Characters / Orphan Black: Project Leda

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The Clones of Project LEDA | Associates of the Clones | The Proletheans | The Neolutionists | Dyad Associates | The Clones of Project CASTOR | Miscellaneous Characters

The Clones of Project Leda

In General

Played by: Tatiana Maslany (as adults), Cynthia Galant (as middle childhood to pre-adolescence stages), and Habree Larratt (as early childhood stages), Kathryn Alexandre (body double)

"Just one. I'm a few. No family too. Who am I?"

A group of young women who look identical to each other because they are clones born of the same genetic material. Most of them were not aware of their true origins until adulthood, but they are of great interest to various underground conspiracies.

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• Alliterative Name: They go by Clone Club.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: The clones are naturally brunettes and all but Cosima and Charlotte are this. Sarah is snarky, Beth is always Serious Business, Alison is feisty, and M.K is detached.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Of all the Twin Switches made, only Sarah has made the respectable performances. Alison's Sarah impersonations are straight-out Ham and Cheese, Cosima and Rachel's respective impersonations of Alison and Sarah are both dull as hell, and Helena's impersonations of Sarah as Beth and Alison are just flat-out bad (though not her Sarah impersonation). Rachel having an unconscious Krystal as her decoy while she escapes obviously does not count.
• Brainy Brunette: Cosima may be the token Smart Girl, but all the Ledas demonstrate high intelligence in some form; they are, after all, just as smart as each other. Sarah is Street Smart and resourceful, able to impersonate a cop she'd never met so well she fooled her partner; Alison is capable and organised, to the point of running a successful drug business out of her suburban home; Helena has mastered various killing techniques to a professional level; Rachel is essentially a criminal mastermind, and even Krystal shows a remarkable ability to uncover the truth of her situation, despite being completely oblivious to it.
• Chaotic Neutral: The clones either are this alignment (Sarah, M.K.) or tend toward it to varying degrees; they recognise a common psychological tendancy towards reckless, impulsive behaviour, even in their most rigid, repressed incarnations, like Alison and Rachel.
• Clones Are People, Too: A very important theme in this series is that they are all individuals who deserve to be treated as people despite their genetics.
• Clone Degeneration: The clones have a predisposition to respiratory disorders and infertility, possibly caused by an unclassified autoimmune disease. In 2.08, Ethan Duncan indicates that the clones' infertility was on purpose, implying either that Sarah and Helena's fertility was not intentional or not his doing. Unless, of course, he was just saying that to spare Rachel's feelings. It's also later revealed that the process used to make the clones infertile is responsible for the disorder that kills some of them.
• Color-Coded Characters: Sara = black and blue, Beth = black, purple and blue, Cosima = different shades of red, Alison = purple, light blue, and pink, Helena = white, brown, and green, Rachel = blue and white, Krystal = pink and yellow, M.K. = brown, muted shades of blue and purple, Charlotte = white and purple.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • The clones' hair is the key way the series helps to distinguish and characterize them for the viewer. Beth has it pulled back tight. Katja has dyed bright red hair. Sarah has straight black hair that is usually somewhat ill-kept. Allison has a simple ponytail with bangs. Cosima has dreadlocks. Helena has curly, ratty blonde hair. Rachel has straight blond hair in a Sci-Fi Bob Haircut. Krystal has beautiful, long, straight blond hair. M.K.'s hair is similar to Helena's, but black. She also has a habit of wearing a sheep mask.
  • It's also easy to distinguish what season a scene is depending on the color of their cellphones. Season 1 = pink, Season 2 = (light) green, Season 3 = blue, Season 4 = violet.
• Determinator: If all the clones could be said to share one personality trait, that would be it. They are resourceful survivors and as stubborn as a camel in a sandstorm.
• Dysfunction Junction: Many of the clones have emotional/psychological problems and issues in their personal lives. The stress of dealing with conspiracies doesn't help. Several of them also have addictions that only make their inherent psychological issues worse, like Alison's alcoholism and Beth's cocaine use.
• Emergency Impersonation: The most common reason for their Twin Switch.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Initially, Alison, the only one with combat training, is the Fighter, while scientist wunderkind Cosima is the Mage, and deception mastermind Sarah is the Thief. In Season 2 Helena takes on the role of Fighter, while Alison shifts into the Thief. By the final season, Sarah has become a Fighter.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Sarah, Cosima, and Alison. And later Sarah and Helena.
• Foil: Helena and Rachel are both blonde clones who were raised by factions that oppose the other clones and act as the main antagonist of their respective seasons. Both of them want Sarah to come over to their side, have complicated relationships with their adopted fathers, and have taken Kira away from Sarah (though Helena had enough compassion to return her). Helena is wild yet loving while Rachel is austere and doesn't understand love. Both of them also want to become mothers; currently, Helena is pregnant but Rachel is still infertile.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble:
  • Sarah The Optimist, Cosima is The Realist, Alison is The Conflicted, Helena is The Apathetic, and Rachel is The Cynic.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sarah is Choleric, Cosima is Phlegmatic, Alison is Leukine, Helena is Sanguine, and Rachel is Melancholic.
• Freudian Trio:
  • For the main trio, Sarah is Id, Cosima is Ego, and Alison is Superego.
  • Alternately, Helena is Id, Sarah is Ego, and Rachel is Superego.
• Honorary Aunt: In a drawing, Kira refers to all of the clones she knows, including Helena, as Auntie. (Of course, Helena is her actual aunt.) As always, Kira seems to be right. Alison says it feels like her own daughter is hurt when Kira is in the hospital, Cosima is more worried about Delphine hurting Kira than herself after uncovering her treachery, and Helena clearly loves her to bits. When Kira starts referring to Rachel as Auntie too, Sarah tells her not to; that doesn't stop Rachel herself from following the others' leads and getting attached to Kira, though to a lesser extent.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Some develop respiratory problems. Katja and Cosima cough up blood, while Jennifer mentions that polyps were found in her lungs.
• Locked Out of the Loop: In general, they spend much of their lives not knowing they're clones. Katja and the European clones somehow found out and relayed that information to Beth, who in turn found and contacted Alison and Cosima. Sarah found out when she took over Beth's life. Helena always believed that she was the original when really she was Sarah's twin. Tony found out when Felix introduced him to Sarah. Averted by Rachel and Charlotte, who were told the truth as children. The clone who plays this straightest is Jennifer, who died without ever knowing she was a clone. Felix had a chance to let Krystal in, if only he and Sarah weren't forced to steal her identity for Rachel. Krystal ultimately ends up being brought in during the season four finale, although she initially disbelieves that she is a clone.
• Long-Lost Relative: To each other and the Castor clones, their biological brothers. 3x09 reveals their genes came from the female half of Kendall Malone, Mrs. S's mother, which makes Siobhan their niece, in a sense. Additionally, Castor's came from the male half of Kendall, who is a chimera, which means they're all technically twins.
• Multinational Team: A English (Sarah), Canadian (Alison, Beth, Krystal), American (Cosima), Ukranian (Helena), German (Katja), and Finnish (M.K.) team. If you include external allies, then there's Felix (English), Mrs. S (Irish), Art, Donnie, (both Canadian), Scott and Paul (both American).
• Nature vs. Nurture: They offer a fascinating case study for this, given that they all began their lives with the same "hardware". The main characters are a nerdy scientist, an uptight housewife, a burnout cop and a dropout wastrel. Interestingly for a show so open to homosexuality, it seems to take the position that it is not genetic, as sexualities, orientations, and gender identities vary across the clones. Among the ones we know, Cosima is a lesbian, Sarah seems to be bi, Tony is a queer trans man, and Camila Torres ( the clone Cosima and Delphine cure in the finale) briefly flirts with Delphine.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • The main trio are the warm and gentle Cosima, the impeccable and paranoid Allison, and the Hero with an F in Good Sarah. They later get their respective Character Development, though it barely shakes-up the dynamic.
  • The main additional trio are lovable Krystal, the aloof M.K. and the Cloudcuckoolander Woman Child Helena.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Sarah and Helena. The former is a British punk and Street Smart hustler, while the latter is a bleached-blonde Ukrainian assassin on a Mission from God. In Season 2, the show begins exploring the symbolism of the two being 'mirror twins' and shows them sleeping side-by-side in a tent in a literal display of Sibling Yin-Yang. In a broader sense, the Leda clones are this in general to the Castor clones in general.
• Posthumous Character: Along with the ones mentioned below, the Helsinki girls: clones that were killed on Topside's orders a few years before the start of the series.
• Properly Paranoid: Due to the vast number of conspiracies targeting them, members of Clone Club quickly become this if they weren’t already.
• Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits: The Clone Club have been a home to; an addict cop, a quirky scientist, an impeccable Soccer mom, a sort-of Reformed Criminal, an Ax-Crazy Tyke-Bomb, an elusive hacker, and a girl fashionista.
• Reformed Criminal:
  • Sarah is sort-of this. She's a notorious Con Artist who genuinely become a better person after meeting her sisters, but she will still resort to her dubious ways to save her and her people's skin if the situation calls for it.
  • Helena was an assassin who kills the Leda clones without hesitation. After learning what they are to her, however, she starts protecting them at all costs. Like Sarah, however, she'll still resort to her old ways to save her new family.
• Sanity Slippage: Nearly all of them, to varying degrees. Beth, Alison, and Helena seem to be the most affected.
• Sarcastic Confession: A Running Gag in the series involves the girls bluntly telling other people that they're clones, usually after mistaking them as twins or simply sisters.
• Sibling Team:
  • Sarah, Alison, and Cosima come to think of themselves as sisters.
  • Sarah and Helena become one in season 2.
• Sterility Plague: Alison asks early on if Kira is Sarah's biological daughter (Alison's children are adopted) and we later learn that Beth was infertile. Again referenced when Helena asks Kira how she could possibly be Sarah's daughter. Helena is visibly distraught by this. Tomas immediately declares that Kira shouldn't exist upon learning of her existence, and decides to hunt her down. Delphine deliberately hides Kira's existence from Dr. Leekie. Sarah and Helena's fertility is stated to be unintentional and is implied to have occurred because Amelia fled the project before Dyad could ensure that they were infertile.
• Three Plus Two:
  • Clone Club. Sarah, Alison and Cosima make the main trio while the late Beth and Katja round out the Five-Man Band. As of the end of season 2, Helena and Tony are the "plus two" as the only adult clones confirmed to be still alive. However, the premieres of seasons 3 and 4 introduce two new clones, Krystal Goderitch and M.K., respectively.
  • The five "main" clones can be considered this, with Sarah, Alison and Cosima as the main trio again, and Rachel and Helena later receiving their own plots.
• Time-Shifted Actor: Cynthia Galant plays a young Rachel in her home movies. She also plays Charlotte, the only successful attempt to recreate the cloning process. The penultimate episode also features a flashback to one of the clones' (specifically, Helena) early childhood.
• Town Girls:
  • The main trio has Femme Fatale Con Artist Sarah (butch), cultured Suburban Soccer mom Alison (femme) and scientist Cosima (neither).
  • The main additional trio are Tyke-Bomb Psychopathic Man Child Helena (butch), fashionable Valley Girl Krystal (femme) and elusive hacker M.K. (neither).
• Twin Switch: There are many instances of clones impersonating each other. Sarah has posed as Beth, Katja, Alison, and Cosima in person, and as Rachel over the phone and later in person; Alison has posed as Sarah; Helena has posed as Beth, Sarah, and Alison; and Rachel has gone as Sarah; Cosima has posed as Alison.
  • Invoked by Sarah in the second season premiere. To distract Daniel, Sarah leaks Alison's location as well as the make of Alison's minivan. When Daniel captures Alison thinking it is Sarah, he is forced to let her go when he realizes he has been had.

