And there was that smile Delphine hadn’t seen in almost a year – cocky, defiant, cheeky, and so totally Cosima it made her heart melt.
Thank God.
She wouldn’t have blamed Cosima for a moment if she chose to end it, or if she reminded Delphine that there was no relationship to end, because Delphine took care of that already. Instead, Cosima kissed her again, her hands running up Delphine’s back and sides and pulling her closer. Her red wine tongue pushed against hers, rough and desperate, and Delphine’s pushed back.
“Jesus fuck I missed you so much.” Cosima’s mouth whispered profanities against the side of her neck before slathering it with a wet kiss.
Delphine let her head roll to the side and breathed deep, her arms wrapped around Cosima’s shoulders. She smelled different, she noticed – less like cloves and marijuana and more like dead leaves and wool. The Revival smell. “I missed you too,” she breathed.
Summary: After Cosima learns Delphine might be alive in Season 4, she and Sarah sit around talking.
They sat in Cosima’s bed with their backs against the headboard, sharing a joint in silence while the lab machinery blinked away.
“You know,” Cosima said, “I only told her I loved her three times. In our whole weird, convoluted relationship. Three times.”
Pulling herself from her own mental bog, Sarah turned. “Yeah? Well, that’s more than some people get. At least you told her.” She handed the joint back to her sister and watched the smoke drift away. “What was the first time?”
Cosima closed her eyes and gave a half smile. “The first time was when I got her baked in the lab. After I threatened to ruin her career.”
Sarah snorted. “I’m not sure which one’s harder to imagine: Delphine getting baked, or you threatening somebody. How’d you work that into an I love you?”
Sunlight danced in the air overhead when Delphine opened her eyes. She was home, in their bed, in their bedroom, warm and soft and heavy with sleep.
“So, are you, like, gonna stay in bed all day, or what?”
Cosima was beside her, propped up on one elbow and gloriously naked. She didn’t even have her glasses on. Her eyes sparkled golden, the way they did when she was particularly amused by something or pleased with herself. Her skin glowed in the sunlight, begging to be kissed and caressed. She was as beautiful as Delphine had ever seen her, but Delphine could only lay there and look at her.
“Hm?” Cosima cocked her head and a dreadlock fell onto the pillow. “Sleepyhead.” She pulled a joint from behind her ear and moistened the tip with her mouth. “You’ve got too much to do to just sleep, babe. You know that. Come on, get up.”
But Delphine’s arms didn’t work. She felt her body tucked into the covers on the bed, comfortable and so, so weak. She just needed to sleep, to rest, to stay here for a little bit longer….
* * *
Cosima straddled her in the bed, hands flat on either side of Delphine’s head. Her hair was pulled back and her breasts dangled a tantalizing centimeter above Delphine’s chest. And she was grinning. She had that full-face grin Delphine loved so much, the one that said
Let’s get out of here as it stole two bottles of wine from a Dyad function.
It said
Helium is way funnier than polonium!
It said
Enchantée.
You’re the puppy.
It said
I’m so happy you’re back!
And she wasn’t coughing. She was strong and healthy and starting to giggle down at Delphine. “You’re so cute when you’re sleepy,” she said.
Delphine wanted to reach up to her. Stay, she begged. Just stay with me, don’t go, don’t leave. “Nnggggg….” was all she managed to say, and Cosima laughed.
* * *
She was in the Felix’s loft, in his bed, and Cosima sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand. “You gotta get up, babe. I’m serious. You’ve got way too much to do.”
Delphine’s head fell to the side, facing Cosima. She wanted to speak, to tell her that she knew all that. She knew she had things to do, but her mouth wouldn’t move. Every muscle pulled her down into the bed. Her core muscles trembled with the effort just to keep breathing, to keep from disappearing into the scarlet bedsheets and vanishing forever. Vanishing sounded so wonderful, though… maybe she would. But Cosima was holding her hand and tugging, like the leash on a stubborn puppy.
You’re the puppy.
I’m your puppy, she thought.
* * *
Cosima was pacing next to their bed, back in their apartment. Well, Delphine’s apartment, but she’d thought of it as theirs once Cosima spent a few nights there, and started leaving clothes and toiletries around. She was still naked, except for her glasses, and Delphine watched the curves of her ass shift with each step she took away, then the dips and peaks of her hips and pelvic bones when she came back. You’re beautiful, she thought.
