YMMV / Orphan Black

Tropes A - M

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Fans were caught off-guard by how heartbroken they were when Paul pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to get Sarah out of the Castor base and destroy Coady's research.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: All over the place, both in-universe and out. Specifically, the show involves a mystery where no one knows whom to trust. A few characters who seemed trustworthy turned out to be traitors; a few characters who seemed like traitors turned out to be trustworthy; other characters flip-flop between the two. The motivations of most characters remain unclear, as do the extends of someone's involvement in their particular conspiracy — if they actually are involved. Many people have lied about their identities and personal histories for a number of different reasons; other people have been lied to and don't really understand what's going on. And we're only scratching the surface of either conspiracy.
  • And then when we find out that there's a third conspiracy involving the military in the series two finale, that just adds another layer of second-guessing to everyone's motivations.
• Award Snub:
  • By the Emmys. Though Tatiana Maslany won the Television Critics Association prize for Individual Achievement in Drama for the first season and the Critics Choice Award for Lead Actress in a Drama Series for both Seasons 1 and 2, she was overlooked by the 2013 Primetime Emmys. Not even a nomination! On the bright side, when news outlets wrote about that year's Emmy snubs, they put Maslany's snub front-and-center. At the time, she was a relatively unknown actress from what was considered little more than a cult show from a country whose shows rarely get any buzz in America — yet they singled her out as a noteworthy snub. And then, after another year of glowing reviews, many of them talking about how badly she was snubbed and how much she deserved the Emmy, she wasn't nominated in 2014 either.
  • Averted in the 67th Emmys, which saw her nominated after the previous award snubs and controversy, and then in the 68th Emmys, for which she finally won the award.
  • The Golden Globes failed to nominate her in 2015, much to the confusion of the fandom since she was nominated the year before (and lost to Robin Wright).
  • Although it did not cause nearly the same uproar that Maslany's snub in the acting category did, many fans weren't happy over the show's omission in the Best Drama category, either.
• Awesome Music:
  • The music that plays over the final few minutes of "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" (the season 1 finale), starting after Sarah shoots Helena.
  • Really, most of the soundtrack. Thankfully, it's now available.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Paul. To his fans, they tend to like him for his development as a character with his relationship with Sarah. To others, he's a one-note character who holds nothing interesting to him.
  • Tony divided fans almost immediately after his introduction. Either he's a daring risk that paid off, or a gimmicky caricature who was thrown in solely to create buzz.
  • Rachel has two types of opinions about her. She's either a villain who lost all chance of being redeemed when she kidnapped Kira or she's a Jerkass Woobie who got a little too caught up in her determination to find out what makes Sarah so special.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Alison and Donnie dancing to hip-hop music and throwing money around in their underwear. The more of the show you've watched, the less prepared you will be for it. It is hilarious.
• Broken Base:
  • Many fans weren't pleased with the revelation in the season 2 finale that male clones outside of Tony exist but many are also not against it, curious to see where the show will go with such a reveal.
  • Alison's story-line in season 3 has proved to be polarizing. There are quite a number of fans annoyed at how Alison isn't actively involved with the main plot, saying that you could cut out most of her drug-dealing scenes, and not miss an entire thing about this season. Others argue her and Donnie together make for the most hilarious scenes of the season which is needed given how serious the other plots are.
  • Delphine's Season 3 arc has proven to be a major bone of contention with Cophine shippers: breaking up with Cosima, torturing an incapacitated Rachel, spying on Cosima and Shay, even threatening to kill Shay for possibly being a Project Castor mole. The Rage Breaking Point for many was Delphine's Cliffhanger shooting, which many accused of being nothing more than a Bury Your Gays plot twist. However, in season 4, Krystal, who witnessed the shooting, reveals that Delphine may have survived, and Krystal is confirmed to be correct in 4x09. Ultimately, Delphine ends up surviving the entire series; the finale has her head out on a quest with Cosima to cure all 276 of the surviving Leda clones. Much of her behaviour in season 3 is also ultimately revealed to have been a facade necessitated by her position in Topside.
  • The reveal that the genetic template for both the CASTOR and LEDA clones is Mrs. S' mother, Kendall (she is a chimera, a real life condition), has split the fans. Some believe it is a fantastic twist that adds another layer to Mrs. S and Sarah's relationship and is fitting for the show's tone, while others believe it is too much of a coincidence to be taken seriously. In the twist's defence, Kendall is revealed to be directly responsible for getting Sarah and Mrs. S together in the first place, so it's arguably not a coincidence at all.
  • The season 3 finale reveal that Neolution is in control of both Topside and the military led to arguments whether it is a good way to organize the various layers of the clone conspiracy and return the show to its season 1 state, or if the show is getting tangled in its own mythology.
  • There has been some debate as to whether Cosima is gay or bi. On one hand, Word of God described her as bisexual early on in the series, but as of season 3 she self-identifies as a lesbian, upsetting a good deal of the fandom, who see it as bi erasure, disregarding Cosima's bisexuality just because she hasn't dated a man on screen. However, a similarly sized portion of the fandom believe Cosima's self identification should be respected, and that if she says she's gay, she's gay. It is worth pointing out that No Bisexuals does not apply to this show due to Delphine, who has canonically been in relationships with both Leekie and Cosima. Admittedly, she seems to think of her involvement with the latter as a case of If It's You, It's Okay.