Sarah Manning

Sarah Manning

Something really weird just happened at the train station.

"The last thing I am is special. I'm the biggest mess there is."

The main protagonist, Sarah is a tough, clever survivor running from a lifetime of bad decisions. After witnessing the suicide of a woman who looks exactly like her, she decides to use it as an opportunity to escape her troubled life. But, as she quickly discovers, Beth Childs had troubles of her own.

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• Action Girl/Action Mom: She becomes this in season two, after taking a level in badass.
• Anti-Hero: Sarah's not above acting outside the law in order to keep her family, and Clone Club safe.
• The Atoner: She really regrets leaving Kira multiple times to pursue other things, usually conning or partying. Part of her determination to find Helena in season 3 is fueled by guilt for shooting her and thinking she was a monster.
• Attending Your Own Funeral: Well, watching it through binoculars, anyway.
• Audience Surrogate: As she finds out about the clone conspiracy, so does the audience.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Sarah's most important traits are her high observation and calculation skills.
• Becoming the Mask: Played With. The series begins with Sarah taking over Beth's life without knowledge that the latter was The Leader of Clone Club. Sarah then ultimately becomes their leader for the rest of the show's run, but does so using her own identity.
• Bed Trick:
  • Uses this on Paul to avert his suspicions. It's later revealed that this didn't actually work; he immediately suspected she wasn't Beth.
  • A variant of this in 3.01. In disguise as Rachel, she seduces Rachel's associate and lover Ferdinand. She doesn't sleep with him, however; she strangles him with her belt. The only reason he isn't killed is because Delphine intervenes. However, since he's planning on killing Sarah, Cosima, and Alison, it's a clear case of self-defense.
• Berserk Button: Don't threaten Kira, Felix, or any of her fellow clones. Just... don't.
• Big Sister Instinct: She does not react kindly when Alison points a gun at Felix. In season 3, she develops this in regards to Helena.
• Body Horror: In season 4 she learns that Dyad implanted some kind of creature in her cheek when she was in their custody.
• Book Dumb: While Sarah is undoubtedly intelligent and clever, she's not one for academics and never graduated high school. In the series finale she skips her high school re-entrance exam from fear of failing.
• Character Development:
  • Sarah starts out wanting nothing more than to steal enough money to take Kira and run away. Discovering the conspiracy forces her to take a look at the bigger picture. She even returns the money she stole from Beth's account to Alison.
  • In Season 3, she embarks on a quest to rescue Helena from the Castor clones, having finally developed a deep, solid love for her twin sister. Mark comments that's she doing a lot to save someone she once tried to kill.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Sarah has a fondness for tight pants, hoodies, leather, and the color black.
• Consummate Liar: Sarah can lie to practically anyone and make them believe her. It's a skill that comes in handy very frequently.
• Cool Big Sis: To Helena, despite being twins, due to Helena's child-like nature. The bond currently runs hot and cold, though, due to some heavy baggage, Sarah's often-selfish nature, and Helena being, well, Helena.
• Criminal Doppelgänger: While impersonating Beth.
• Deadpan Snarker: One of the snarkiest characters in the series.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Disguises as both Beth and Katja moments after their respective deaths.
• Death Faked for You: In order to take Beth's identity and fortune, she had Felix identify Beth's body as hers.
• Determinator: Good luck trying to stop her from doing what she has to do. Sarah is fiercely independent, never does things half-way and she's not too hesitant to go to extremes.
• Didn't Think This Through: It was clear from the start that her plan to impersonate Beth had some pretty big holes in it.
• Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: She starts a relationship with Paul after replacing his deceased girlfriend.
• The Drifter: Was this before the start of the series.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After Kendall's murder she goes on a huge alcohol and coke bender. It's implied that this is because she feels responsible for it.
• Due to the Dead:
  • Averted. She doesn't have much respect for Beth and Katja's bodies. In fact, she robs them.
  • Played straight in the Season 3 finale, as she leads a toast to Beth.
• Faking the Dead: She switches places with Beth to fool Vic into thinking she's dead.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: She's not as reliable and grounded as Felix, doesn't have a steady income or her own place, and lives from scheme to scheme while dodging the cops.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Played with. While Sarah has done bad things and made bad choices, she is a fundamentally good person who had an abortion (or more than one) at some point in her life. Also downplayed in the final episode, which has flashbacks to her and S discussing whether she should have an abortion while pregnant with Kira. On a DVD interview, John Fawcett said that they were very determined that the scene not come across as pro-life, despite her deciding to keep Kira.
• Guile Hero: As to be expected from a former hustler.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: When she's not in disguise, Sarah likes to wear black leather clothing.
• Hustler/Loveable Rogue: She's a primarily a con artist, but not opposed to robbery, identity theft, or drug dealing. Deconstructed in that it soured her relationship with Mrs. S, who thinks Sarah is unfit to raise Kira. Over the course of the series, she expresses a desire to lead a more honest life for her daughter's sake, though she's having trouble doing that.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Most of her problems arise from her desire to live on her own terms. The fact that there are two conspiracies aimed at either controlling or killing her makes this difficult.
• The Immune: When Coady injects her with the Castor pathogen, Sarah becomes ill but doesn't show the regular symptoms. By the end of the episode, she recovers.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Having never fired a gun before, Sarah is horrified to learn that, as Beth, she must pass a police handgun qualification. Luckily, after a few hours of target practice with Alison, she becomes a crack shot.
• Interrupted Suicide: Seems to be moving towards suicide in 4x07 due to her guilt about Kendall's death, but Felix stops her before she can jump. The parallels between her and Beth are explicitly brought up, and Sarah even hallucinates Beth, who ultimately tells Sarah that her sisters need her.
• Jerkass: Sarah can be rude, selfish, and harsh. Upon seeing Beth kill herself, her first instinct is to take her stuff and impersonate her for monetary gain.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: However mean she is, Sarah genuinely loves her daughter and foster-brother, and is becoming more and more fond of the other clones.
• The Lad-ette: A tomboyish Hell-Bent for Leather Hustler, with some past substance abuse issues and little to no qualms when it comes to emotionless casual sex.
• The Leader: She is the Clone Club's charismatic and headstrong leader.
• Mama Bear: Nearly everything she does, she does so she can live a happy life with Kira. This is especially prominent after Kira disappears in the season one finale. She later develops this attitude toward her fellow clones, such as when she admonishes Cosima to be careful and rips into Alison's husband for taking her for granted and talking down to her.

• Master of Disguise: Of all the Leda clones, Sarah is the most effective at doing the Twin Switch.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Shares a name with the Biblical Sarah, who also bore a very special child when it should have been impossible.
  • Also, her last name means "brave" or "valiant", which Sarah certainly is.

• Ms. Fanservice: More so than any of the other clones except Krystal, interestingly. A lot of it comes from her sex scenes with Paul and many clothes-changing scenes that usually show her with Shoulders-Up Nudity or Toplessness from the Back. Then there's her fondness for tight leather.
• My Greatest Failure: She cries when explaining to Helena why she was gone for 10 months just prior to the first episode, saying she felt trapped by her responsibilities but now wishes she hadn't missed a moment of her daughter's childhood. From the beginning, Sarah has been desperately trying to build up a nice life for Kira and be a better mother to her.
• Parental Abandonment: Guilty of it. She left Kira in Mrs. S's care and left town for ten months. In season 2, she leaves Kira with Cal so she can continue her fight with her daughter in relative safety. Kira, understandably, seems to grow a bit resentful at once again being loved from a distance.
• A Protagonist Shall Lead Them: The main character and the unofficial leader of Clone Club.
• Queer Establishing Moment: After never being implied to be anything but straight for a long time, during her depressed booze, drugs and sex binge after Kendall's murder she has a three-way with a mixed-gender couple and is seen interacting sexually with the woman, revealing that she's bisexual.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Sarah begins the series as a a self-serving woman who only cares about her daughter and will dupe everyone else to eventually learning to care about others without dropping said criminal resiliency except this time only using it against far less sympathetic people.
• Rookie Red Ranger: Although Alison and Cosima were in the know before her, Sarah unofficially leads Clone Club.
• Selective Squeamishness Suppression: Inverted. Even though Sarah is a hustler with few issues regarding dirt and grime, she is consistently the clone most horrified by blood and gore, always turning her face away.
• Sex for Solace: After Kendall's death, she engages in this.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Not as bad as other examples, but most of the swear words on this show come out of Sarah's mouth.
• Slipping a Mickey: Sarah tricks Vivi into eating a THC-laced chocolate truffle while Vivi is impersonating Cosima after seeing through her disguise.
• Spanner in the Works: Her existence and entering the game ends up helping to send several of the factions (Castor, Proletheans) crashing into ruin, and ends up being a major role in the downfall of Evie Cho and hindering the Neolutionist agenda.
• Street Smart: Due to her background as a hustler, she has a lot of understanding of the criminal underworld.
• Took a Level in Badass: Alison teaches her how to shoot a gun for her role as a cop. She takes another level in Season 2 when she goes against the Neolutionists and Proletheans to protect Kira. And another in the Season 3 finale when she effortlessly gets Ferdinand and Coady to agree to her terms, and even anticipates an attempt on Alison's life. Of course, having the Castor and Leda original by her side helps.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Starts to confront her past and learns to think less about herself and more about others.
• The Trickster: Sarah is an outsider who is unattached to the various institutions that the show features (science, religion, law, social norms, etc.), disrupts the aforementioned institutions, and lives life only on her own terms.
  Cosima: You're the wild type, Sarah. You propagate against all odds. You're restless. You survive.
• Unkempt Beauty: Usually played straight; subverted when she's impersonating someone.
• Verbal Tic: Ends a lot of sentences with "yeah?"
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Desperately wants to prove to Mrs. S that she can be good mum to Kira.
• Wild Card: Her existence was unknown to any of the factions involved; as such she unintentionally helps to change the game massively.

Beth Childs

Detective Elizabeth "Beth" Childs

We do terrible things for the people we love.

"Can you look at me? Look at me. Can you see me? Can you knit me together? Or just tear me apart?"

Beth was a cop who killed herself under mysterious circumstances. She was involved in a clone conspiracy, finding and protecting her fellow clones.