“You’re running out of time,” Cosima said. “We’re running out of time. Can’t you just get up? For me?”
And she tried. So help her, God, she tried to get up, but her body stayed put, not one fiber twitching in response to her brain’s request. I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. Just let me rest some more, please…
Cosima wore her rings now, and she spun them around her fingers while she paced. Now and then she adjusted her glasses or ran a hand over her hair. She stopped pacing a few times, to look down at Delphine in the bed, to purse her lips in worry or in frustration. Lie here with me, Delphine thought to her. Terror started creeping in then, as the words refused to come out, as her lips refused to budge, her fingers refused to stretch out to touch Cosima, standing less than a foot away.
“I came back for you,” Cosima said, and her voice broke. “I love you.”
* * *
Crisp reality woke her, and she gasped.
“Ah ha, she’s awake.” A rough masculine cough followed the words. “He will be pleased.”
She pried her eyes opened and saw a circular ceiling with wooden beams slanting from the center. A man leaned over her, close enough that she smelled his breath when he opened his mouth. He smelled like fish. Behind him, an IV pole winked in and out of view as he moved. “Do you know where you are?” he asked. He spoke with an accent that wasn’t North American, but that was as far as her brain went with it.
“Nnnnn…” She flexed her fingers and moved her head from side to side. Then she took a deep breath and the pain hit her so hard she screamed.
“Shhhh….” Someone else came into view, to play with the IV bag, and she drifted off again.
“Dude, are these screwdrivers?” Cosima picked up one of the tall glasses from Alison’s coffee table. Beside her on the couch, Delphine did the same.
“Yes, but don’t drink any now,” Donnie said. “We’re going to play a little game, so you might not wanna get too drunk too early.”
Sitting cross-legged in a chair next to Colin, Felix snorted. “Look at the people here, Donnie. Do we look like an inexperienced bunch?”
Donnie looked around the living room. On the other side of Felix, Adele was working her way through another bottle of wine, and beside her, Alison had just returned with a tray full of snacks. Next to Donnie’s chair, Sarah smirked and propped her feet on the coffee table, careful not to upset any beverages. She and Donnie had just brought some extra chairs in from outside, and Helena draped herself over the ottoman again, the baby monitor flopping on the front of her overalls. Every so often a soft gurgle came from the monitor. Upstairs, Kira, Charlotte, Gemma, and Oscar were all in bed, lulled off to sleep by Adele’s tipsy rendition of The Big Friendly Giant while Helena had read the sisters her own story. Hell-wizard had left with Arthur and Maya earlier in the evening.
Art’s simmering rage at Sarah. I’m glad that he gets on board later and becomes a staunch ally, but considering his relationship with Beth, it would have been unjust for him not to be pissed off for a long time. I almost wish they’d drawn out his anger a little more, actually.
On the same topic, though, I love that Art tapped into Sarah’s compassion and humanity to get her talking. He trusted that she cared about Beth despite everything.
“Is this the part where 20 more of you robot bitches walk in for effect?” Fucking classic, man.
Alison’s little face when she walked away from Aynsley’s house.
“Le Petite Mord” starts playing softly in the background the very second that the door opens to Delphine.
Oh, God, the whole Delphine-arrives-at-Felix’s-place scene. Delphine is smart enough now to know what to say and what not to say to Cosima to convince her to cooperate. She knows better than to tell Cosima she loves her again, but instead she shows her that, by working to crack the code on the computer, and then by holding her when Cosima lets her walls down and confesses that she’s sick. And just look at them…
The scene with Helena and Amelia at Beth’s apartment is perfect. Letting Amelia put her foot in her mouth by criticizing Helena, the way Tatiana just moves differently for each clone, Helena running her hand over Amelia’s, Helena’s pain in facing the woman who gave her to an abusive environment.
Delphine’s poking of Cosima’s back.
The musical score during the final scenes (the emergency crews on Black Oak Dr., Rachel receiving Alison’s paper, Sarah going into Dyad….) was spot on.
What I liked:
This is the first time Sarah calls Helena her sister, and she advocates for her to Siobhan. It’s also the first time Helena calls her “sistra,” though the pronunciation seems different than later on.
