Orphan Black The 10 Best Clone Swaps

Orphan Black: The 10 Best Clone Swaps

Over five seasons, Orphan Black had a number of clone swaps—one clone taking on the identity of another. These swaps became integral to the story.

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Most of BBC America’s sci-fi thriller Orphan Black’s vast cast of characters has the same face. Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany, star of the upcoming She-Hulk MCU Disney+ series, portrays over a dozen clones from all over the world with the help of an arsenal of wigs and impressive accents.

Throughout the show’s top episodes, Maslany shares the screen with multiples of herself and, on many occasions, plays clones pretending to be another clone. These clone swaps, as the show’s fanbase calls them, are a trademark of the series and become a vessel through which Maslany shows off her impressive Emmy-winning acting chops.

10 Helena as Sarah Manning as Beth Childs

In season 1’s “Effects of External Conditions,” Ukrainian killer clone Helena, the season’s main antagonist, stuffs her bright blonde curls into a gray beanie and pulls on her best business casual attire to slink around the police department as Beth Childs, the detective whose death became the series’s inciting incident.

The Beth she knows is actually Sarah Manning’s impersonation of their clone, so this becomes a nesting doll-type of situation, with one identity swap building off another. This clone swap threatens to blow Sarah’s cover and expose the existence of the Leda clones. As the series progresses, Helena pretends to be her sestras a few more times, but her first swap is pretty memorable.

9 Alison Hendrix as Sarah Manning

None of the original clones differ more at first glance than Sarah Manning and Alison Hendrix. But the two are more similar than they may want to admit, especially when it comes to their children. This similarity is first seen in season 1’s “Effects of External Conditions.” While Sarah tracks down Helena, Felix Dawkins ropes Alison in for her first clone swap to reunite with Sarah’s daughter, Kira.

He helps fine-tune her impression to keep his foster sister from losing her family again. While Kira doesn’t buy the swap, Sarah’s foster mom Siobhan does and Alison’s impersonation of Sarah tries to prove she plans to change. This is the clone swap that starts introducing Kira and Siobhan to the world of the Leda clones and creates one of the show’s dynamic duos—Alison and Felix.

8 Sarah Manning as Cosima Niehaus

Sarah transforms into geeky Ph.D. student Cosima Niehaus in the season 2 episode “Nature Under Constraint and Vexed” to infiltrate the Dyad Institute. She twists her hair up to mimic Cosima’s dreads and pulls on one of her familiar outfits, cat-eye glasses included. As Cosima, she persuades Dr. Aldous Leekie to give her clone a lab, using this swap as a way to help the real Cosima.

Maslany’s portrayal in these scenes differs from how she usually plays Cosima, with Sarah’s microexpressions and tonal changes adding a little edge. A nice touch to this swap is how often Sarah peers over Cosima’s glasses, even moving them down her nose to get a better look at Dr. Leekie. The frames get in her way throughout the party, but they’re necessary to Cosima’s look and Sarah’s disguise.

7 Sarah Manning as Krystal Goderitch

One of the funnier clone swaps involves manicurist and beauty professional Krystal Goderitch, a clone introduced in season 3. Grungy Brit Sarah poses as Krystal in season 4’s “From Dancing Mice to Psychopaths” in order to talk to Dr. Van Lier during a news conference. She claims to be a TMZ reporter asking about the shooting of Delphine Cormier, Cosima’s girlfriend and Dyad scientist, and Neolution, which stirs up trouble.

Sarah’s impersonation is so spot on that many viewers don’t realize it’s not the real Krystal until Sarah’s familiar accent is heard. Seeing Sarah transform into the ditzy blonde—her opposite in many ways—mimics the work of a chameleon and becomes one of the character’s best swaps in the series.

6 Sarah Manning as Alison Hendrix

The first time Sarah swaps with her uptight suburban clone involves hosting a party and interrogating Alison’s bumbling husband, Donnie. But it’s the second time she fills in for Alison, in season 2’s “Knowledge of Causes, and Secret of Motion of Things,” that stands out as one of the funnier clone swaps in Orphan Black.