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• Accidental Murder: Killed Maggie Chen when on duty. Subverted. Episode four reveals that it was intentional; Chen had threatened to expose the clones and more. And then Double Subverted, possibly: the flashback in the season 4 première definitely makes it look like an accident.
• All Love Is Unrequited: She was deeply in love with Paul and it broke her heart to learn that he only stayed in the relationship to spy on her. Ironically he later did fall for her clone Sarah as he hadn't for Beth. It's later revealed that Art was in love with her, but didn't tell her how he felt. This is later Played With when the season 4 première reveals she hooked up with him before her death. Raj is also confirmed to have had a crush on Beth.
• Barefoot Suicide: She takes her shoes off before she jumps in front of the train.
• Blackmail: The reason she was Driven to Suicide: she was given a threat that if she did not do so, her sisters and Alison's family would be killed.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Contrary to what she expected, Sarah finds that Beth's life was far from a bed of roses.
• Dead All Along: In-universe. The audience knows she's dead, but no-one outside Clone Club knew until the end of season 1.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Beth shows how stressful and mentally taxing it is for being the Friend on the Force that everyone relies for help. Being one has also made her the primary target of all the anti-Leda groups, which further contributed to her Sanity Slippage.
• Dies Wide Open: Her corpse shows that her eyes aren't shut when she died.
• Driven to Suicide: Her only scene until Season 4, the very first scene of the series, is of her jumping into the path of a moving train. It's eventually revealed that she was blackmailed into it by Evie Cho after learning too much about her plans; Evie threatened to have Cosima, Alison and Alison's family killed otherwise.
• Et Tu, Brute?: When she learned of Paul's deception.
• Every Scar Has a Story: She has one at the back of her neck due to a biking accident. Paul seeing Sarah not having it is what initially clues him on that she's not really "Beth".
• Fair Cop: Was considered very pretty.
• Functional Addict: Beth was apparently taking more pills than she should have but no one seemed to notice much. By the time of the shooting of Maggie Chen, however, she seems to have devolved to Addled Addict.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Introduced wearing a purple dress.
• Heroic BSoD: Very obviously suffered one after the shooting of Maggie Chen.
• Heroic Suicide: It's revealed that she killed herself after being blackmailed due to her knowledge of the Neolution conspiracies. She did it to protect the other clones.
• Ironic Name: Ms. Childs is infertile.
• The Leader: She was the Clone Club's original leader, who excelled in being a mastermind and charismatic one. She tried being the levelheaded type, but Sanity Slippage couldn't make it work.
• Only Friend: She was the only person M.K. could really trust or talk to. And M.K. continued to look after Clone Club in Beth's memory.
• Passionate Sports Girl: According to some home movies, she competed in marathons. According to Paul, Beth was also a mountain biker. Paul realizes that Sarah is a fake because she didn't know the last marathon Beth competed in.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Her death enables Sarah to take over her life.
• Posthumous Character: The show opened with her death. We find out much more about her in the opening episode of season 4, the overwhelming majority of which is a flashback featuring her as the main character.
• Rousing Speech: She appears in a fever hallucination to get Sarah out of a Heroic BSoD: "We do terrible things for the people we love. Stop asking why, and start asking who."
• Scars Are Forever: She has a scar on the back of her neck from a mountain biking accident. Paul becomes suspicious when he sees that "Beth" doesn't have a scar.
• She Knows Too Much: The reason she was blackmailed into committing suicide turns out to be that she was a bit too good at her job for her own safety.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Only appears in a single scene until the fourth season, but that was all it took to change everyone's lives.
• The Stoic: According to Alison she was "all business". Paul also states that she was emotionally distant, and Olivier describes her as a "cold fish."
• Take Up My Sword: Her death leaves the Clone Club without a leader. Fortunately, Sarah (who fittingly is the last person Beth sees before she dies) steals her identity and we all know what happens from there...
• The Team Benefactor: She had a bank account to hold money for getting illegal information that might help her and the other clones. This turns out to actually be Alison's money.

Alison Hendrix

Alison Hendrix

Don't worry. Everything is under control.

"Why Lord? Why me? I never wanted any part of this. Do I wear a huge "kick me" sign on my back?"'

An uptight soccer mom, Alison was one of Beth's initial confidantes who helped conceal the conspiracy. Alison prefers her cozy, "normal" life to dealing with clone business, but she'll willing to go to great lengths to protect the others.

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• Action Mom: The most badass of the clones (with the possible exception of Helena), at least until Sarah upped her game. Note that she was the one who taught Sarah how to shoot in the first place.
• The Alcoholic: Rapidly descends into this as the series progresses. As of 2x04, she's in rehab.
• Berserk Button: Don't use the c-word (not that one) and don't bring the conspiracies anywhere near her family.
• Butt-Monkey: She's starting to seem like fly paper for monitors. Except for Clone Club and Aynsley, anyone else expressing an interest in her always ends up having an ulterior motive. Donnie is spying on her for Leekie as her monitor, and as of 2x06, Vic is watching her on Angie's behalf.
• Cat Fight: With her suspected monitor in S01E09. Sarah's impressed.
• Character Tics: She touches her face quite often.
• The Chew Toy: Her misfortunes are often Played for Laughs.
• Clone Angst: Resents being a clone and is afraid that her kids might find out that she's a "freak."
• Cluster F-Bomb: Non-pay-cable version, as Alison bawls her eyes out to Sarah and Mrs. S. how she "effed up" her life.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Gives her own husband some nasty burns using a glue gun.
• Control Freak: She prefers to get her own way. This is very likely a rather large part of her motivation for running for the school board.
• Cute and Psycho: Alison is on the "high intensity, lower than most stability" side of things. While not Helena levels, she immediately pulls a knife on Sarah, pulls a gun on Felix, tortures her husband (and kind of enjoys it), and punches out Aynsley (and kind of enjoys that too). And then there's that time when she coolly watches Aynsley die.
• Doom Magnet: So far a lot of people have been killed, mostly indirectly through her actions. This seems to occur Once a Season.
  • Season 1: Watching Aynsley choke herself to death in Season 1.
  • Season 2: Donnie using her gun and accidently shooting Dr. Leekie in the head (in which she takes part in the coverup).
  • Season 3: Her drug business leading to the deaths of Pouchy and his gang at the hands of Helena.
  • Season 4: While trying to insert the Neolution Bot into Alison, Frank is shot by Helena with an arrow, covering Alison in blood.
• The Everyman: Downplayed, as being able to use a gun and dealing drugs doesn't exactly make Alison average. This is lampashed in 5x03 where she's told by one of Rachel's lackey's that unlike Cosima who's a scientist or Sarah and Helena who are fertile, she doesn't have much value.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Half-way through season 5 she gets out of town to "find herself" and comes back with her hair cut short and dyed black and purple.
• Friend in the Black Market: Where she gets her "little helpers" and unregistered firearms. In season 3 she buys his inventory and becomes the new neighborhood drug dealer.
• Go-Getter Girl: Alison does a lot of community activities like coaching her kids' soccer team and making costumes for the local theater.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: All the time, with hilarious results.
  • Averted in S01E09: confronted with an intervention, her first reaction is an indignant "This is bullshit!" Also qualifies as an O.O.C. Is Serious Business moment.
• The Gunslinger: Her first instinct is always to pick up a gun whenever there's danger.
• Happily Married: Averted. The clone conspiracy plus her general uptightness cause a lot of problems for her marriage with Donnie. She even contemplates divorcing her husband rather than telling him the truth.
  • As of 2x09, their marriage seems to be taking a turn for the better, although in a very strange way due to them bonding over hiding Leekie's corpse and finally dealing with Vic and Angie.
• Hero of Another Story: Season 3 has her in her own Story Arc almost completely independent from the main arc.
• Hidden Depths: Mentions to Mr. Frontenac that she studied kinesiology at university.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: She slept with Chad, her best friend's husband, to mess with Aynsley's life. While that did work, it made Alison a social outcast and led her loved ones to stage an intervention.
• Honorary Aunt: She becomes this to Kira, to explain why she was impersonating Sarah. She's also the very first of Sarah's sisters that Kira meets.

• Jerkass: She can be quite spiteful and petty. She was also very hard on Sarah the first few times they met.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is a good, well-meaning person deep down. She just doesn't always know how to show it. She does become fonder of Sarah and more willing to stick her neck out for others.
• Karma Houdini: As of the finale of Season 3, she has not been made to answer for the deaths that have occurred courtesy of her Doom Magnet. In fact, she not only wins the election for School trustee, she did so by providing "little helpers" to her "constituents". However, this seems to have been subverted as of 4x07, when Donnie is arrested and she is threatened by Neolution.
• The Lancer: Sarah's primary Foil and the de-facto Number Two of the Clone Club. Her family is also the most focused after Sarah's.
• Large Ham: She chews the scenery when she wants to, which probably has to do with her being a thespian.
• Leeroy Jenkins: She really can't control her impulses sometimes.
• Leitmotif: Her appearances are usually accompanied by tinny xylophone-driven melodies, somewhat whimsical yet subtly sinister as well.
• The Maiden Name Debate: "Hendrix" is her birth surname as it was written on her birth certificate. Her husband Donnie took her surname due to her mother's insistence and utter disdain for his surname "Chubbs."
• Mama Bear: Her children are her top priority. Do not mess with them.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Even before learning that her true monitor was her husband, she's been feeling guilty for letting Aynsley die. After her suspicions are confirmed, she realizes she let her die for no good reason at all - if being a monitor would even be a reason for murder in the first place. As of Season 3, any guilt for this is pretty much gone, but it comes back around again in Season 5 when we see a bit more of her friendship wih Aynsley and meet her family again.
• Neat Freak: She cleans Felix's house while he's away, much to his dismay.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: She starts out as a spiteful, petty Stepford Snarker housewife who would rather coach her kids' soccer games than deal with the clone conspiracy. Over time she grows out of this, to the point that she even starts calling out her neighbors for similar behavior. In Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, she accuses "her sister" (Vivi Valdez, who she's never met before) of stealing her ID in a "high-pitched squawk that propelled service people like arrows" get airport security to chase Vivi instead of paying attention to her and Charlotte trying to get away from a security checkpoint.
• Odd Friendship: Develops one with Felix over the course of season 1.

• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-Universe. Recruited to impersonate Sarah, her first attempts at an English accent veer into "Crocodile" Dundee territory.
• Pink Means Feminine: Pink is her most common attire.
• Running Gag: With an extremely heavy dose of Black Comedy. At this point, it's relatively safe to assume that anyone involved in Alison's life outside of the Clone Club will end up very much dead or worse, given the current body count (Just ask... whatever's left of Leekie's corpse). The black comedy part is in that the deaths are either extremely random, or extremely stupid - a good chunk are both.
• Phrase Catcher: Due to her attitude towards the other clones, conversations usually end with the other party muttering, "Bitch!"
• Properly Paranoid: Her husband actually is the monitor, like she initially believed. Of course, she then begins to suspect that virtually anyone remotely suspicious is monitoring her.
• Second Episode Introduction: First appeared in the second episode of the series.
• Stepford Smiler: Almost from the beginning you can tell that under the veneer of her seemingly perfect life she's coming apart at the seams.
• Stepford Snarker: She often acts condescending towards others.
• The Team Benefactor: She provided the money that Beth was holding.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Eventually warms up to Sarah, and develops an Odd Friendship with Felix.