  • Season 4 has mostly averted this, but fans are somewhat divided about whether Rachel deserves ultimate redemption after her Heel–Face Revolving Door and whether the Neolution founder being alive is a good twist. For the former, it's been pointed out that while she may turn on the clones, she does give the appearance of having been manipulated by the visions in her prosthetic eye and that since she ultimately patches Susan up after stabbing her she may not be completely irredeemable, while others feel that her betrayal of Leda and aggressive attempt to take over Neolution are unforgivable. For the latter, some people feel it takes the show too far out of the mostly hard science-fiction approach it has taken thus far, while others are willing to see where the showrunners go with it. (For what it's worth, the show is canonically in a shared universe with Ginger Snaps, which, you know, contains werewolves.) In the final season, the show ends up taking a third option regarding Rachel's redemption; while she ultimately makes a Heel–Face Turn, she is not Easily Forgiven, and she understands that she has crossed too many lines for Clone Club to truly trust her. "Westmoreland" is ultimately revealed to be an impostor who took advantage of the fact that the real Westmoreland's body was never found.
  • The death of MK, viciously stamped to death by Ferdinand, in Season 5, which many fans accused of being quite unnecessarily brutal at a time when violence against women really wasn't something anyone needed to see more of. Some even went so far as to say it only seemed to happen because the crew was worried that Ferdinand's later Family-Unfriendly Death of being shot in the throat by Mrs. S would be seen as undeserved unless he did something really heinous beforehand.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Helena/food. More specifically, Helena/Jello or Helena/mangoes.
  • Rachel/windows.
• Complete Monster: Orphan Black has a few characters who fall firmly on the "black" end of the show's Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • Seasons 1 & 2: Tomas is a cruel and manipulative Prolethean fanatic, as well as Helena's adoptive father and mentor. Believing Project LEDA clones to be an abomination, Tomas adopted one of them, Helena, and used physical, psychological and emotional abuse to groom her into a killer and keep her under her thumb, lying to her that she is the original to motivate her. Helena would go on to kill other clones at Tomas's behest, and Tomas would often torture her for failure. Learning of Helena and Sarah's connection and of Sarah's daughter Kira, Tomas orders Helena to kill Sarah and abduct Kira, locking her in a small cage when she refuses. During a later confrontation, it's made clear that Tomas intends to put Kira through the same treatment as he did Helena, which ultimately turns Helena against him. When later rescued by the Johanssen branch, Tomas makes it clear that he sees Helena as another abomination, and his only objection to the idea of Helena having children is his belief that those children will be monsters as well.
  • Season 2: Henrik "Hank" Johanssen is the leader of a branch of the Prolethean cult, operating on a ranching community. Separating from the Prolethans' more traditional views in favor of scientific curiosity, Johanssen operates his branch, and seemingly peaceful community, as a Breeding Cult, where women are artificially inseminated and children are regularly abused. When Henrik gets his hands on Helena, discovering she's a rare fertile clone, Hank has her handler Tomas killed so he can keep her. He proceeds to drug and forcibly marry Helena before taking her ovaries and fertilizing them with his sperm, planning to implant those embryos in multiple women. When Helena escapes with the help of Hank's teenage daughter Gracie, Henrik has Gracie locked in a cage and her mouth sewn shut as punishment; it's implied this is a usual punishment for her. When Helena returns, Henrik has her inseminated with their embryos before proceeding to do the same with Gracie. He keeps them locked in a nursery, holding them at gunpoint and sends his wife to find more women for him to impregnate. Henrik's motivations are that since a fertile clone is a scientific impossibility, he's the only one worthy of fathering children with them and spreading his genes in "miracle babies."
  • Season 4: Evie Cho is the ambitious Neolutionist CEO of BrightBorn. A survivor of a birth defect, Cho's perfectionist view inspired her goal to control human evolution. Cho developed mechanical, worm-like devices to alter people's DNA which can kill its host if ruptured. When Beth Childs investigated the Neolutionists, Cho tried to get her to kill Susan Ducan, hoping to usurp Duncan as Neolution's leader. Failing, Cho blackmails Beth into killing herself, later having Delphine Cormier shot and seemingly killed. It's revealed Cho is experimenting on pregnant women in BrightBorn's labs; when these result in the babies being born with imperfections, from deformities to blindness, Cho would have the babies euthanized to cover it up. Cho destroys Cosmia's research to cure the clones' diseases, and has Kendall killed and incinerated to erase the cure completely. To further hurt her, Cho tells Cosmia that Delphine is dead. Cho intends to put her devices into millions of people and alter their DNA without their consent. When two women escape her labs, she puts a kill order on them. When exposed and Neolution gives her the option to resign, absolving BrightBorn of any wrongdoings, she childishly refuses, her breakdown showing her for being a selfish glory seeker to their cause.