Sarah must improvise a keynote speech for the attendees of Alison’s rehab center’s Family Day celebration and partake in a role-playing activity where she pretends to be Alison playing Donnie. This complicated clone swap becomes Maslany’s tour-de-force of comedy and talent as she blends layered impersonations together to create a believable situation for the audience both in the show and watching from home.

5 Cosima Niehaus as Alison Hendrix

Cosima usually leaves the identity swapping to her other doubles, happy to be the group’s “geek monkey.” But in the season 3 episode “Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate,” Felix forces her to cover for Alison during a school board trustee campaign event. Thrusting the free-thinking Cosima in front of a crowd of Alison’s uptight, WASP neighbors to give a speech only adds to the chaos and hilarity of this clone swap.

Unlike most clone swaps, the stakes here are rather low. The quotable Cosima even gives fans a new favorite line by uttering “As a lesbian…supporter” during her speech, the quote becoming instant gold with fans.

4 Rachel Duncan as Sarah Manning

In the season 2 episode “Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done,” antagonist “Proclone” Rachel Duncan sheds her chic blonde bob for Sarah’s curly, dark tresses. When the real Sarah steps out of Kira’s hospital room, the disguised Rachel makes her move. She drugs Felix and kidnaps Kira for Dyad, taking the girl from her mother once more.

This clone swap is quick but incredibly important to the season’s storyline and the hostile relationship between Sarah and Rachel. It establishes just how far Rachel will go to help Dyad succeed, taking whatever— or whoever— she needs as she sees fit. The clone swap also shows the lengths both women are willing to go to have Kira, though Sarah’s intentions are far more maternal.

3 Helena as Alison Hendrix

In season 3’s “Insolvent Phantom of Tomorrow,” Helena tries to pass as the accidentally homicidal housewife Alison. She accompanies Donnie to a drug dealer’s warehouse to retrieve a tank of her fertilized eggs taken earlier. They secure the eggs, but Helena snaps when Alison and Donnie’s children are threatened. She shoves Donnie out of the warehouse and emerges moments later covered in blood.

Helena has gone through an impressive amount of character growth by the time she impersonates Alison. This clone swap shows how dedicated to her sestras she has become, the killer clone stating, “You should not threaten babies,” before her rampage. Helena sees Alison’s children, as well as Kira, as hers to protect and this dedication to her new family helps her become one of the series’s most likable characters.

2 Sarah Manning as Rachel Duncan and Alison Hendrix as Sarah Manning

A two-for-one clone swap special! In the season 3 opener “The Weight of This Combination,” Delphine has Sarah pose as Rachel for a meeting with Ferdinand, a Dyad higher-up and Rachel’s secret lover. During the meeting, he requests to see Sarah, believing she was still being held by Dyad. The Sarah the group goes to see is actually Alison, whose impersonation is vastly improved compared to her first clone swap.

This double clone swap adds to the tension of the episode, as one wrong move or slip of the tongue would blow their cover. When Sarah is left alone with Ferdinand, she realizes how dire their situation truly is as he mentions the plan to terminate the remaining clones. Had this clone swap not occurred and the real Rachel met with Ferdinand, the Leda clones would have been wiped out without a warning.

1 Sarah Manning as Beth Childs

Orphan Black’s original clone swap is also its longest. After witnessing Beth’s death at a train station, Sarah assumes her identity. Throughout the strong sci-fi pilot episode, viewers watch the British punk ditch her highlights and smoky eye to embody the Canadian detective. Sarah studies Beth’s accent and mannerisms via home videos with the gusto of a dedicated method actor.

As season 1 progresses, Maslany masters her portrayal of this clone swap and even lets Sarah’s natural British accent slip out once in a while as she keeps up the facade. The little touches Maslany adds to the performance, as well as how imperative it is to the story, makes this the most important and impactful clone swap of the series.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/orphan-black-best-clone-club-swaps/

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