Cosima Niehaus

Cosima Niehaus

Wow. Wow, welcome to the trip, man.

"Well, science is what scientists do, Sarah. You know, nobody's got any idea. We're just, poking at things with sticks."

Cosima is a university student who does most of the scientific research for Beth, Alison, and later Sarah. She also helps Sarah adjust to the fact that she's a clone.

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• Bifauxnen: Turns up to Westmoreland's dinner party in Season Five wearing Victorian male evening dress, to troll his Victorian values.
• Blind Without 'Em: Can't see without her glasses, which makes impersonating other clones difficult for her.
• Brainy Brunette: She's a brunette scientist.
• Brutal Honesty: Despite being a nice, friendly person the vast majority of the time, she doesn't mince words with people she distrusts or when she feels hurt and betrayed by them.

• Consistent Clothing Style: Cosima typically has patterns on her clothing.
• Deadpan Snarker
  "You just broke the first rule of Clone Club."
• Delicate and Sickly: Becomes this when her autoimmune disorder worsens drastically.
• Dreadlock Rasta: She's very different from the other clones in terms of temperament, more laid back, more optimistic, hence why she looks very different from them.
• Erudite Stoner: She's shown smoking pot a few times. She doesn't have the slurred speech, but she does wear dreadlocks and hippy-ish clothing. That, and her gems of wisdom are standard rather than special.
• Gamer Chick: In episode 2.8, she walks in on Scott and his buddies playing a fantasy tabletop game in her lab. She appears completely disinterested at first, but then firmly corrects them on a rules argument she overhears. They invite her to join in, and true to the trope, she crushes them handily. The guys seem to go from love-struck to frustrated as she takes over.
• Happily Married: In Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, Cosima and Delphine have been married for seven years.
• Homosexual Reproduction: In Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, Delphine proposes using DNA from one of her eggs and one of Cosima's to create a child. Cosima is hesistant, being a human clone who was secretly experimented on for much of her adult life.
• Incurable Cough of Death: She starts coughing up blood like Katja in the Season 1 finale, and her search for a cure is a major arc in Season 2. She finally discovers and receives the cure in the Season 4 finale.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Word of God initially said she was bisexual; however, in Seasons Three and Four she self-identifies as a lesbian.
  Rachel: You're gay?
  Cosima: My sexuality is not the most interesting thing about me.
• Love Makes You Dumb: She romantically pursues someone she knows might be spying on her, compromising her safety and the safety of the others clones, then is hurt to learn that Delphine was in fact spying on her.
• Meaningful Name: Her name derives from the Greek word kosmos, meaning "order" or "universe". Cosima is also the feminine version of Cosmo, who is one of the patron saints of medical doctors^note The other one is his brother Damian. Quite fitting for a scientist trying to understand her biology and developing a treatment for her own illness.
• Mistaken Identity: She's arrested by the RCMP after being mistaken for Vivi during the events of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter.
• The Mole: To Dyad, for the Clone Club.
• Ms. Exposition: To a certain extent, she explains most of the scientific jargon for the rest of Clone Club (and the audience).
• Nerds Are Sexy: She's nerdy, and she's certainly quite easy on the eyes.
• Neutral Female: She's one of the only two non-combat proficient Leda clones, the other being Charlotte.
• Nice Girl: More welcoming and upbeat than her counterparts.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: She's completing her PhD in Experimental Evolutionary Developmental Biology, and still she has demonstrated advanced knowledge in Forensics Science and Medicine while performing Jennifer's autopsy, Engineering and Physics when she built a device for Sarah to throw a pencil into Rachel's eye, Maths, and Neurology when studying the CASTOR disease.
• Only Sane Woman: Subverted. At first, she was easily the most level-headed and well-adjusted of the clones, but even she started showing signs of unraveling. While pursuing her monitor she acts quite rashly, but insists to Sarah that she knows what she's doing. Cosima doesn't like to admit her mistakes.
• Red Is Heroic: Red is her primary Color Motif and is one of the good guys.
• Science Hero: Her research is extremely important to the plot, especially when she and Delphine have to find a treatment for the genetic disease that's slowly killing the clones.
• Second Episode Introduction: First appeared in the second episode of the series.
• The Smart Guy: Easily the most book smart member of Clone Club.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In S01E08, she started being more abrasive, in contrast to Sarah and Alison, who've done the opposite. Thankfully, she gets better later.
• Tuckerization: Cosima Niehaus is based on and named for the show's scientific adviser and friend to the creator, Cosima Herter.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Since she's away at university for a good portion of Season 1, Cosima and Clone Club stay in touch via cell phone and video chat. As of the Season 1 finale, she's moved to the same city as the others. Resumed early in Season 2, when she moved into her new lab at Dyad to research/treat her illness.

Katja Obinger

Katja Obinger

You are police, Beth. We need you.

"Beth. Why don't you respond to me?"

Not much is known about her except that she's German and had a briefcase containing information about the clones. She was murdered in her first appearance.

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• Body Horror: Her corpse gets badly destroyed after Sarah buries it in an active rock quarry.
• Boom, Headshot!: She was shot in the head while meeting Sarah, whom she initially thought was Beth.
• Fiery Redhead: Comes across as this, given her strong reaction to "Beth's" odd behavior. Her hair is clearly dyed though.
• From Bad to Worse: Poor woman went from being shot to the head to having her corpse badly destroyed to pieces.
• High-Pressure Blood: A whole lot of blood burst from her body when she was shot, possibly from the force of the killer's high-powered rifle.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Subverted. She had an unspecified respiratory problem at the time of her death, but it's not the cough that kills her.
• Non-Idle Rich: Never outright stated, but she wears expensive clothes, drives a great car, and stayed at a luxury hotel suite. When Sarah uses Katja's credit card to cover damages to the hotel room, the card accepts thousands of dollars in charges without issue. She was an active participant in the clone conspiracy; making contact with the other clones, digging up useful information, and collecting tissue samples for scientific research.
• Not The Illness That Killed Them: She is introduced coughing up blood, foreshadowing the clones' terminal illness. Just a few minutes after her introduction, she's fatally shot by a rifle to establish that Sarah has stumbled into a life-or-death situation.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: "You are not Beth."
• Power Hair: Her hairstyle.
• Pretty in Mink: She wears a light brown fur jacket.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Her death established the existence of a clone murdering conspiracy.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Similar to Beth in this regard, as she essentially thrusts Sarah further into the clone conspiracy. She also foreshadows the respiratory illness that some of the clones end up developing.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: She's suddenly shot in the head.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Murdered in her first appearance.
• White Shirt of Death: Dies while wearing her white coat.

Helena

Helena

You are me, I'm you, we're both the victim and the cop.

"She was just one of a few, unfit for family. Horse glue."

Helena is another clone whose presence deepens the mystery. She's a religious fanatic with apparent mental issues and a strange fascination with Sarah.

Eventually it's revealed that Sarah and Helena are (the only known) identical twins among the clones, as their embryo split in two in the womb.

---

• '80s Hair: Her hair borders on Hair Metal.
• Abusive Parents: While profiling her, Angie suggests that she was likely abused as a child. Helena says she was raised by Ukrainian nuns, which at least explains her religiosity, and several statements she made in season two confirm she suffered abuse at their hands dating back to at least the age of seven. Tomas qualifies as an abusive surrogate parent.
• Accidental Pervert: When she was young, she caught a nun doing "a private session". The nun got furious and dunked her head in bleach, resulting in Helena's hair being what it is now.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Fish; see the fridge page for more.
  • She makes various animal noises, usually as part of a Stealth Insult towards someone.
  • See also Imaginary Friend below.
• Anti-Villain: A mix of type II and type III. She honestly believes murdering the other clones is the right thing because the Proletheans indoctrinated her (via brainwashing and abuse) into thinking that way. Really, by season two, she's undergone a Heel–Face Turn and has become an Anti-Hero of the Unscrupulous Hero variety.
• Ax-Crazy: She's very violent and off her rocker, as established in her first appearance.
• Badass Adorable: Subverted. She's normally cute due to her childlike sweetness, but in a fight, the cuteness disappears and she becomes genuinely scary.
• Badass Biker: She briefly rides a motorcycle, but soon abandoned it because the police would recognize it.
• Badass in Distress: At the beginning of Season 3, she's kidnapped and shipped god-knows-where in a tiny wooden crate. She eventually gets herself out of it, though.
• Bad "Bad Acting": She is the worst at doing the Twin Switch, mainly because she barely put efforts on mimicking her sisters' accents, analyzing their fashion sense, or/and dyeing and styling her hair to correspond with them. The only time she put an effort at disguising is when she posed as Sarah to lure her birth mother so she could kill her for abandoning her.
• Berserk Button:
  • Threatening Kira, and later Sarah, is a surefire way to piss her off.
  • Threatening any children, really. 2.09 makes this abundantly clear.
  • The logical extension of these, threatening any of the clones' children, adopted or otherwise, plays out in 3.09. Never threaten any of her babies.
• BFG: The silenced, military-grade sniper rifle she almost shoots Rachel with in 2.05 (until Sarah talks her out of it). Implied to be the same gun used to take out Katja in 1.01.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Kills Daniel just as he's about to continue torturing and possibly kill Sarah.
  • And again in 2.09 when she proves not to have been as unconscious as Henrik thought, and enables Gracie and Mark to escape.
  • And a third time in 4.09 with a well-placed arrow to the head of a Neolution agent saving Alison from one of Neolution's creepy worm creatures, which very likely would have killed her since it was noted to be an unreliable prototype.
• Big Eater
  • Crazy Consumption: She eats a lot more than any character on the show and is the most unstable. Helena also has childlike table manners, a reference to her unusual mental state.
  • Delicious Distraction: Helena infiltrates the police station disguised as Beth (technically, disguised as Sarah impersonating Beth). Her plan to ransack Beth's desk for clues is momentarily derailed when she spots a half-eaten muffin, and proceeds to wolf it down. Word of God suggests this actually may have been a Throw It In! on Maslany's part.
  • Sweet Tooth: She really likes sweets, and even puts extra sugar on her jello (and her steaks). She also carries sugar packets and lollipops in her pockets.
• The Big Guy: Easily the most combat proficient member of Clone Club, being a Tyke-Bomb and all.
• Bizarre Human Biology: Helena has situs inversus totalis, a Real Life condition occurring in some identical twins where her internal organs are mirrored from normal.
• Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: In season 2, she's married to Henrik without her consent and gets placed in a white wedding dress. Later, she kills Daniel in that same wedding dress and gets covered in his blood in the process.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Or "lied to about everything and severely abused and crazy", anyway.
• Breakout Character: The most popular character in the series and arguably its Series Mascot along with Sarah.
• The Bus Came Back: Reappears in 4.09 after being absent for several episodes
• Calling Card: She has all of three: the Creepy Doll heads, which she alters to resemble the clone she is going to kill, the stick figure girls she paints on walls and the paper fortune tellers.
• Character Development:
  • She's on the path to unlearning all her cult programming. She's no longer as easy to manipulate, begins making major decisions on her own, and knows with certainty that she belongs with her sisters, not the Proletheans.
  • In season 1, she's killing clones because she was told they were abominations whose lives had no value. Later on, not only does she give up that line of thinking, but she dreams of Cosima being cured of her illness and living a healthy, happy life.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: She's a crazy killer, but when off the job she's very clueless.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Uses the same humongous artificial insemination needle that was used on her on Henrik. Try not to think about where it went.
• Cold Ham: She speaks in a very theatrically subdued manner.
• Cold Sniper: Kills Katja with a high-powered rifle.
• Contortionist: How Helena escapes the Castor HQ: She greases her body with little pats of butter she's been hoarding, then climbs up and squeezes through the incredibly small window of her cell door.
• Commonality Connection: With Gracie. While they both are hostile towards each other when they first meet, once Gracie realizes how similar she and Helena are (both of them raised by Proletheans in an abusive environment, both of them forced to go through Medical Rape and Impregnate scenarios), Helena and Gracie become more friendly towards each other. When talking to Art in 2x09, Helena ever refers to Gracie as "a very good girl" and they have a very sweet reunion when they meet again in 3.08. In season 5, she even refers to Gracie as family.
• Companion Cube: Her "babies," fertilized embryos stored in a liquid nitrogen canister. By early season 4 the embryos have lost viability because Helena didn't know she had to refill the liquid nitrogen in the container. She buries the container in one of Alison's flowerbeds.
• Covered with Scars: She has several self-inflicted wounds on her back that is shaped like wings.
• Criminal Doppelgänger: To virtually all the other clones.
• Cute and Psycho: Her childlike sweetness masks a violent murderer.
• Dark Action Girl: Raised by the people who hate the clones, and sent to kill them. She eventually gets put on the path to redemption.
• Deadpan Snarker: Unbelievably, even she has her moments. Usually accompanied by her imitating animal sounds.
• Determinator: Helena is a survivor and has been since childhood, no matter what crap life throws at her she doesn't give up and continues to survive.
• Dissonant Serenity: She's almost always calm, even when she's preparing to kill someone.
• Duct Tape for Everything:
  • How Helena patches herself up enough to walk to the emergency room.
  • In the season 3 finale, she uses a roll of the stuff to attach a knife and a screwdriver to her hands, so she can't drop them in her fight with Rudy. Then she kicks the roll up into Rudy's face
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Helena finally gets a happy ending at the end of the series. She has two healthy twin boys and is living in her own little home in Allison and Donnie's yard. She's now safe, happy, and surrounded by family who love her. After all the abuse and torment she's been through during her entire life, she's earned a happy ending.
• Easily Forgiven: In Season Two and later, nobody ever brings up that she killed Amelia, her and Sarah's birth mother. This is probably because the writers originally intended that she would genuinely die at the end of S1 and possibly wouldn't have written that if they hadn't.
• Evil Twin: Evil clone, anyhow. By the time she's revealed as Sarah's twin, her character alignment has shifted from black to gray. Then shifts blacker in the finale, when she kills Amelia. She goes back to grey as the series goes on.