  • Season 5: Percival T. "P.T." Westmoreland, actually John Mathieson, is the ultimate villain of the series, posing as the founder of Neolution. Stealing Westmoreland's identity, he creates a cult to his name and Neolution behind the scenes. Seeking immortality, Mathieson takes the blood of the children of his cult to sustain himself; even experimenting on and torturing a boy named Yanis, driving him feral before eventually killing him. Mathieson plans to harvest and fertilize 8-year-old Kira's eggs, to spread and study the "Fountain of Youth" gene in her offspring, even when his true identity is exposed. Mathieson feigns a fatherly affection to Rachel, while spying on her through her prosthetic eye. When the truth is exposed, Mathieson becomes more unhinged. He has Helena abducted to force the birth her twins for further experiments; kills his backers to cover his tracks; and has Dr. Coady kill Mark when the project CASTOR clones served their purpose. Mathieson's end goal is to create a serum that would permanently reverse cell damage for the upper class and have the rest sterilized by the CASTOR pathogen. Ultimately, Mathieson is simply a selfish madman that manipulates an ideology and orchestrated atrocities all for personal power, and the expansion of his own life.
• Continuity Lock-Out: Orphan Black has a complex network of conspiracies, hidden agendas within hidden agendas, a fair number of Walking Spoilers, and a plot that progresses at break-neck speeds. Missing any individual episode may mean missing a crucial plot twist, or even several of them. Also, many of the characters are not what they seem, so you have to pay close attention their Hidden Depths and Character Development to understand their actions.
  • Season four seems to have been a conscious attempt to avert this to a certain extent, as it returns to the key elements of the show's Myth Arc. If you hadn't watched any of the show, you'd still be completely lost, but if you skipped some of season three, you might be ok.
• Creepy Awesome: Helena.
• Die for Our Ship: Many Cophine shippers were infuriated by the news that Cosima would be getting a new girlfriend (Shay, played by Ksenia Solo) in Season 3, to the extent that they actually bombarded Solo with hate messages on social media.
• Drinking Game: Take a sip for every time a woman touches Cosima’s face. Take two sips if she’s kissing her in the process. See you in hospital.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Beth is an extremely well-liked character despite the fact she dies in the first scene of the show.
  • From the second season, Ramon has been very popular, many wanting him to become a regular character.
  • Sarah Stubbs as well qualifies, as she's just about the only person in Alison's normal life (that being outside the clones) that seems to genuinely like her.
  • The lesser Proletheans, Mark and Bonnie, qualify as this for the creators because their actors put in such good performances- Mark turns out to be a male clone, giving Ari Millen the reins of several characters and Word of God says Bonnie will be moving up in villain status come Season 3.
  • Bobby, the snarky bartender who despite only having a handful of appearances, is quite popular.
  • Mrs. S is surprisingly popular on Tumblr.
  • Gracie has become a lot more popular in season 3.
  • Pupok was beloved immediately from the get-go. His "death" saddened some. Except among those fans who are also arachnophobes.
  • Ditzy Krystal is very popular due to her Hidden Depths underneath her bubbly exterior, comedic moments and her status as The Woobie. She is also one for the creators, since they intended to have her Killed Off for Real on her first appearance. However, they enjoyed Tatiana Maslany's performance so much they decided to spare her.
• Epileptic Trees: Tons of it. See the series' WMG page for proof.
• Fanfic Fuel: Any role Tatiana Maslany played outside of Orphan Black would make for a good crossover.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Euroclones" for Katja, Danielle, Aryanna, and Janika, the dead European clones.
  • Rachel's fans have dubbed her "Ray Ray".
  • Rudy, the scarred Castor clone, was dubbed "Scarface".
  • Sarah, Cal and Kira are collectively referred to as "Lumberfamily".
  • "Kira the Demon Child", for her Oracular Urchin tendencies.
  • Fan nicknames for Tatiana Maslany include 'Titty Malaysia' based on a tumblr post of someone getting her name VERY wrong. Another popular one is "Tikka Masala."◊
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Sarah/Paul isn't an unpopular ship by any standards but Sarah is more shipped with the likes of Cosima, Rachel, Alison, or Cal compared to Paul. And just about everyone accepts Beth and Alison as an actual thing.
• Fanon: Some fans have taken to portraying Beth as asexual, though canonically, the notion of Beth as aromantic seems to have been definitively Jossed by the season 4 premiere showing how genuinely hurt she was by Paul. On the other hand, other fans are convinced she and Alison had a relationship.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Sarah and Rachel. Rachel even says "I want you, Sarah," at one point when attacking her.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: One of very few Canadian series to become a hit south of the border, and gave BBC America its first hit that is neither a fifty-year old titan of a franchise nor a reality show (and ironically enough, with a Canadian show). The fact that Tatiana Maslany's Emmy snub caused a bigger fuss than any other that year just proves how buzzworthy the show is worldwide. And of course, her Emmy win for the fourth season just took this trope up to eleven.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Whenever someone is outed as a monitor, all their words and actions beforehand look very different. This is especially true with Donnie, given that Alison's fear and paranoia led to Aynsley's death.
