Orphan Black magazine by Anna Clara Miranda

Just one. I’m a few. No family too.

WHO AM I?

INSIDE THE SCI-FI SERIES

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Sarah and Helena

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T he C lones

“THERE WAS A WOMAN IN CONVENT LIKE YOU. YOU TOUCH HER AGAIN AND I WILL GUT YOU LIKE A FISH.” — Helena

Sarah

and Helena are a product of the cloning project LEDA and were born around 1984. Their birth mother, Amelia, was apparently approached by scientists posing as a couple who needed a surrogate mother to deliver their child via in-vitro fertilization. Realizing that the children in her were special and possibly in danger, Amelia ran and delivered twins: Helena and Sarah Manning. Unable to provide for them and knowing the danger the children were in, she gave them away. Sarah became an orphan and was eventually taken in by Mrs. S, while Helena was given to a convent in Ukraine. Sarah’s life began in an English orphanage and was bounced between foster homes until she ended up in Carlton’s pipeline as a “child in the black”. Carlton then handed her over to Mrs. S. Sarah has a mainly antagonistic relationship with people associated with the Dyad Institute, mainly Rachel Duncan and

Aldous Leekie. Their interests, Sarah’s and theirs, rarely coincide. Sarah is a natural chameleon, street-smart and tough, a born outsider living on the fringes by her wits. According to Cosima, she possess a sense of humor that Beth did not. Despite having a morally ambiguous compass, Sarah tries her best to set things right for the sake of closing the door on her past, having a sufficient amount of money, skipping town with Felix and ultimately, to reunite with her beloved but estranged daughter, Kira. Helena is at once psychotic and childlike. Despite being a proven killer, capable of firing a sniper rifle and wielding a unique fish pommelled dagger as her close range weapon of choice, she enjoys sugary products and exhibits childlike mannerisms at times. She appears to have spent much of her time in the ramshackle abode with Tomas and Maggie.

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Alison Hendrix 4

T he C lones

Alison is a most unusual suburban wife. Married to

Donnie Hendrix, and (adoptive) mother of Oscar and Gemma, her yoga pant-wearing, craftmaking, soccer coaching exterior is a smooth front for who she really is: a pill-popping, gun-toting, alcohol-addicted murderer and adulterer. But after Donnie comes clean about his own clumsy murder, the two find a lost passion in their commise’rating. Now sober and recommitted to Team Hendrix, Alison intends to keep her eye on the prize: helping her sisters and keeping her family safe. But suburban life is never as quiet and simple as you. Alison Hendrix

Alison went to St. Thomas High School, where she was a cheerleader and became the valedictorian. She met her now husband Donnie in college. When Katja Obinger came to Beth, Beth was able to track down Alison and Cosima, and the trio soon found out about their nature as clones. For a long time, it was just the three of them who looked out for each other, while they asked Katja to give them data on the Europeans. Wanting to protect her family, Alison was taught by Beth how to shoot a gun and keeps a Glock of her own. During this time, Beth was able to contribute with access to records only a cop can access, Cosima with her intellect, and Alison found herself useful by contributing largely to their substantial sum, which Beth used to buy information they couldn’t get officially. In Community of Dreadful Fear, Alison is told by her mother, Connie, that she was conceived in vitro due to her father’s low motility. However, Connie secretly had the clinic find a sperm donor, confessing that Alison’s father was not her real father. Connie justified her actions as trying to give her daughter “every opportunity from day one”. In Ins-

“OH, I KNOW. YOU’RE NOT A TOOLS GUY, ARE YOU?” — Alison, to Donnie tinct, Sarah Manning manages to track Alison through her address that Katja had in her briefcase. Sarah confronts her, wanting answers, but she sends Sarah away, insisting that explaining to her is not her responsibility. Alison is also furious that Sarah had risked approaching her, given that her children are close by, and is disbelieving when Sarah tells her that Beth had killed herself. The day after their confrontation, Alison calls Sarah and tells her to come to her house with Katja’s briefcase after 9PM. That night, Sarah shows up and Alison, holding a gun, tells her not to wake her kids or she will shoot her. Then, Cosima Niehaus, another clone, comes into the room, much to Sarah’s surprise. In Variation Under Nature, Clone club meets

in Alison’s living room. Still wound up, Alison gives it to Sarah straight: they are clones, someone’s experiment, and that they are being killed off. Alison is taken away from the meeting though when her daughter Gemma wakes up and sees them. Sarah is impatient foster brother, Felix, sneaks into her backyard and is caught by Alison. She points a gun at him in panic until Sarah manages to calm her down. Despite this, Sarah slaps and threatens her afterwards for pointing a gun at Felix. Alison and Sarah meet again when Sarah, needing to continue playing cop, is booked a day at the shooting range by her partner Art. Alison can teach her. Sarah tells Alison that she needs to learn today, she has no one to watch her kids. At Sarah’s suggestion, Alison has Felix babysit Oscar and Gemma. In a field, Alison teaches Sarah how to shoot the same way Beth taught her some time before. While Sarah learns, she also asks questions about Beth. Afterwards, Alison tells Sarah that her children can’t know that Alison is a “freak”. “Things have to stay on a need-to-know basis.”, she said at the time.

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Cosima Niehaus

T he C lones

“RIGHT. I’M 324B21.” — Cosima discovering her “tag number”

Cosima Niehaus is a clo-

ne of American origin on Orphan Black. Much of Cosima’s past is still unknown, except that she is from San Francisco, California, studied at UC Berkeley, and is currently completing her PhD in Experimental Evolutionary Developmental Biology at the University of Minnesota.

The actress, Tatiana Maslany, who plays the clones, uses music to differentiate the clones. Her playlist for Cosima is electronica, including artists such as Diplo and Grimes. Maslany has described it as “beeps and boops kind of stuff”.

Cosima is an eccentric tattooed queer geek girl with a scientific mind verging on genius. She’s dependable, incredibly caring, brave, driven to find answers and, like Sarah, adaptable to extreme circumstances. She also tends to diverge on scientific topics and can talk relatively fast when she gets excited. She befriended Sarah, whilst she was under the guise of Beth shortly fter the death of fellow clone, Katja Obinger. Since then, Cosima has aided Sarah in her pursuit of their true origin, alongside Alison. After discovering that the individual whom she had become intimate with was also acting as her monitor,

Cosima is always wearing her round glasses. In the picture above, she is smiling to Delphine when they first met.

And she is always on the phone.

Cosima fled to Canada from the United States to join Sarah. The reason that Cosima wears glasses and her clones do not is due to the fact that her sight degenerated due to her environment and conditions. She studies just too much. In an interview, Tatiana states that the writers mentioned to her that Cosima was bisexual, though Tatiana (Maslany, the actress) feels that Cosima simply just loves people.Despite this Cosima refers to herself as a lesbian in Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate whilst making a speech as Alison.

A nna C l ar a M i r anda