2013 has been an altogether fantastic year for television, with viewers spoiled for choice as to which excellent drama to watch next. In between the ongoing series like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, which remained as gripping as ever, a new contender emerged quietly on BBC America: mystery sci-fi drama Orphan Black.
Featuring a staggeringly impressive range of performances by lead actress Tatiana Maslany, who played seven different characters with diverse personalities and appearances in the first season alone, Orphan Black got a heartfelt recommendation from Screen Rant. Season 2 arrives in April 2014, which means that for those who haven’t yet seen it there’s plenty of time to get caught up.
For fans who are impatiently waiting for season 2, Orphan Black co-creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson have exposed a few secrets in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, which also includes the first image from the show’s second season. It seems that Sarah Manning and Neurolitionist Rachel Duncan’s adversarial first meeting at the end of season 1 has yet to blossom into a loving sisterly bond.
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Sarah has come a long way from the petty thief who was introduced in the pilot episode, and along with her fellow fellow clones (the friendly ones, at least) has managed to track down the people who made them. However, it’s still unclear just how many clones there are altogether and it seems highly unlikely that we’ve seen them all already. When asked if more clones will show up in season 2, Fawcett replied:
“I think of course it’s safe to assume that. We are really excited about doing that. We want to do it in a way that is unexpected. We want to do it at a time that’s unexpected… We have some surprises in store.”
Alongside the dangerously seductive Dr. Aldous Leekie, Rachel has been set up as the new “big bad” for season 2 and, as a clone who has elected to work on the same side as her creators, seems like a great nemesis for the rebellious Sarah. There are still a lot of dangling plot threads left to be resolved from season 1, and Manson promises that Orphan Black is going to come back with a bang:
“Right off the bat we’ve really hit the ground running. We left a lot up in the air, so it’s been a lot of fun figuring out how and when and where those balls land and how they land in unexpected ways. As for Rachel, we did leave last season knowing that Rachel was a child of Neolution, therefore much connected to the origins of the experiment. So I think Rachel is going to help to open a window for us and we ’re going to begin to understand a lot more about the conspiracy.”
Manson categorizes Orphan Black as a “genetic biological mystery” and describes the clone plot as “body horror,” particularly where it concerns Cosima’s unidentified respiratory illness that may already be killing her from the inside. Cosima wasn’t the only clone shown being asked to sign herself over to the Dyad Institute in exchange for safety and answers, and with such tempting offers on the table there’s a serious danger of our favorite clones falling for them.
A lot of people are eager to see what’s coming next on Orphan Black, to the point that Fawcett admits they “had to get a little medieval with security in terms of scripts and sides and scenes for auditions.” Apparently they’re taking a page from the Clone Club rule book.
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Orphan Black season 2 premieres on April 19, 2014 on BBC America.