  • A Real Life example from episode 2.07. Co-creator John Fawcett revealed that the stuntman playing Vic crashing face-first through the crafts table actually broke his nose in the process.
  • Try re-watching Sarah and Art's season 1 interactions with the knowledge that Art was in love with Beth the whole time.
  • In the Season 3 finale, watching Delphine make things right with both Shay and Cosima before being shot. She's ultimately revealed to have survived, but still.
  • Season 2 reveals that a clone named Jennifer had been slowly, painfully dying of the clone illness during the events of season 1, and unlike the main characters, the poor woman had no idea what was really going on.
• He's Just Hiding: This is what a lot of fans assumed for Helena and Beth. Also called the ballpit of denial.
  • Helena's fans were right. Not dead, after all. In fact, despite being shot a point blank range, she walks into the ER and calmly informs them that her sister shot her. Explained later thanks to the Proletheans - her organs are on opposite sides.
  • After the third season finale, Delphine, last seen bleeding out from a gunshot wound. As of late fourth season, it has been suggested that she could be alive. Confirmed at the end of 4x09.
  • Also towards the end of the third season a lot of fans were already suspecting Susan Duncan was still alive, and guessed as soon as they saw the mysterious woman overseeing Rachel's operation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Helena calling Virginia Coady "a shit mother" in 3.04. The episode aired the night before Mother's Day.
  • A number of viewers and critics had compared the show to Lost due to the heavy use of often hidden conspiracies, Mind Screw, and Myth Arc in both shows. Then a rather large part of season four is shown to have taken place on an island (which is likely to continue being a central location for season five's story). Admittedly, it's arctic rather than tropical, but still.
  • Vic being an incompetent drug dealer is now this thanks to his actor being in Better Call Saul.
  • The Grand Finale has Cosima and Delphine Walking the Earth to search for the other Leda clones. Barely three months after the series finale aired, a Japanese remake of the series was announced, which then premiered the following month.
• Hollywood Homely: The show dances rings around this trope. Thanks to superb makeup and subtle performance, it is often impossible to tell the clones are played by the same person, and chances are you will catch yourself calling one of them "the pretty one". This is particularly true of Krystal, the one character whose makeup is specifically designed to enhance her attractiveness. She even lampshades this in Season 4, declaring that she can't be a clone of Sarah because "She's a 7 on a good day, and I've been told I'm a 10." Alison lampshades it in the second episode by telling Sarah to "Hide your ugly face on the way out of here."
• Ho Yay:
  • Alison and Beth could come off to having this by Alison's reaction about her throughout the series. Upon hearing about her suicide, she all but brandishes a knife towards Sarah who informs her on the situation. She also says she admired Beth and they shared gun lessons. For someone whom she claims to have barely known, Alison takes Beth's suicide extremely hard and can come off as someone who just lost a romantic partner in her actions.
  • Before the reveal that they were sisters there was some definite vibes of this with Helena towards Sarah with her talking about feeling connected to her, getting in her personal space and at one point even kissing her leg.
  • Subverted with Delphine and Cosima. They gave off vibes of this constantly. Then they hooked up.
  • After Seth rescues Rudy, for a minute it looked like they were going to kiss.
  • Alison's other friend Sarah seems to really, really like Alison. Wonder what would happen if she found out Alison had an identical sister who's gay...
• I Am Not Shazam: The non-viewers and media outlets who are under the impression that Tatiana Maslany plays a character known as "Orphan Black".
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
  • Science Girlfriends for Cosima and Delphine (though "Cophine" is more frequently used)
  • Soccercop for Alison and Beth
  • Militarypunk for Paul and Sarah
  • Propunk for Rachel and Sarah
  • Lumberpunk for Cal and Sarah
  • Proscience for Rachel and Cosima
  • Punky Monkey for Sarah and Cosima
  • Copcop for Beth and Angie
  • French Leather for Delphine and Sarah
  • FoodTruck for Helena and Jesse. (Even Patrick J. Adams, who plays Jesse, thinks this is a good idea.)
• I Knew It!:
  • Helena's survival was predicted by a large enough portion of the fanbase that there was a Fan Nickname for it: "The Ballpit of Denial". Ok, fair enough. What pushes this into truly eerie territory is the explanation for her survival: she is a mirror twin, and her heart was on the reverse side of her body as everyone else's. This exact explanation was predicted by fans from the mere fact that she is left-handed; see here.
  • A few fans were correct in their prediction that the Leda and Castor originals were related — in fact, they're siblings. Twins, even — the original turns out to have been a genetic chimera who absorbed her male twin in the womb.
  • A leaked set photo spoiled the Season 3 plot point of Helena wiping out Pouchy and crew with his paper cutter blade.
  • Several fans (and apparently, the characters' actors themselves) speculated that Beth and Art may have been romantically involved. The première of season 4 proved them right.
  • That MK is a Helsinki survivor was pretty widely guessed.
