Orphan Black premiere recap: 'The Few Who Dare' 

Deep breaths, Clone Club. It’s the beginning of the end.

’s fifth and final season is now officially underway, and after last year’s standout set of episodes, there’s a lot to hope for (and a ton of questions to answer) before we reach the finale. Like Delphine tells Cosima, we’ll just have to “follow the crazy science” and see where it leads all of us.

As in years past, the season’s episode titles are all drawn from a specific text. This time around, they come from “1695,” by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919), which you can read in full here. It features

-friendly themes like fighting against oppression and refusing to be silenced in the face of injustice. With Rachel now firmly in a seat of power and the specter of Neolution looming, it definitely seems fitting.

With that in mind, let’s fire up the Orphan Black Clone Status Hyper-Sequence Generator Calcutron and export the clones in order of who’s in the most danger as we start this highly anticipated sendoff.

It’s obvious immediately who’s in the most clear and present danger: Sarah Manning. Picking up right where season 4 left off, she’s wounded and fending for herself in the woods on the island Susan Duncan calls home. Her cell phone has just enough battery to call Felix and alert him that Mrs. S and Kira have been kidnapped by Ferdinand, but she refuses to come home without finding Cosima first.

Out in that wilderness, she gets a fire going and — stroke of genius! — uses a tampon to bandage that leg wound Rachel so kindly gave her. When she dozes off, a vision of Kira tells her to wake up, and it’s just in the nick of time, because something comes out of the bushes and attacks her. What was that? A man? Some sort of mutated creature? A cloning experiment gone awry? On this show, you never know.

With the help of a tree branch-turned-walking stick, she heads in the direction of the boathouse and mysterious village. Along the way, she encounters metal structures (surveillance cameras? Communications towers?) with hunted game tied to the sides, which seems strange even to one of the armed men tracking Sarah — he’s told to mind his own business, so there’s definitely something shady happening out here. As she hurries/hobbles away from them, she sees something even worse: a wolf, stabbed with a wooden stick and seemingly snacked on, but by what? (Actual quote from my notes: “More mystery s— happening on the island,” which sounds like it could have been an entry from the good ol’ days of watching

So, to put it mildly, things aren’t off to a great fifth-season start for our heroine. And they get even worse from here, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Let’s pair these two together since the Hendrixes are still hiding out at Camp Helena, which is probably more hellish in Alison’s book than losing out on the lead part in the local play. Felix tells them to stay put and to keep an eye on Helena, which seems like two more things Alison would rather not do — so, ready to get out of there and wanting to be part of what’s going on, she tells Donnie to start packing.

Donnie, meanwhile, is faring much better than his wife in this wilderness world: He looks good in plaid and can communicate through bird calls, which means Helena is able to alert him via their “emergency loon call” when she sees men patrolling the woods. As he goes to hide, Alison, unaware anything is wrong, comes outside and is quickly apprehended. She’s brought to Art, which would be lucky except that he has a new partner, Detective Engers (Elyse Levesque) — a Neolution believer with a willingness to threaten Art’s daughter to keep him in line.

Engers wants to know where Helena is, and Alison is both petulant (“Helena was out murdering God’s creatures, and my husband abandoned me!”) and legitimately does not know where her pregnant clone-sister would go if she needed to hide. Art tells her Team Neolution wants a truce: for her and all of her sisters to come in quietly. Since she can’t give them any helpful information, she’s taken home to wait out whatever comes next.

Alison may be under Neolution’s thumb, but Helena is in a much different kind of danger. As Donnie tries to get away by car and is nearly apprehended by another Neo, Helena — still kicking butt while extremely pregnant, like you’d want it any other way — tackles the guy and quickly overpowers him, but is stabbed in the abdomen with a sharp tree branch during the scuffle. She’s bleeding, and she tells Donnie one of the babies was hit. Shout it with me, guys: SAVE HELENA’S BABIES.

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