s talk endgames: Even in a cliffhanger type situation like Orphan Black, endgames are proof positive that everything happens for a reason—and nowhere is that concept more important than in storytelling. There’s a sense of satisfaction that comes—as both a reader and a writer—when a plot point that was established early on comes to a head. Orphan Black as a story has huge potential to expertly execute that concept, and what we’ve tried to do in part with this project is depict our version of how those loose ends set up in the first and second seasons come to a head. So, hang on to your hats, Clone Club, because we’re setting up some HUGE answers. 

On Our Lioness Confronting The Lion: Sarah’s come a long way in OBSpec. She’s dug into pasts that might have been better let to rest, she’s picked at the scab that is DYAD and its hydra-esque machinations, and she’s gone into the lion’s den to save a sister who truly seemed done for — and may yet still be in a different sort of way. OBspec Episode 9 finds her cornered with nowhere to go, and what’s exciting about putting Sarah in that position is that now we have to watch her do what she does best: fight. And Sarah Manning fights dirty. In an intense conference with the father of the woman who started everything, she finds herself again flipping through her emotional manipulation playbook to keep herself in control. But it seems, Sarah has met her match with a military man who is all too well familiar with mind games and strategy. Just the antagonist our protagonist needs.

On The Ties That Bind And Bend: Jumping off of Sarah and the Colonel, we naturally come to Sarah and Harrison, or as we now know him, Beth’s brother. Harrison could be considered Beth-Surrogate, if you read between the lines. All this time we’ve been waiting for Beth to resurface in some miraculous way and now, obliquely, we have her. In Harrison we get fragments of her history, her personality, even her voice. But, we get her under complicated circumstances and through the medium of a complicated man. Harrison and Beth’s relationship grew under the watch of a father who was perhaps more chess player than parent, and they each evolved into complicated adults, full of questions, resentments, and angers. In that moment of Sarah attempting to break through Harrison’s emotional shield, you can get a sense for how bizarre the situation really is, and how little Sarah seems to comprehend that.

On The Glass Psyche: Rachel Duncan is not who she thinks she is. It’s a scary twist to arrive at for this character. Rachel loves power so much that she’s constructed her own imaginary history, erasing the things she doesn’t like, inserting the things she does piecemeal from memories that aren’t hers. In OBspec, we make the unsettling discovery (via some carefully set up Niehaus lingo) that Rachel’s sense of self is a hopeless lie. To make matters worse, she’s sick, her grip on Topside is arguable, and now Gracie (she believes) has killed herself rather than give birth to a child that all but belonged to Rachel. But why and from where is this crazed, fractured self clawing outward? You had everything, Rachel. Didn’t you? Didn’t you??? 

On The Science of the Syph: It wasn’t all fun and games! From Alison’s perspective, certainly. The light-hearted-ish romp of Alison’s STD scare arrives at a surprising twist which, in turn, sets up potentially groundbreaking results. This is a prime example of a story thread being set up to lead somewhere unexpected and satisfying, not to mention intriguing. And all because of something seemingly invented for the sake of Suburban Shenanigans. 

On Literature: DELPHINE, WHAT’D YOU DOOOOOO. PUT IT BAAAAACK, PUT IT BAAAAAAAAAACCCCCKKK!

That said, how interesting. As for Cophine, it’s easy to relegate favorite characters to their relationships. But we have to remember, these are individual women from very different backgrounds — both personally, educationally and professionally. At this point, we know who Cosima is, and we know what her priorities are, but who is Delphine, really? Think about the book she’s walked off with…and what the story of Dr. Moreau is about…and then think about who Dr. Delphine Cormier might be.

On What’s Up With Felix Dawkins: Felix is OBspec’s dark horse. Where does he come from? What’s his story? Besides being there for Alison when she needs a getaway driver, besides playing second fiddle to Cosima’s matchmaker, besides trying to have an actual life of his own, we find these tiny threads creeping out from the seams of the major plot arcs that always lead back to Felix Dawkins. But, Mrs. S isn’t giving any answers. Which begs a second question for another dark horse character: what is Siobhan, international Birdwatcher of mystery, hiding?