On re-watching, Leekie’s smug little smile when he tells Alison her monitor has been lifted and Alison says, “She has?” Son of a bitch knew exactly what he was doing.
I like this as a character note – DeAngelis telling Felix she’ll get him a shitty public defender. It’s so unprofessional, but so her at the same time.
Art and Angie immediately recognized that Alison was a separate person. Too bad not everyone is that smart.
What I didn’t like:
S snooping around in Amelia’s suitcase.
People never just answer fucking questions, do they? Character A asks Character B a direct question, and Character B gives some vague, sideways response that in no way answers the question. Drives me up a frikkin wall.
Oh, God, Vic’s back. And he calls Sarah “the love of my life.” I’m glad the guy’s getting help, but I’d rather he did it off screen.
The scene at Aynsley’s house was hard for me to watch again. It was a great scene, and obviously super critical for the plot, but knowing what I know, I couldn’t watch it again.
Cosima doing a mini infodump about the nucleotides that make up DNA. There’s no way she would have needed to tell Delphine that information. It was strictly an “As you know, Bob, your father, the king…” moment.
The scene with Donnie and Leekie doesn’t fit with Donnie’s later claims that he was just doing an innocent sociology experiment from college.
I have questions:
Amelia gave Sarah “to the state” which we know is the UK, and she gave Helena to “the church” which somehow was Ukraine? How did that geography play out?
Leekie offers to give Cosima a lift to her “hotel.” Did Cosima actually have hotel reservations? Did she cancel them to stay at Felix’s? Or did Leekie give her a ride to Felix’s place? Or somewhere random?
Also, how exactly did he know she’d be at the bus depot? Does he track her credit card purchases and/ or internet transactions? We don’t get the sense that Cosima told Delphine anything other than “I’m leaving.”
Is this:
…the same room Helena was in when she tried to kill Rachel in Season 2? We never see it used as a Dyad office ever again, I don’t think. Which begs the question: How did Helena get in, if it’s in use as a Dyad office?
Also, why the hell is it so dark in there? (Oh, right, Rachel Duncan.)
Who exactly told Rachel about Kira? We’re led to believe Delphine didn’t disclose that, so was it Paul? Was it discovered through some other means?
Where did Helena get the Sarah wig?
How does Amelia survive long enough to talk to Sarah after being stabbed with a knife in the abdomen?
What happened with the torch Helena threw?
In place of the “Previously On” segment, I would have rather seen:
I was going to say, “What else Cosima and Delphine did at Felix’s,” but we saw some of that in Season 5. I mean, I still want more, though.
I had blood work today (and the person who drew my blood was neither hot nor French), so I’m rewarding myself with another episode. And with Chipotle + guac.
Damn if I don’t have a hard time spelling “unconscious.”
Cosima should’ve dug a little bit deeper into Dyad a little bit sooner, shouldn’t she?
What I loved:
I always love Tat’s acting, but she hits it out of the park when characters need to cry. Sarah’s pain in the beginning is palpable.
The dangling toys/ mobile motif in Kira’s room that’s repeated with Helena’s children at the end.
Alison’s cleaning montage, although I would’ve reacted in the exact same way as Felix to someone cleaning my house without permission. I had a housemate’s mother do that once, and she took all the stickers off of my Nalgene bottle by soaking it. My campers gave me those stickers, bitch. She also used WAY too much of my Seventh Generation dish soap, and that shit ain’t cheap. Anyway.
The shotgun makes its first appearance.
I loved that Donnie stood up for himself early in the intervention,
calling Alison out on the specific ways she’s hurt him. I hope that these two were able to really talk through some of this later on, once she could be 100% honest with him, because she really did some nasty things.
Cosima’s lab look:
Speaking of Cosima…
Cosima’s been catty before, mostly with Sarah, but we finally see claws come out here. “It showed.” OUCH. It says a lot about Delphine, too, that she’s so hurt by that. If she had no emotional investment in Cosima, she would have stayed and kept trying, but she wanted Cosima to like being with her the same way she liked being with Cosima. So she tucked her tail between her legs and left.
And Alison. “You BLEEEEW the roofer at the cabin!” Say it, girl.