• Extreme Omnivore: If it is in any way edible, it's likely Helena has eaten it. She's particularly fond of sugar on everything, including cheeseburgers.
• Eye Scream: Gouging out her victim's eyes with her thumbs appears to be her Signature Move.
• Fan Disservice: She has a Toplessness from the Back scene that ends up being complete Nightmare Fuel due to Good Scars, Evil Scars.
• Friend to All Children: As seen with Kira, the kids at the Prolethean ranch, and Gemma and Oscar. If she finds out that you have hurt a child in any way, or even if you merely threaten to do so, she will make you pay.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: She has many scars on her back, and it's heavily implied that she caused them herself (see Self-Harm below).
• Great White Hunter: In season four, it's revealed that this is what she's been up to during her bus trip. She puts those skills to good use in a highly satisfying Big Damn Heroes moment in 4.09.
• The Gunslinger: Her other weapon.
• Healing Factor: Able to survive things that would probably kill people who weren't genetically engineered, such as being run through with a giant pole and being shot at point-blank range.
• Heel–Face Turn: After being held by the Proletheans and finally reuniting with Sarah.
• Hereditary Twinhood: Helena and Sarah are revealed to be identical twins in a group of identical clones — their embryo split into two. Helena then carries twin boys of her own later in the show.
• Hidden Depths: As shown by her plot to escape the Castor home-base, Helena is more clever and inventive than she lets on.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Looks like there wasn't much time for vocal training back at the convent.
• Hulk Speak: Due to her upbringing, she was raised on the methods of advanced combat and survival greatly, but poorly on basic social skills which includes speech.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: She hunts the other clones thinking that she is the original and they are unholy abominations.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: She wants to be Sarah's, whom she believes can be "saved" because they have "a connection".
• Imaginary Friend: In Season 3, she has one in the the form of a scorpion that only she sees. She calls it Pupok. (Tatiana Maslany voices Pupok as well, including all the sound effects).
• Improbable Weapon User: Helena will use anything she needs to as a weapon, this can range from knives to hospital equipment to huge needles.
• In-Series Nickname: 'Meathead,' which shifts from an Insult of Endearment to an Affectionate Nickname as Helena bonds with her sestra while undergoing her Heel–Face Turn.
• I Should Write a Book About This: In the finale, she writes a memoir which has the same title as the show.
• Karma Houdini: She does kill a lot of people and suffers no real consequence for it. That said, she does come to regret her actions and feel remorse.
• Knight Templar: She's a religious fanatic who believes it's her purpose to kill all the clones.
• Left-Handed Mirror: To her twin sister, Sarah.
• Leitmotif: A very distinctive Scare Chord, something like a shrill metal-scratching sound. It usually plays when she is going to do something violent.
• Made of Iron: Survives, among other incidents, being impaled by rebar; and much later, a gunshot wound to the chest. It's revealed that Helena is able to survive her gunshot wound because she has dextrocardia situs inversus — her organs are mirror-reversed in her torso. The shot missed her heart because it's on the other side of her chest.
• Madness Mantra: Certain phrases associated with Sarah seem to stick in Helena's brain, the first being "I'm not Beth" from their first confrontation and the second being "I miss you, Mommy" from Kira's letters.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Helena means "shining light" and she was told by Tomas that she was "the light". Helena also becomes fascinated by the "light" in Sarah.
  • She is one of the children produced by Project LEDA. In Classical Mythology, one of Leda's children was Helen of Troy.
• Meat Grinder Surgery: Performed on herself after Sarah rams a length of rebar into her side.
• Medical Rape and Impregnate: It's initially implied that she's artificially inseminated by Hank's people without her consent. However, in 2.05 Gracie is threatened with forcible impregnation with Helena's child, so it appears that her eggs have also been extracted from her without her consent. Since the people threatening Gracie are her own parents, this probably makes it worse.
• Mission from God: Killing all the clones because they're an "abomination". She was led to believe that she's the original and therefore has the duty to cleanse them from the Earth. She drops this belief after season 1..
• My God, What Have I Done?: We find out in a season 5 flashback that this was her reaction to the first clone she killed. While at the time she was convinced she did the right thing, later when the fact she killed several of her sisters is brought up, she feels a lot of remorse about what she did.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Her affinity for drawing bloody stick figures and mutilating dolls to resemble her kills, among other things, certainly qualifies her as this.
• Not Quite Dead: The ending of "Nature Under Constraint and Vexed" revealed that she survived getting shot by Sarah.
• Odd Friendship:
  • With Donnie in the latter episodes of Season 3.
  • Really, her friendships with anyone (Sarah, Felix, Kira, Gracie...) have a tendency to be a bit odd. Helena is an odd person.
• Only One Name: Her last name is never known, assuming she has one.
• The Ophelia: Her mental stability is not the best. The long history of abuse she's suffered very likekly hasn't helped.
• Out of Focus: Disappears partway through season four, and isn't seen again until the ninth episode of the season.
• Pet the Dog:
  • She obviously cares about Kira, even though their walk together doesn't end well.
  • Even at the very beginning, Helena has always had a soft spot for children. She is VERY protective over them, god help you if you harm or threaten to harm one in front of her.
• Pregnant Badass: Gets impregnated in late season 2, but so far that hasn't slowed her down one bit. If anything, it just gives her more motivation. Not even being in labor slows her down! She manages to kill Dr. Coady while suffering from contractions and blood loss.
• Psycho Party Member: The most unhinged member of Clone Club.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Type B. Unlike many examples, she knows how dangerous she is, but has some of the same mannerisms of a child. She also leaves clues that lead the police profiler to conclude that she had a bad childhood: mutilated dolls, bloodied paper fortune-tellers, stick figure sketches. She also plays on the bed when she breaks in Beth and Paul's apartment, eats jello with extra sugar, and wants to see Olivier's tail. None of this diminishes how dangerous she is and how far she's willing to go "cleanse" the world of the other clones.
• Quirky Curls: A darker example. She has a mass of blonde curls, but is totally insane.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: From a merciless Tyke-Bomb who kills other clones without to hesitation, then seeing the light and joining her sisters, learning to love them, but will still kill anyone who harm them without hesitation.
• Room Full of Crazy: Her first hideout, a rundown apartment in a Ukrainian neighborhood, had Biblical passages written all over the walls. Another has walls filled with drawings of stick-figure people, with one having a question mark for a head.
• Samus Is a Girl: At first everyone believed that the person who killed Katja and attacked Sarah-as-Beth was a man, but then Sarah got a good look at her face.
• Self-Harm: She carves into her flesh when she's under a lot of stress. Tomas provides her with small blades to do so. It was only shown on screen a few times, but her back is extensively scarred.
• Self-Made Orphan: She kills her birth mother.
• Shown Their Work: Her name seems at first to be an example of As Long as It Sounds Foreign, because the given name "Helen" is usually translated to Ukrainian as "Olena" ("Олена") . However, the given name "Helena" ("Гелена") actually exists in Ukrainian, but is very rare.
• A Sinister Clue: The only left-handed clone - because she and Sarah are mirror image twins - and one of the most dangerous. Arguably subverted by the fact that she's a very sympathetic Anti-Villain who makes something of a Heel–Face Turn in the second season.
• Symbolic Wings: Self-inflicted, no less. The extensive scarring on her back makes out the shape of wings. At first it symbolizes her being a religious fanatic, but later she becomes a "guardian angel" for her twin sister Sarah and eventually the other clones as well. Doubles as Symbolic Mutilation.
• Thicker Than Water: Rachel almost says this word for word when Sarah doesn't turn Helena over to Leekie. Helena also seems to believe this, stating in the finale that she can't kill Sarah and Sarah can't kill her. This trope is Subverted when Sarah states she has a family and shoots Helena with intent to kill, and then Double Subverted when Helena survives anyway.
• Trauma Conga Line: SPOILERS ABOUND
  • She is given to a convent where it's suggested she was abused through tasks such as being locked in cellars.
  • She is taken in by Tomas and Maggie Chen, then abused further. She is brainwashed and beaten into being a killer of her own kind.
  • She almost dies at the hands of a woman she feels connected to, even after knowing it's her sestra.
  • She watches a child she felt connected to get run over, partly because of her, partly because of Sarah.
  • She is taken in by the Proletheans. She is cared for at first, then is married against her will and is violated as they extract her eggs while she is drugged with something strong.
  • She is almost killed by Gracie.
  • She is kidnapped and tortured by the military.
  • She is kidnapped and forced into labor so her babies could be used as science experiments.
• Traumatic Haircut: A hair-dyeing variation. When she was a child, Helena's head was doused in bleach as a punishment, turning her hair blonde and her skin pale white. Presumably she kept it up on her own after her roots grew in, though.
• Tyke Bomb: It's not entirely clear how long they've had access to her, but it's strongly implied that she's been brought up by the Proletheans to make her into a clone assassin. As of season 2, Sarah's using her as a deterrent to keep Rachel and other conspirators at bay. She actually knows she's being used, but is still holding out hope that Sarah would come to care for her as well.
• Undying Loyalty: To Sarah and Kira. Her loyalty even survives being shot point-blank in the chest by the former. Later in the series, this extends to all of the members of the Clone Club and their families.
• Verbal Tic: "Excuse me." Seems innocent enough, but it's the context in which it appears that makes it jarring: a tiny post-meal belch after threatening Sarah's life, or staggering into the ER and announcing to the desk nurse that her sestra just shot her. It's also quickly becoming her Catchphrase.
• Walking Spoiler: It's basically not possible to discuss her now without spoiling significant aspects of the plot, as attested to how much of this entry is blanked out.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds/Cosmic Plaything: She spent most of her life being brainwashed by an abusive cult, and was conditioned to believe she needed to kill the other clones. Even after being deconditioned and inducted into Clone Club, she still gets sold out to the military by Mrs. S., waterboarded, and subjected to various other horrors.