  • That Evie Cho's revelation of her plot against Leda would lead Rachel to move against her was also pretty widely guessed. To be fair, the showrunners telegraphed this well in advance of it actually happening with Rachel's Death Glare at the revelation, so it's not even clear if it was intended to be a surprise. In retrospect, Rachel's hallucination of a swan was also heavy foreshadowing on this point, since a swan is, of course, inextricably linked with the myth of Leda.
• Incest Yay Shipping: Since the clones are genetic siblings, any shipping between them is technically this.
• Jerkass Woobie: Even though she kidnapped Kira and even at one point tried to stop all research going into finding a cure for Cosima you can't help but feel sorry for Rachel when she starts becoming more and more unhinged over the season in her determination to try and find out what makes Sarah so special from the rest of the clones. Turned up to eleven in the season 2 finale, when Ethan Duncan poisons himself and dies right in front of her. It's also pretty difficult not to feel sorry for her in the season 3 première when Delphine outright tortures her while she's suffering from apparent mental trauma. Of course, the revelation later in the episode that Rachel was planning to have several of the main characters killed probably erases any sympathy this scene gained her with the audience.
  • By midway through season four, Rachel has definitely become this trope if not a straight-up woobie. She can barely even walk with the assistance of crutches and still stumbles even with them. All pretence she once had of being in control has completely evaporated; she's out in the middle of nowhere with her adoptive mother who is concurrently seeing her own control vanish. The only thing that has honestly kept her from becoming a complete woobie is that she offers to help Evie "deal with" the other self-aware Leda clones (i.e., by killing them) in 4x07, but when Evie dismissively turns her down you can see the resentment on Rachel's face, to the point where it wouldn't be surprising if this triggers a Heel–Face Turn. As of the very next episode, it seems to have done so, but she heads back into Jerkass Woobie territory and the Heel–Face Revolving Door during the season four finale. For that matter, Susan Duncan probably qualifies for this trope as well; she's done some highly questionable things to say the least, but she genuinely seems to care about all the clones and appears to have done her best to protect their well-being, even if she often hasn't succeeded.
• Kudzu Plot: By the end of season 2, the number of questions definitively answered versus the number of wild curveballs thrown at the audience risks getting out of control.
  • By the series finale, most of the central questions have been answered, though there are still several significant cases of What Happened to the Mouse? regarding peripheral characters. Some of these, to be fair, may have been cases of Real Life Writes the Plot necessitated by actors' commitments to other shows (e.g., Michael Huisman's to Game of Thrones and Michael Mando's to Better Call Saul).
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Pretty much all of the clones though Sarah and Cosima are the biggest contender.
• LGBT Fanbase: Big time. The people who work on the show take LGBT representation very seriously.
• Love to Hate: Rachel gets this reaction from a rather substantial portion of the fan base, at least when she's on the heel side of the Heel–Face Revolving Door. The same goes for Helena, except her Heel–Face Turn is permanent.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Everyone is Tatiana Maslany. ^explanationThe fan theory that she's really playing everyone (including you). As well as any inanimate objects.
  • "Have you accepted Tatiana Maslany as your lady and savior?"
  • Saying sister in Helena's accent: sestra.
  • Another Helena-ism: "_________ is problem. I fix problem."
  • You're damn right.
  • Actual Puppy Delphine.
  • #SaveCosima - in response to Cosima's worsening autoimmune disorder.
  • The fandom has a very strange meme where Rachel Duncan seems to be obsessed with R'n'B music. (Apparently started by Maslany herself...)
  • "Clone Club Selfies", people taking selfies dressed up as different personas and photoshopping them together.
  • The ballpit of denial
  • Thanks to (allegedly) this Tumblr post, "Titty Malaysia" is now a thing.
    • Similarly, Evelyne Brochu has been redubbed "Evil Broccoli."
  • This Tumblr artist has made "skateboarding Cosima" accepted head canon.
  • Holy doodle, here we go! (As of 3.07, in a dead heat with "Holy freakin' Christmas cake!")
  • Comparing Alison to Nancy Botwin or Walter White after she starts selling drugs to finance her campaign for school trustee.
  • After 1.07, jokes about Helena's love of Jello became common. As of 3.02, mangoes have joined the list.
  • Pictures of characters from other shows with the quote "As a lesbian... supporter".
  • Fans jokingly blaming Shay for everything under the sun, with the hashtag #BlameShay.
  • "Fetch me something gay", thanks to Felix's memorable line to Alison in the penultimate episode of Season 1.
  • The clones dancing with Felix has been GIFd a lot.
  • M.K. being jokingly referred as a member of The Wyatt Family.
  • Jokes when a certain Leda clone does not appear in the episode is that the actress in unavailable.
• Moe:
  • Delphine is often compared to a puppy.
  • Almost every character finds Kira adorable. Interestingly enough, her name in the Japanese remake is Moe.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If Henrik and Bonnie didn't cross this with their treatment of Helena earlier in the second season, then they leap gleefully over it in 2.05 when they threaten Gracie, their own daughter, with forced impregnation with Helena's child. It's implied they've been abusing her for quite some time, however, so they probably crossed long before the show started.