What I liked:
The process of Helena coming to Sarah’s side. We saw it before, in her refusal to kill Sarah and the nuggets of abuse we saw, but it continues, obviously culminating with her attack of Thomas, who frankly deserved worse.
Siobhan’s face and intonation upon meeting Paul. She appreciates a good looking man.
The pastor telling Felix “Oh, that’s perfectly fine” showcases the attempts made to appear understanding or progressive without necessarily being such. If you need to go out of your way to say that being gay is “perfectly fine,” you’re trying to cover for some less-than-fine-ness in your group.
Helena’s animalistic nature coming out when she’s caged. She’s not even speaking, just making noises. She even looks a bit like an angry gorilla when she howls at Thomas, but I couldn’t get a good screenshot of it.
When Art realizes exactly what’s been going on for the past nine episodes.
Oh, hello Rachel Duncan. I forgot you showed up in this one. With your windows.
I’m glad they had an African woman as Sarah and Helena’s birth mother. Often, when people search for their birth parents, they are looking, in part, for a genetic connection. Sarah obviously can’t get that from her birth mother, and the visual difference helps to show that, indeed, she was the product of science, not sex.
What I didn’t like:
I have a hard time believing Felix would let his toilet get dirty enough for Alison to make that face. This is a man who makes a living having sex with people, often at his own home. He needs to be clean for that to work out for him. A nasty toilet would be a deal breaker for some clients.
Alison’s treatment of Felix is actually a little discomfiting. There’s a real trend of straight women treating gay men like fashionable accessories, rather than people who deserve their own lives and their own space. Felix deserved to rest after a very traumatic evening in the hospital.
Sarah’s “conversation” with Art seemed like a waste of time. Neither of them got anything out of it, and neither did the audience.
Like Alison’s friends couldn’t hear what she was saying to Felix in the bathroom. That’s a standard-issue Home Depot door, not an air lock.
The Helena wig slips some in the confrontation with Thomas and Sarah.
I have questions:
How much does Thomas know about the clones? He dismisses the possibility of Sarah having a child, but does he know why it shouldn’t be possible? Leekie says he infiltrated the project, but how far? If he’s opposed to science, I don’t imagine Thomas has an advanced degree that would give him access to the actual science.
Why is Donnie’s mother at the intervention but Alison’s own mother is not?
How is this the first time someone’s seen the platform security footage? Why didn’t they look over it in episode one when they were trying to determine a motive for the suicide?
How did Donnie feel about Chad sleeping with Alison?
How does Thomas still have eyes after Helena dug her thumbs into them? Come to think of it, who lets him out of the cage? Was it the Mark-type-Proletheans? I’ll get back to that later.
In place of the 1 minute “Previously on” segment, I would have rather seen:
More of Alison cleaning Felix’s place.
Something else to show us that Delphine had fallen for Cosima BEFORE Cosima dropped a truth bomb on her. I dunno, maybe show them cuddling in bed, or getting coffee, or something. The lab kiss was nice, but brief.
Yay, a short title! Spoiler alert for entire series as always.
“Totally encouraging”
What I loved:
This shot of Siobhan’s house. You just know that there’s a nice cozy blanket and some hot chocolate inside. Maybe some Christmas music playing. Also, Siobhan’s brusqueness upon answering the door to cops said a LOT about her.
“You know, maybe it was your sunny personality that gave you away.” Ah, Cosima.
“It’s every freak for herself.”
This scene, because it’s so Sister/Brother. “It smells like a foot, only worse because it’s yours.”
In a similar vein, I love Siobhan’s dynamic with both of her kids. “I was tempted to claim the remains and feed them to you both on toast.”
Speaking strictly visually, um, THIS: Yeah, Dyad knew exactly what they were doing when they got Delphine to monitor the lesbian.
Cosima is so sweet with Delphine, checking on her to make sure she’s okay after her very first time with a woman, and not entirely buying it when Delphine says she’s fine. We don’t know much (okay, anything) about Delphine’s past except her relations with Leekie, but I imagine that Cosima’s treatment of her is noticeably different than the treatment she’s gotten from men in her life.
S taking the bottle away from Alison and calling her chicken. She’s mothering her already.