Rachel Duncan

Rachel Duncan

You may even grow to like it here. Just as I did.

"Nobody lays hands on me."

Rachel Duncan works for the Dyad Institute as a "fixer" for the clone project. She offers Sarah answers and protection in exchange for her cooperation, but has a more personal motive as well...

---

• Alpha Bitch: Among the clones, she has the superior attitude and same verbal tics. Lampshaded by Sarah when about to impersonate her in Season 3.
  Sarah: Rachel Duncan, uber bitch.
• Animal Motifs: Apparently begins hallucinating a swan in episode 4x07. The mythological Leda was, of course, seduced by Zeus in the guise of a swan. It remains to be seen how this will tie in with the story, but it seems to be direct foreshadowing of her apparent Heel–Face Turn in the next episode. Later in the season it's also suggested that this is not a hallucination but a message someone is deliberately transmitting to her prosthetic eye. It's not clear who's responsible yet, though one fan theory is it's Delphine, who's confirmed in the season finale to be on the same island. She later begins seeing the swan get decapitated, which foreshadows her apparent subsequent betrayal of her fellow Leda clones, but the full extent of the visions has not been yet been revealed, nor has how things will play out; as is usual with Orphan Black, it's best to expect the unexpected.
• Antagonistic Offspring: She becomes this to Ethan Duncan. It's not that she had anything against him, but he knows she's up to no good and stands against her because of it. She later literally stabs Susan Duncan in the gut... and then bandages her up, so make of that what you will.
• Batman Gambit: Impressively cons Delphine and Sarah in order to kidnap Kira right from under Mrs. S.
• Brains and Bondage: She is highly educated and heavily into sexual domination.
• Break the Haughty: Rachel goes through the proverbial wringer in Season 3:
  • Her Eye Scream injury leaves her with crippling brain damage in her frontal lobe, so much so that she can barely speak on her own and constantly relying on her wheelchair for mobility.
  • In 3x01, Rachel gets tortured by Delphine in retaliation for sending her away from Cosima to Europe in the final episode of Season 2.
  • She is left isolated in Dyad with no one to turn to, except for Doctor Nealon. Even worse, she learns from Nealon that Topside thinks that she died in a plane crash.
  • Finally, at the end of Season 3 she is held captive by Susan Duncan, her adoptive mother.
  • Season 5 is all about doing this to her, by the end of it all she's just done with everything and wants to leave and live out her days on a island away from society.
• Category Traitor: Rachel is a clone leading a group of people who act against the very lives of the Clone Club's members. Not to mention her various evil deeds against other clones in proprio motu.
• The Chessmaster:
  • Basically her hat to get the other clones (especially Sarah) to do her bidding. It's not always successful as even Dr. Leekie questions her standards.
  • She seems to be back at it in season four with her Engineered Public Confession of Evie Cho, which also appears to have secured her a place in Neolution hierarchy to boot. See Token Evil Teammate below.
• Cold Ham: She's speaks in a very theatrically subdued manner.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Rachel is almost never seen wearing anything but pricey business attire.
• Control Freak: Likely a consequence of her being raised self-aware, which led her to develop a superiority complex. It's also a consequence of being raised in a lab and treated as an experiment her entire life, she had little control of what others knew about her and treated more like a lab rat than a person. This always left her very desperate for control hence her obsession with it.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Complete with an "office" that takes up an entire empty floor of a skyscraper. It's eventually revealed that even Leekie answers to her!
• Death Faked for You: Thanks to Delphine and Doctor Nealon, Topside thinks she died in a plane crash.
• Disappeared Dad: Apparently, he's hiding from Leekie. He later commits suicide right in front of her.

• Dragon-in-Chief: For the majority of the season, Rachel is the primary antagonist, with Marian Bowles only starting to take action towards the end.
• Enemy Mine: The reason for her apparent Heel–Face Turn in season four is that Evie Cho has usurped her mother's position in Neolution, has threatened "self-aware" Leda clones, and has slighted Rachel. She correctly recognises the threat Evie poses her and this appears to have incited her to re-evaluate her priorities... though she's still apparently out for herself more than anyone else.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Not only did she seem to have a loving relationship with her parents, but she also seems quite saddened by Daniel's death. Her reunion with her father is the first time we really see Rachel's mask of professionalism crack. Despite orders from her superior, she also gives Leekie a chance to escape before Dyad can come after him.
• Evil Brit: She's British, and she's also the most unpleasant of the Leda clones.
• Evil Cripple: Following her eye injury and the subsequent brain damage.
• Eyepatch of Power: Wears one for most of season 3. She later gains a cybernetic eye in the season 3 finale. The eyepatch returns in season 5 after she rips the cybernetic eye out.
• Eye Scream:
  • Sarah launches a pencil into her eye with a contraption Cosima and Scott created to help her escape Dyad. She survives, but not without losing that eye and sustaining some brain damage.
  • And she gets another helping of it in 5x07. Though, in this case she inflicts it upon herself via broken cocktail glass in order to get rid of her cybernetic eye so that "Westmoreland" won't be able to use it to keep spying on her.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Eight years after the end of the series, Rachel is the manager of a call center.
• Glass Eye: In the Season 3 finale, her destroyed eye is replaced by an iridescent blue prosthetic. By season four it's gotten less conspicuous as she discusses with Susan Duncan.
• Graceful Loser: Defied. Leekie mentions she does not take "personal insults" well.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Harbours a great deal of envy towards Sarah for being the only fertile clone, which leads her to kidnap Kira.
• Happily Adopted: By the scientists behind "Project LEDA", at least until she was taken away from them.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Seemingly makes one in 4x08, at least in terms of allegiance. Her motives are still obscure beyond her obvious instinct for self-preservation, which now naturally aligns with those of her fellow clones, but while she and Clone Club may not trust each other, they seemingly need to work together if they wish to survive, and both of them appear to recognise this.
  • Officially makes one towards the middle of season five. As of 5x07, she essentially becomes the destroyer from within. To save Kira from P.T. Westmorland and other Neolutionists, she cuts out her own eye. She sabotages a previous colleague and sexual partner in favor of the Clone Club, almost dying at his hands for doing so. She offers the four clones an entire list of all LED As in the world.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Probably not surprisingly, she makes a power grab for herself and seemingly stabs both Sarah and Susan in the back in the next episode... though the fact that she then proceeds to bandage Susan up suggests that she's not as callous as she'd like others to believe. It's still not clear what her agenda is. Rachel has been mostly interested in what gives her the most agency and will align with whoever she needs to. In the end though, she just does whatever it takes to be done and get away from society all together.
  • Returns to heroism in season five and ends giving the Clone Club everything they need to expose LEDA.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Implied, given her resentment towards Sarah for being the only fertile clone and her anger over Dyad being more interested in Sarah than her.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Her modus operandi. So far she's held Kira, Felix, and Cosima over Sarah's head to gain her cooperation.
• Imagine Spot: The audience gets to see how she's really feeling as she stoically keeps a straight face for the benefit of others. As she's being told that she and most of the clones were barren by design, the conversation continues interspersed with shots of her taking her seething anger out on the things in her office.
• In-Series Nickname: The "pro-clone" (initially coined by Felix) because she was a prototype raised by the organization that created them.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Has one regarding the other Leda clones, beneath her perfect and in-control exterior. For all that she acts like she's above the other clones because of her awareness of, and position of some authority in, the Leda project, her Berserk Button is being told she's a disappointment and negatively compared to them, particularly Sarah, the only clone to have had a child. She's especially sensitive about being barren like all the other clones except Sarah and Helena.
• Jerkass: Apart from a few Pet the Dog moments, she never shows kindness or warmth to anyone.
• Kick the Dog: Acts spiteful to Sarah, knowingly endangers Cosima's life several times, and forces Delphine to go to another country without saying goodbye to her dying girlfriend.
• Last Episode, New Character: She appears in the penultimate episode of season one and formally introduces herself in the finale.
• Laughing Mad: At one point during her Villainous Breakdown, she starts giggling hysterically while watching the Happier Home Movie of her and her parents.
• The Leader: Dyad's charismatic and mastermind leader.
• Lingerie Scene: During her infamous sex scene with Paul.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She is notable for inverting this. While the other clones didn't learn of each other's existence until adulthood, Rachel had been aware since she was a child. However there are many times when she is Locked Out of the Loop regarding certain things from the higher ups at Dyad, she doesn't like that one bit.
• Manipulative Bastard: She has many tricks up her sleeve in order to get the clones to cooperate. This includes lying to Sarah about having Kira. Later she tries to pin the murder of her monitor Daniel on Felix, in an effort to get Sarah to surrender.
• Meaningful Name: Rachel means "ewe", female sheep, and the first clone organism was Dolly the sheep. And like the biblical Rachel, she envies her sister's fertility, though the biblical Rachel eventually had two sons.
• Narcissist: Discussed by Cosima and implied by the way she looks at herself in the mirror.
• Pet the Dog:
  • She spares Leekie and covers up his disappearance not knowing that he's dead.
  • She's also gentle with Kira, despite having kidnapped her. Or at least as gentle as Rachel can be.
  • In season 5, she decides not to let Kira be experimented on like she was as a child and gives her back to her family.
  • A small one but in season 5, when a former Dyad board member refers to Helena as the pregnant one, she coldly corrects him saying her name is Helena. Quite noticeable since she usually only sees her sisters as less than her and the Rachel back when we first met her wouldn't have cared to do such a thing.
  • Gives the four an entire list of the LEDA clones so that they may cure them all. By now, she's made an entire Heel–Face Turn