  • Helsinki — years ago, Ferdinand and Rachel murdered six clones along with their family and friends.
  • Dr. Coady sending the CASTOR clones out to seduce and/or sexually assault women to use them as test subjects in developing a sterility-inducing biological weapon.
  • Some say this about Alison when she let Aynsley die. True, Alison thought she was a monitor, but it's sometimes argued this was a case of Disproportionate Retribution.
  • "The Scandal of Altruism" is one long gleeful line-crossing for Evie Cho, though it's actually revealed that she had already crossed the line even before the show started. She has Kendall Malone murdered in cold blood and her corpse immolated, apparently destroying her genetic material and greatly reducing the likelihood that anyone will develop a cure for the clones' various illnesses. She seemingly has all of Cosima's research destroyed. She is revealed to have blackmailed Beth into killing herself by threatening the safety of the other clones. She also states that Delphine is dead and implies that she was responsible. Why has she done any of this? If what she says during her Evil Gloating is accurate, it's purely because she believes that clones are passé. Overall the episode reveals her as a Greater-Scope Villain for the whole series, in much the way the season 3 finale did for Neolution as a whole.

Tropes N - Z

• Narm:
  • Tatiana's acting is usually spectacular, but she does get one big piece of this with her Shatner-esque delivery of "Because you BLEEEEEEW the roofer at the cabin!"
    • This is perhaps justified because Alison blowing her tightly-wound top is bound to be pretty explosive. It was also probably meant to be comedic in the first place.
  • Two, if you include her scream of "KIRRRRRRRAAAAAA!!" in the Season 1 finale.
  • Rachel and Paul's sex scene in season 2; as rapey as it is, it's also weird and unsexual.
  • Felix's absurdly gratuitous appearance in the Whole Episode Flashback of the Season 4 premiere, which clearly only exists thanks to Jordan Gavaris' contract as a series regular.
  • Many fans were rather confused by Alison never making an appearance in the Series 4 finale (except for a deleted scene), sent offscreen with the shits while Donnie and Helena have a scene on their own, noting that it feels exactly like the actress was unavailable, except of course that actress is all over the whole show. (It is noted that they had to use a body double for some of the scenes on the island due to the time it took Tatiana to change outfits and their limited filming schedule, so it's possible that time constraints were a factor in Alison's non-appearance in the episode.)
  • Mrs. S refusing to warn Sarah that the insider they're about to meet is Coady, for literally no reason besides keeping the surprise for the audience.
  • Alison's makeover in Season 5, where after all their fantastic work throughout the show, the hair and makeup people suddenly prove completely unable to create a convincing wig.
  • Some of Stephen McHattie's hamminess in the last few episodes can get pretty silly, and act as a sudden reminder that this is the guy who also gave us "It's a FAAAAAAKE!".
• Nausea Fuel: Dear god, the scene of episode 4.01 where they discover the corpse, for so many reasons.
  • Be sure to have a barf bag handy in 4.03 when the Hendrixes exhume Leekie's rotting corpse.
  • Also the baby in 4.05.
  • Episode 5.07 might have the most horrific image in the series. A drunken Rachel rips out her own prosthetic eyeball after discovering that it's being used by Westmorland for spying. Just brutal to watch.
• One-Scene Wonder: Beth counts for this. She only appeared for one scene (the very first one of the show in fact) and immediately died, only appearing in brief video logs after that, but still had many fans holding out hope that she wasn't really dead. While the character gets much more of an outing in season 4, it's only in flashbacks. She's still dead. There is, however, a graphic novel version of the story where Beth lives.
  • Ramon, Alison's gun buddy.
• Paranoia Fuel: Where to begin? The notion that you are not completely unique? The idea that some company has a patent on your DNA? Being hunted and not knowing why? Spending every day in a state of existential crisis? Nearly everyone in the world has been told once that they look like someone else... this show takes that and runs WILD with it. Enjoy thinking on that next time someone says you look a lot like a friend of theirs...
  • It's extremely unsettling how far-reaching the Neolutionists are. And the whole concept of monitors — your friends, family, and/or lover might be spying on you. Imagine a group of scientists capable of watching your every move, performing tests on you in your sleep, or taking away your child because someone you trust is working for them.
    • Donnie's storyline in the second season shows that the reverse is true. You could be tricked into enabling the harm and dehumanization of someone you love and be completely in the dark about it.
  • Also applies In-Universe to the clones themselves, to the extent that Alison lets her former friend die because she erroneously believes the latter is her monitor.
  • Someone could have implanted some creepy tick-like thing in your cheek without your knowledge, and you'd never even know it was there until it started to harm you.
• Player Punch: The ending of 4x06 is the television equivalent. Kendall is killed off, the clones have apparently lost the source of their genetic material for good, the entirety of Cosima's research appears to have been destroyed, and we learn that Beth was blackmailed into killing herself. This episode rivals the Red Wedding as one of the most depressing television episodes in recent memory.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Cophine for Cosima/Delphine
  • Shaysima for Shay/Cosima
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Many people weren't fans of Alison during the first few episodes because of how she seemed to just be mad at Sarah for everything. But her perfect persona coming undone, her paranoia over Donnie or Aynsley possibly being her monitor, and her developing friendship with Felix have won most people over now.