What I liked:
“Cosima filled me in, and I’m taking a break from you, too.” It’s nice to be reminded here that these women do not know each other all that well, yet. The concept of a Sestra-hood doesn’t yet exist. Alison and Cosima have every right to be suspicious of Sarah (in fact, they’ve been sort of surprisingly not suspicious beyond episode, like, 3 or 4), and it’s logical for them to chafe at her attempts to control them.
Alison smells the pot and goes for it like my cat goes for ham.
Paul’s almost smiling here! Conspiring with a clone must be good for him.
Chad makes an attempt to stop Alison from digging herself in deeper with her flirting. Bless him for trying.
The soundtrack people for this show are on fucking fire. “I’m a bitch” indeed! I’ve seen that scene so many times, and it still makes me cackle.
“Bad things have happened to me” as though you didn’t cause any of them, Alison!
Leekie’s immediate “Shut up, Olivier.”
This look, obvs. Of course, she really should’ve been wearing less, because, as EVERYONE has said, who the hell has sex with their bra on? I’ll give them some slack for their underwear because it’s a whole other level of intimacy to touch someone’s actual genitals, but bras?? Come on, that’s just uncomfortable.
The way Delphine goes from gushing about Cosima’s accomplishments researching her own biology and contacts with other clones to saying, super casually, “Well, some of them seem to be dead.” Delphine’s not quite at the “love all clones equally” stage just yet.
What I didn’t like:
This isn’t a dislike because it’s bad plot. In fact, it’s very good plot, but I have a hard time watching Alison’s treatment of Aynsley prior to the Chad-fucking scene. Aynsley is trying her goddamn best to be a good friend.
Y’all know I love me some Cophine, but I have a hard time watching their make out scene here. Even knowing what I know now, it’s hard for me to buy that Delphine actually meant it, because of the way it’s placed in the show. We’re not supposed to trust her here, and I don’t, even though later on I will. I still have a hard time believing that she’s not only there because Leekie told her to be.
Delphine started to sit up in bed almost before Cosima closed the door behind her. She was damn lucky Cosima didn’t forget something and come back two minutes later.
I’m happy Olivier’s gone, but I couldn’t watch his death scene a second time.
Goddamn it, Cosima, put a password on that flashdrive. Or, at the very least, don’t leave your monitor alone in your apartment! Item one in “Cosima makes poor decisions when pussy is involved.”
I have questions…
How the hell did Leekie know that Cosima was in contact with the others? No, seriously. In the car with Delphine he said he needs to know “how many” of the others she’s in contact with. How the fuck did he find out that she had contacted any of them?
Did Alison’s abuse of Donnie come up at Couple’s Camp?
Is Felix always the one who has to clean the sheets after other people have sex in his bed? Poor Felix.
What are the papers stuffed in Delphine’s books here? Was she actually sitting in on classes and doing assignments, or did she carefully construct the books-and-papers prop in Leekie’s hotel room? Speaking of, is that where she’s staying this whole time, or did they get her a student apartment? Also, as magical as her hair is, it’s not made of wool, so how have her ears not frozen off yet?
Looking back, at what point did Aynsley go from “Let’s do magic mushrooms!” to “ape shit” at Chad for smoking a joint in the parking lot?
What would’ve happened if Cosima had Eskimo Pies in her freezer already, and hadn’t gone to the store? (That could make a nice little canon-divergent fic…)
What exactly held Delphine back from disclosing Kira’s existence to Leekie? I mean, we’re supposed to see it as Delphine’s coming over to Cosima’s side and mistrusting Leekie, but there’s not much background given to support her decision.
I have questions about Alison’s comment that “We’re all messed up, except you, Sarah.” First of all, has she MET Sarah Manning? She knows who Sarah is and what her background is, so why is she suddenly claiming she’s not messed up? And how, exactly, does she think Cosima’s messed up? Is it a subtle bit of homophobia from Alison?
Instead of the 1 minute “Previously on” segment, I would’ve rather seen:
Cosima and Delphine actually fucking, obvs. We see (okay, mostly hear) more fucking from Alison and Chad than from Cophine. The only reason we know for sure that Cosima and Delphine had actual sex is because Delphine says they did. Otherwise I would think maybe they hadn’t.
Ce Ucumatli 