• Psychopathic Womanchild: A relatively rare female example who fits into type 3. She shows shades of this trope by the end of season 2, such as throwing a tantrum over Sarah's noncooperation, whom she is shown to have an extreme jealousy of due to her ability to have children, and crying in a rather childlike manner when her father dies. That last one was pretty justified though. Rachel has a tendency to come off as overly entitled, smashing Kira's bone marrow in front of Sarah just to hurt her seems to be the Rachel equivalent of smashing toys and/or property.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Despite turning against Neolution entirely in Season 5 and giving the Clone Club a complete list of the clones around the world so they can be cured, she knows full well she'll never actually be accepted by the group after all she's done and doesn't even try.
• Sanity Slippage: Though she does a good job of hiding it, she becomes increasingly unstable towards the end of the second season.
• Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: A fitting choice for the most "aware" of the clones.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Develops this attitude by the end of season 5, she just wants to leave and live out her days away from society on a island.
• Smug Snake: Her high position for Dyad makes her very arrogant.
• Speech Impediment: She has trouble vocalizing after her brain injury.
• The Stoic: She's very distant and formal with nearly everyone.
  • Not So Stoic: After Daniel's death, her professional mask beings to crack, though she tries to hide it. Happens again when she sees her father, who she believed to be dead for most of her life. Next episode initially has her back to her emotionless persona until her father reveals the clones were made infertile on purpose, making Sarah and Helena "mistakes" of sorts. Although Rachel outwardly seems to agree with this decision, the scene is intercut with moments of Rachel angrily smashing up her office, indicating she is very conflicted inside. Then there is the Season 2 finale with her father which leads to her Villainous Breakdown. By Season 3, her brain injury has effectively broken her of her stoicism.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: While she correctly recognises that she needs to work with the rest of the Leda clones after Evie Cho's betrayal, she and the other Leda clones thus far neither like nor trust each other. The fact that she makes a power grab in the season four finale at the expense of her fellow clones undoubtedly won't help this, and it's far from clear how this will play out.
• Token Evil Teammate: When she is aligned with Leda, she effectively plays this role, blackmailing and kidnapping a witness and using her to trick Evie Cho into thinking Rachel is on Evie's side, then producing an Engineered Public Confession that she proceeds to send to every reporter at Evie's press conference. Damn.
• True Blue Femininity: Mostly dressed in blue and it's one of her two Color Motifs.
• Two First Names: Duncan is a common given name for males.
• Villain in a White Suit: A high-ranking agent of the shady Dyad Institute, Rachel often appears in white business-wear.
• Villainous Breakdown: After learning the truth about her mother's death, reuniting with her father and being told by him that the clones are barren by design, Rachel begins to grow more and more unhinged. She finally loses it after her father commits suicide to prevent her from knowing his secrets.
• Villains Out Shopping: As seen by Cosima when she is passed Rachel's itinerary from Delphine during the Season 2 finale. Her "appointment" with Sarah is sandwiched between a manicure and a Gyrotonics class.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Towards Marian Bowles.

Jennifer Fitzsimmons

Jennifer Fitzsimmons

Dr. Leekie said he could help, but he lied.

"Every week the Dyad tries a new treatment. Nothing works. I'm just getting sick."'

Another clone from the Midwest of America. She produced a video diary that was later found by Cosima.

---

• Baldness Means Sickness: The various treatments she underwent to combat her illness caused her long, thick hair to fall out. When Cosima and Delphine perform an autopsy on her in 2x03, Delphine says as much to Cosima.
• The Cutie: Word of God describes her as a cheerful young woman with a heart of gold.
  • Break the Cutie: Compare her first video diary to her most recent one and you'll see that her illness had dramatically affected her.
  • Kill the Cutie: Episode 2x03 has Delphine and Cosima doing an autopsy on her.
• Hot Teacher: She was a high school teacher and swim coach.
• Incurable Cough of Death: She developed a respiratory disorder similar to what Katja and Cosima suffered from. As a result she became pale and weak and it eventually killed her.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She never learned that she was a clone or that her boyfriend was her monitor. Deliberately enforced by Dyad, as they didn't want her finding out.
• Minnesota Nice: She had a very pronounced Midwestern accent and was by all accounts a sweet young woman.
• Passionate Sports Girl: Jennifer loved to swim. At one point she was pre-Olympic for the 200-meter backstroke.
• Posthumous Character: Died from the same respiratory illness that some of the clones are suffering from.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She only appeared in a handful of videos, but it was enough to demonstrate the full effect of the illness the clones are suffering from. In performing an autopsy on her, Delphine and Cosima learned exactly what was causing the illness and how to combat it.

Tony Sawicki

Tony Sawicki

Can't fence this shit in.

"There's only one Tony, and you're not me, sucker."

A transgender clone who appears on Felix's doorstep in the second half of season two. His friend Sammy had been in communication with Beth and sends him to her not knowing that she's long dead.

---

• Back for the Finale: Kinda. He helps Clone Club find the other LEDA clones offscreen.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Felix, which freaks Felix out a bit because Tony acts and looks very similar to Sarah.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: His friend Sammy, who gives him a message to give to Beth before succumbing to an abdominal wound.
• Manly Gay: An overtly masculine trans guy who is attracted to men, though he also expresses appreciation for Sarah's appearance ('Damn, we're hot!')
• The One Guy: For Leda, in virtue of being transgender.
• Opposite-Sex Clone: Though because he's a trans man rather than from having a different chromosome.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: Downplayed. His deadname is "Antoinette" and a common nickname for that is "Toni/Tony".

Charlotte Bowles

Charlotte Bowles

"You're my big sister."

An 8-year-old clone, made after the original set of clones. Also the only surviving clone of over 400 attempts to replicate the experiment; she has a malformed leg.

---

• Girlish Pigtails: To represent the fact that she's the most innocent of the clones.
• Happily Adopted: By Marian. As of the season 3 finale, however, she's now with Susan Duncan, who wants Rachel to take care of her. By the finale, she's living with Art and his family.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Doesn't show up until the finale episode of Season 2.
• Incurable Cough of Death: In season 4, she's got a bloody cough, indicating she's got the degenerative disease that's killing the original batch of clones.
• Insistent Terminology: By her late teens, she insists on calling her leg brace her "exoskeleton."
• Last Episode, New Character: First appears in the last few minutes of season two. In the season 3 finale, she precedes another case of this trope, Susan Duncan, Rachel's adoptive mother.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Averted. She already knew about the other clones and Kira when she met Sarah.
• Neutral Female: She's one of the only two non-combat proficient Leda clones, the other being Cosima.
• Practically Different Generations: Charlotte is 16 years younger than all of her sisters. She calls Kira her cousin although Kira's technically her niece because they are much closer in age. By the time of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, she refers to her older sisters as "Aunts" because of the age difference.
• Sole Survivor: Of the over DYAD's 400 attempts to recreate Project LEDA, she is the only one that lived. In Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, it's revealed that in 1993, 10 years before Charlotte was born, a group of LEDA clones were created in the USA, including Vivi Valdez and Dana Emmett.
• Walking Spoiler: Not only is she proof that Dyad is still trying to produce clones, she also provides a hint as to what motivates Marian Bowles.

Krystal Goderitch

Krystal Goderitch

You can't crush the human spirit.

I thought whatever, like, this guy's hot, nobody dies. I was like, so wrong.

A LEDA clone who works in a beauty salon. She was nearly kidnapped by Rudy and Seth, two of the Project Castor clones.

---

• Action Fashionista: After her horrific experiences in Season 3, namely: getting nearly killed by both Rudy and Seth and then later getting kidnapped by DYAD to be Rachel's decoy, Krystal started taking self-defense lessons seriously by the time she returns in Season 4.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: She admits to hooking up with Rudy because his scar made him look dangerous and exciting.
• Ascended Extra: She's originally supposed to be a Red Shirt, then becoming a Chekhov's Boomerang.
• Body Double: Dr. Nealon kidnaps her so she can be one for Rachel. Delphine catches on after seeing her well-manicured nails.
• Break the Cutie: Her harrowing experience with the Castor clones has made her increasingly distressed.
• Brother–Sister Incest/Surprise Incest: She made out with Rudy, not knowing that he was her brother.
• The Bus Came Back: She returns half way through Season 4, attempting to work out what's going on for herself.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Chekhov's Gunman variant. In the Season 3 premiere, a footage of her is shown to Sarah by Delphine. Near the end of the season, stealing her identity for Rachel becomes an important plot point. In Season 4, it is revealed that she witnessed Delphine's attempted assassination, and her confirmation that Delphine is Not Quite Dead is what stops Cosima for committing suicide.
• Chewing the Scenery: Aside from being a Large Ham, she has very theatrical mannerisms.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Ironically, given just how many conspiracies she's actually connected to, she's fallen for the kind that appear in cheap tabloid magazines, and infiltrates the right company for reasons that have nothing to do with what they're actually doing.
• Damsel in Distress: Was nearly forced into a car while she was meeting with someone.
• The Fashionista: And works in a salon to boot.
• Genius Ditz: Krystal initially appears to just be a shallow, pretty airhead, though in some respects she is, but she turns to be extremely observant and had been investigating the clone conspiracy independently. She didn't quite put it all together until Clone Club decided to let her in on the secret, but she had managed to collect a lot of useful information on her own.
• Girly Bruiser: After a few close attempts at her life in Season 3, she has become an Action Fashionista by the time of her return in Season 4.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She has dyed blond hair and is one of the sweetest characters on the show.
• Hero of Another Story: Her misadventures continually collide with that of Clone Club, and she doesn't like following their orders. Ultimately Krystal's appearances in Seasons 4 and 5 happen as a result of her own investigations, whether incidental ("Human Raw Material") or deliberate ("Manacled Slim Wrists").
• Hidden Depths:
  • She's a surprisingly observant young woman, as Krystal can't shake the feeling that there's something really off about her life. Boyfriends (who are really monitors) rotating in and out of her life, hotel security being too heavily armed the night she was almost kidnapped, a police cover-up done too neatly...
  • When Felix looks through Krystal's locker, he finds evidence that she's been investigating Rudy and Seth, and might be coming close to figuring out what's going on. Not what you'd expect from a ditzy manicurist.
  • There are also hints that she's a very lonely person, since the only people she can talk to about her traumatic experience are her customers.
• Iconic Sequel Character: First appeared in the Season 3 premiere and isn't properly introduced until its eighth episode.
• Incompatible Orientation: Krystal develops a bit of a crush on Felix. Not only is he gay, but she looks like his sister.
• Irony: She thinks identical twins are creepy. Someone looking just like you is so weird...
• Lady in Red: She wore a short, tight red dress for her rendezvous with Rudy.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Sarah and the others deliberately wants to protect her from the clone conspiracy. Unfortunately, Krystal herself blindly pushes herself into it. Even when she's in it, it's never made 100% clear whether or not she actually believes they're all clones.
• Motor Mouth: Krystal really likes to talk. At one point she even lampshades it.
• Ms. Fanservice: She likes to wear tight, short, low-cut dresses, and wears an extremely skimpy gym constume during her self-defence lesson.
• Nice Girl: She's friendly and talkative towards her customers at the nail salon.
• Pink Means Feminine: Is properly introduced wearing a pink dress.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Word of God stated that one of the reasons they spared her from her intended fate is to provide light-heartedness into the series.
• Properly Paranoid: Has shades of this, though it’s downplayed compared to the other clones. Despite not knowing she’s a clone, she’s perceptive enough to recognize that strange things keep happening to her, and that there’s something really “off” about her life. She’s also, as mentioned above, investigating Rudy and Seth, and in Season 4, she infiltrates Brightborn, which she has correctly worked out has a connection to Dyad. Susan Duncan refers to her as naive, and ultimately harmless. This is also Played With in that, while she is correct that she is being targeted by conspiracies, and also largely correct about who is responsible for the conspiracies, she is wrong about why they exist and what their goals are. She also initially disbelieves that she and Sarah are clones of each other.
• Proud Beauty: She's rather proud of her good looks, which funny enough, leads her to be disappointed when she meets Sarah, because she thinks she doesn't look as good.
  Krystal: Okay, are you, like, blind? 'Cause This girl looks nothing like me. Like, first of all, my tits are way bigger. And secondly, even if you could drag a comb through that hair, she's like a seven on a good day and I've been told I'm a ten.
  Sarah: A seven?
  Felix: She has a point about your hair.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: As mentioned multiple times above, she's right that the Dyad Institute is embroiled in several conspiracies, and that it is targeting her. She's just wrong about what those conspiracies are, and why Dyad is targeting her. One could also argue that this is an inversion of this trope because her premises are completely right but her conclusions are completely wrong.
• Sixth Ranger: The last to join the Clone Club.
• Smarter Than You Look: Despite being The Ditz, she's Properly Paranoid.
• Stepford Smiler: Underneath her perky exterior is a lonely young woman trying to recover from almost being kidnapped.
• Took a Level in Badass: After everything that has happened to her in Season 3, she's reintroduced in Season 4 already taking self-defense classes.
• Valley Girl: Blond hair, lots of pink, cutesy accessories, pictures of hot guys on her locker... the works.
• Weirdness Magnet: Hilariously lampshaded by Krystal herself when she wakes up from her medically induced coma
  "No, I'm not fine! Why do weird things keep happening to me?"