  • Donnie's grief over accidentally killing Dr. Leekie, combined with his learning the truth about what he was doing as Alison's monitor (he thought it was just a sociological experiment he'd signed up for), likewise seems to have won over many people who were skeptical of him. He even manages to threaten DeAngelis into leaving Alison alone, showing there's at least a little bit of a badass in there.
  • Paul's Heroic Sacrifice and Anguished Declaration of Love to Sarah at the end of 3.06 instantly won him a lot of fans.
• Retroactive Recognition: Vic is probably now better known for his role as Nacho Varga in Better Call Saul.
• Sci Fi Ghetto: The show was considered to be in this territory for its first several seasons. It received rave reviews initially and Tatiana Maslany was given a large critical backing by winning both the TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Drama and the Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series, but this did not result in an Emmy nomination for her. This trend continued until the third season, when Maslany broke through with a nomination, and was officially broken when she managed to win the Emmy award in 2016.
• The Scrappy:
  • Paul, partly due to fans seeing him as a cliched "brooding morally-ambiguous dude" figure and later due to the character's Heel–Face Revolving Door tendencies making his actions confusing (such as aiding Sarah in escaping DYAD, then blackmailing her by framing Felix for murder) before the Season 2 finale. The revelation there that he was working for Castor all along seemed like a desperate attempt to make him more interesting but didn't make his earlier actions any more coherent. As noted above, he managed to shed his Scrappy status in the eyes of many fans during his final episode.
  • Though he only appeared in one episode, Tony became this to a portion of the fanbase due to his somewhat flat characterization, and the fact that he stole the focus from the main plot for an entire episode.
  • The male clones were seen this way for a lot of the fans, for many reasons; introducing yet more characters into a show that was already overstuffed with them; they weren't as interesting as the Sestras, by and large; we were introduced to them very quickly as opposed to the Leda clones who were introduced at a slower rate so the audience could get to know them; they took attention away from the main plotlines and diluted the show's effectiveness as a vehicle for female empowerment. They were also unfortunate enough to come at a time when fans started to feel the Kudzu Plot was spinning out of control and making the show less satisfying and hard to follow, a problem that never gained much resolution in the show's latter seasons.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Delphine and Sarah didn't interact at all on screen in the first season but still held a fair-enough amount of supporters for their ship. In 2.01, they actually kiss, but Delphine thought it was Cosima. They do get a lot of screentime together in 3.01.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Cophine vs. Shaysima
• Shocking Moments: Expect every episode in Season 1 to have this but the Season 2 premiere seems to top this off with DYAD not being the ones to kidnap Kira, Helena being alive and Delphine going against Cosima's wishes and dropping off a vial of her blood to Leekie. And then the subsequent episodes in Season 2 just take it further. This dropped off some in season 3, but is back in full force with season 4, which has a rather impressive sequence of Wham Episodes, especially towards the end of the season.
• Signature Scene: Contenders are Beth's suicide in the premiere, Sarah meeting both Alison and Cosima for the first time, Helena's first appearance about to kill Sarah as Beth, or the dance party in the Season 2 finale.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Tony's goatee looks rather unconvincing, as many have pointed out. Possibly justified as he is still in the process of transitioning.
  • In the 3.07 scene where Alison ushers Cosima over to meet Mother Hendrix, Alison's right hand appears weirdly deformed.
• Spiritual Adaptation: A woman finding out she's one of several clones being hunted down by a nefarious organization? Orphan Black could virtually be one for the Replica series.
• Squick:
  • Felix and Tony kissing, given that Tony is a FTM transgender clone of his adoptive sister, and looks and acts almost exactly like her. Even Felix seems a little freaked out by it.
  • The Prolethean storyline from season 2 is full of this, but the worst instance has to be Hank impregnating his daughter Gracie with Helena's children. And a lot of other disconcerting things happen at that ranch as well.
  • Early on in the season 3 premiere, we get a lovely shot of the pencil being removed from Rachel's eyeball.
  • The Leda and Castor clones being siblings means Rudy kissed his long lost sister.
  • The discovery of the corpse in episode 4.1, again, for so many different reasons.
  • Episode 4.05 gives two instances — the baby with severe birth defects and Parental Incest between an adopted mother and son pair.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Sarah says this to Paul after refusing to help her escape throughout her capture in the military while still having the decency to feed her some water:
  Sarah: Paul, you're the worst of them. You know that? Because I don't even know where you stand.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Tony the transgender clone offered a fantastic opportunity for Maslany to stretch her acting muscles even more, as well as giving representation to a seriously overlooked group. Instead he leaves after a single episode without much characterization being established. And while he does "cameo" in the finale, it's with an offscreen appearance.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • In the season 2 finale, we discover there was a male clone base, the Castor to Sarah's Leda. Some fans were disappointed that Mark, a Prolethean who lacks personal connections to any of the Leda clones, was a clone rather than a more prominent male character like Felix or Art. The creators said they considered it this but decided it was a bit pat and obvious, as well as not fitting with their other ideas.
  • Felix and Adele's digging up information in Season 5 is bizarrely set completely offscreen, serving purely to provide a few Deus ex Machina moments as they just happen to have come up with the exact bit of information the Clone Club needs.
• The Un-Twist:
  • Was the clone thing really worth saving until the third episode? To be fair, it's not entirely clear it was intended to be a twist; it was heavily foreshadowed by the end of the first episode.
  • Delphine being alive and Rachel's Heel–Face Revolving Door were both predicted by quite a few fans in season 4, but in both cases it seems like they were deliberately intended not to be twists, given how often the possibility of the former was discussed and how blatantly the latter was foreshadowed (if you know your Greek mythology, anyway).
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Any scenes where there are more than one clone featured are done brilliantly to the point where you forget that all of these characters are being played by the same woman. They get four clones on screen at once in the Season 2 finale and both the first and last episodes of Season 3, and as usual, it's seamless. Series 5 takes it up to eleven with a scene where Sarah and M.K. have a long conversation filmed as The Oner, with both of them freely crossing to each other's side of the screen. And the series finale features one last bit of pure showing off with Sarah, Helena, Cosima, and Alison all chatting together, complete with Sarah stroking Helena's hair.
• Win Back the Crowd: Thus far, the reaction to season 4 has been a lot less polarised than the reaction to season 3, or even 2. A common opinion seems to be that it's the best season of the show since the first.
• The Woobie: Almost every clone counts to a certain degree, along with quite a few of the people in contact with them.
  • Sarah - Unable to be with her daughter whom she loves. Watching her real birth mother die after a lifetime of wondering what she was like. Now she and Kira are on the run from both the religiously zealous Proletheans and the cold, calculating Neolutionists.
  • Alison - Just wants to be normal, is unable to cope with her life being a science experiment and her husband who she really does love is actually her monitor. Now she has to live with the guilt of letting her friend die. Arguably the last of these brings her into Jerkass Woobie territory, though she'll probably get better. Then her guilt lead her to drink herself into rehab, where she was blackmailed by her husband, manipulated by Vic, and spied on by Angie.
  • Cosima - Feels heart broken finding out Delphine search through her things and revealed to Leekie she was in contact with the others and has now developed an Incurable Cough of Death.
  • Beth - In relationship with someone she loved but did not love her, worse yet he was only with her to watch over her for someone's science experiment.
  • Helena - Abused all her life, both physically and mentally to the point of being turned into a serial killer. She has never been shown any true affection or love and is eventually shot by one of the few people she ever felt a connection to - her twin sister. She survived, but her Woobie status has since been upgraded after being taken by the Proletheans, getting forcibly married to Hank and having her eggs extracted by him against her will. Also qualifies as Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
  • Katja - Has all of one scene in the series before being shot in the face, and then her body is fed through a rock grinder accidentally.
  • Jennifer - Slowly died from a respiratory disease while seeking treatment with the DYAD. She never found out that her boyfriend was her monitor, or that she was a clone. Made all the more sad when you consider that the end stage of her illness was playing out during the events of Season 1, so while our Golden Trio was forming their sisterhood and working out answers about what was happening in their lives, Jennifer was dying miserable and alone.
  • Krystal was assaulted and almost kidnapped, and the only people she can talk to are her customers. Then she really was kidnapped by Nealon to be used as Rachel's body double. She desperately wants to learn why she's such a Weirdness Magnet, but she's deliberately kept Locked Out of the Loop by the other clones because they think this will protect her. It's not entirely clear whether this is actually working, especially since she turns out to be a pretty competent detective, although when she finally is let in on everything in the season 4 finale, her initial reaction to being told she and Sarah are clones is disbelief.
  • Incidentally, all the other clones that are killed by Helena; they died because of a religious zealot conspiracy that thinks that they are sub-human.
  • Gracie. You can't help but feel sorry for the poor girl whose parents are religious-nutcases and are too focused on Helena to care about their daughter. Especially more when she finds out that if they don't get Helena back, then she'll have to be the one to carry the eggs they took from Helena — which is a lie, as they forced her to do it anyway after Helena was recovered. She might also count as a Jerkass Woobie. Things only get worse for her in season three. After learning that her husband was a clone, she goes crawling back to her abusive mother, only to later be kicked out for having a miscarriage. Now it seems Mark left her with some bizarre STD which left her sterile, although she ultimately confirms that she never wanted children in the first place.
  • Ethan Duncan lost his family because of his and his wife's genetic experiments and now he lives in fear for his life. All he wants is to be with his daughter, but he hasn't seen her in twenty years because she thinks he's dead. When they finally reunite, she refuses to let him reconnect with her as she insists they keep their relationship "professional".
  • All the women who were unknowingly sterilized by Coady via the Castor clones' sexually transmitted defect. They were being used as lab rats in the making of a biological weapon.

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