M.K.

M.K. / Mika / Veera Suominen

^{Click here to see her unmasked.} 

Please don't leave...

I'll make some iced tea.

An associate of Beth Childs' introduced in the season 4 première. It is not currently clear whether the other clones even knew of her existence, but she contacts Sarah warning her that she is in danger from Neolution. Little is currently known about her, even her actual name, but she has a habit of wearing a sheep mask as a reference to Dolly, the first cloned animal. She's actually Veera Suimonen from Helsinki.

---

• Aloof Ally: She is very loyal to Clone Club, but prefers to work externally and in the shadows.
• Animal Motifs: As mentioned above, she wears a sheep mask. She asks Beth to wear a fox mask, but she refuses.
• Broken Bird: She's a very lonely person who was broken by her experiences in Helsinki as well as the suicide of her closest friend, and it's implied that beyond Neolution itself, part of the reason she is so secretive is due to being afraid to lose someone again.
• Canon Immigrant: She's originally a character in the Spin-Off comics before her debut in the show proper.
• Character Death: In 5.02 she attempts to stab Ferdinand, so he strangles her and then stomps on her chest repeatedly until she dies.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Ferdinand strangles her and then repeatedly stomps on her chest until she dies.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Amongst other things, she's the sole survivor of the clone purges of Helsinki, about which she's understandably pissed. Her past remains fairly mysterious apart from the details revealed thus far in the show and the comic books, but it's doubtful that her trauma stops there.
• Dies Wide Open: Her corpse is seen giving an eerie stare.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": After the events of Helsinki, she changes her identity and prefers not to be referred to as Veera.
• Expy: Word of God confirms that Tatiana Maslany's portrayal of M.K. is heavily based on the mannerisms and accent of Björk.
• Facial Horror: The right side of her face is burned.
• Faking the Dead: Dyad thought she had been killed with the other Helsinki clones, and she went to great lengths to make sure they continued thinking that. Eventually she reveals herself to Ferdinand while threatening to kill him.
• Given Name Reveal: Beth called her Mika, but it's actually Veera Suimonen. She goes by M.K. because she's on the run from Neolution.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Doesn't show up until Season 4.
• Incurable Cough of Death: 4x08 depicts her coughing up blood.
• In the Hood: Her preferred attire.
• Malevolent Masked Woman: An elusive mask wearing woman out for revenge.
• Meaningful Name: Her initials are (presumably deliberately) reminiscent of MK ULTRA, an infamous CIA program that attempted (unsuccessfully) to produce a method of mind control. The initials actually come from her genetic code, which is 3MK29A, making them doubly meaningful.
• No Name Given: She's only known by her initials. It's initially not even clear if they actually are her initials. They're not.
• Properly Paranoid: M.K. is the only one of the clones fully aware of how many conspiracies target them, and she is every bit as paranoid as you would expect her to be.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After taking Ferdinand's money, she high-tails it out of Beth's house, leaving a furious Sarah behind.
• Sole Survivor: Of Ferdinand's purge in Helsinki.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: The main Clone Club addition in Season 4 (though technically she's always been a member, just serving from the shadows) and survives the whole season, only to be killed-off in the second episode of Season 5.
• Techno Wizard: Is stated to be a skilled hacker, and what we see on screen backs that up. She's able to transfer millions out of Ferdinand's bank account almost effortlessly.
• Tragic Bromance: Both Beth and Niki's deaths affected her very deeply. She nearly murders Ferdinand to get revenge for Niki.
• Trickster Mentor: Apparently has elements of this. Co-creator Graeme Manson says, "Yeah, she comes out of the shadows and for the first time we're meeting someone who knows more than us. Sarah is meeting a clone who has got more answers than she does, and yet she's a slippery character."
• You Killed My Father: Comes within a hair's breath of blowing Ferdinand up to avenge Niki, whom Ferdinand killed in the Helsinki purge.

Miriam Johnson

Miriam Johnson

A homeless musician, she was killed by Rachel before the start of the series.

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• Alcoholic Parent: Her mother was a drunk.
• Delinquent Hair: She had a blue-green mohawk.
• Posthumous Character: Rather than wait for her to die of the clone disease naturally, as Leekie planned, Rachel killed her so an autopsy could be performed and the disease could be studied sooner.
• Starving Artist: According to Leekie, she was creative, but was homeless by the time Rachel got to her.

Camila Torres

A Brazillian Clone.

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• Last Episode, New Character: Is introduced in the last episode of the series, receiving an inocculation for the clone disease.

European Clones

Danielle Fournier, Aryanna Giordano and Janika Zingler

Three European clones, all killed before the series began. Danielle was from France, Aryanna was from Italy, and Janika was from Austria. All three were in contact with Katja. Documentation and samples for them were present in Katja's briefcase.

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• Posthumous Characters: Their pictures in Cosima's clone chart are X'd out, and they are mentioned as three of the four Helena had killed.

[Identity Redacted]

A Polish clone who, like Jennifer Fitzsimmons, succumbed to the Leda defect illness.

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Helsinki Clones (SPOILERS!)

Six self-aware European clones who were executed by Topside in 2006 with Operation: Helsinki in the form of wide-scale attacks. Veera is the only one who survived.

Niki Lintula

A clone from Tapiola that Veera tracks down from her hacking.

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• Cassandra Truth: Insisted that she saw a girl who looked just like her as a child. She decides to join Veera because her existence is proof of what she saw.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Says she doesn't get much sleep due to partying all the time.

Ania Kaminska

A Polish clone that Veera tracks down from her hacking.

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• Crisisof Faith: As a devout Christian, she apparently underwent one of these when she learned about the clones.
• Repressed Memories: According to the clones, remembering these is what made her realize there was a conspiracy and lead to her tracking down the others.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Is only able to direct Veera and Niki about where to go next before being killed by Helena.

Justyna Buzek

A Czech clone whom Ania mistook Veera for.

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• Mistaken Nationality: Responds that she is Czech after being called a Nazi by one of the twins.
• Properly Paranoid: Has trouble believing Veera and Niki's story at first.

Sofia Jensen

A clone found by Ania to support her conspiracy theory. Became involved in the conspiracy after she caught her monitor reporting to Dyad over the phone.

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• Nonstandard Character Design: As opposed to the other clones, who are all thin, Sofia has a fuller figure.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Along with the twins, leaves when the Helsinki clones discover they may be in danger.

Fey and Femke

Two Dutch clones who were raised under the belief they were normal twin sisters. Their swimming gained them the attention of the newspapers, leading to Ania discovering them.

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• Agent Scully: They flat-out refuse to believe they are clones.
• The Dividual: Of the Twindividual variety.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Leave after hearing that Ania was hospitalized and they may be in danger.

Jade

A clone Veera meets in a lab who has apparently been receiving experimental 'treatments' all her life.

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• Baldness Means Sickness: A telltale consequence of the experiments by Dr. Volkov is her baldness.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Veera and Niki attempt to exploit this to expose the clone conspiracy to the world.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Goes on one when she sees Dr. Volkov to avenge Effie's death.
• Sole Survivor: Of Dr. Volkov's experiments

Effie

Another clone from Dr. Volkov's lab.

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• Posthumous Character: When the audience meets her, she has already succumbed to the side-effects of her many treatments.
• The Nicknamer: According to Jade, she gave names to all the clones being experimented on rather than refer to them by their serial numbers.

Vivi Valdez (SPOILERS!)

Vivienne “Vivi” Valdez

A CIA agent, who discovers the existence of the other LEDA clones on a mission to Canada during the events of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter.

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• After-Action Patch-Up: She stitches herself up after being hit in the leg by flying glass after the bombing of GRIT labs.
• Distinguishing Mark: Her nose had been broken in the past, it distinguishes her from the other clones.
• Fiery Redhead: She has red hair and is good in a fight.
• Imaginary Friend: After being separated from the other American clones at the age of 6 Vivi convinced herself that they were her imaginary friends, which she collectively dubbed “pretend Vivis”.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Not only was she not aware of the existence of the original batch of LEDA clones, she has rationalized away the existence of her "cousins", a.k.a. the other American clones, as her childhood imaginary friends.
• Master of Unlocking: One of her skills as a CIA agent.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Gummy bears, she likes to bite the heads off.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Vivi does this to Kira after the fight in Nasgwine’g.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: She disguises herself as several other LEDA clones, and impersonates Cosima before she even learns about the existence of clones.

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