Orphan Black: Echoes Finale: Creator Anna Fishko Talks Tatiana Maslany, [Spoiler]’s Fate and Hopes for Season 2
The following contains spoilers for the season finale of Orphan Black: Echoes.
We didn’t catch a cameo from Aunt Cosima or Sarah Manning, but that didn’t stop the Orphan Black: Echoes finale from throwing down two jaw-dropping revelations before the hour was done.
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At the top of the episode, Kira and Eleanor are hustling to find the identities of Darros’ 12 anonymous scans. What they do know: The scanned individuals are all teenagers with no evidence of long-term memory. So when Darros announces a new (and probably evil) launch event, Kira tasks Xander with disabling the printer, while she and Eleanor continue figuring out who the other printouts are. Lucy, meanwhile, vows to save Jules, who turned herself in to Darros in order to save Charlie.
While Darros makes his announcement about finding genius kids in the foster care system who may one day be able to cure cancer or solve world hunger (leaving out the part that they’re all clones, mind you), Eleanor phones Kira with her findings. Darros made copies of an astrophysicist, a Supreme Court judge, a mathematician, etc. — the most talented minds of the last generation. When Kira and Darros finally come face to face, he admits that Jules was his test case for his current project. He wants to make the world better, he says, but Kira accuses him of brainwashing poor souls who have no idea who they really are. Later, Eleanor cracks the identity of the corrupted scan: It’s Kira!
Lucy ultimately frees Jules from her cell with Xander’s help. After they decide they should find and help the new printouts, Darros cuts them off before they can escape… and shoots Jules right in the head. He then introduces Lucy to a new and blonde Jules (still played by Amanda Fix) who’s been printed out and has been living in his compound.
Below, TVLine talks with show creator Anna Fishko about that wild Jules twist, whether a Tatiana Maslany appearance was ever in the cards and what could potentially happen in Season 2.
TVLINE | There have been a lot of bumps in the road this season for Kira and the new Eleanor printout. By finale’s end, it seems like Eleanor might forgive Kira, but how would you explain where we leave that relationship?
ANNA FISHKO | That’s a really good question that no one has asked yet. I think we wanted the sense that Eleanor felt like she could start again. It’s not necessarily about forgiveness, specifically, for what Kira has done, as much as a sense of ‘I’m going to try and make peace with who I am and the place I find myself in the world,’ which is a very complicated place and ‘I’m not going to necessarily think that everything is fine and everything’s the same, but I’m going to start again.’ We’re trying to use that garden that she has back there as a metaphor. So she’s pulling up a lot of weeds and taking the plants out and wanting to plant something new to kind of start again.
TVLINE | In the episode’s most shocking moment, Jules is shot dead. Why does Darros decide he has to kill her and what purpose does that serve for him?
I think he feels like his experiment has kind of gone wrong a little bit [now] that she’s been corrupted. The thing he was trying to accomplish has gone off the rails because Lucy has corrupted this printout of Jules. She now knows too much and she’s never going to really serve the purpose that she was intended for. And so on some level, he feels like she’s just a printout and she’s highly replaceable. I don’t think it feels very emotional for him. I think it’s just a simple solution to a very complicated problem that’s only gotten bigger for him, so he’s just trying to solve his problem and also start over again with the neutrals.
TVLINE | The way the finale ends, it feels like there’s so much more this show can explore. Will there be more?
We’re really hoping for a Season 2. It’s definitely on the table and a conversation that’s ongoing with AMC.
TVLINE | We left Lucy and Jack at this big goodbye. Is there a future for them in a potential Season 2?
That’s kind of hard. That’s a complicated question. I think we have to see where we are when we get there. There might certainly be a place for [Jack] in Season 2, but I think we have to see.
TVLINE | We saw a couple returning characters this season with Felix and Delphine. Was Tatiana Maslany ever approached to reprise one of the Leda clones?
Yeah, she was. We talked about it a lot actually. We had a whole episode set aside for her in the back half of the season, but it just didn’t work out in terms of schedule. Unfortunately she was shooting at exactly the same time we were shooting and we just couldn’t make it work out.
TVLINE | Were there any other characters from the original series that you considered maybe bringing back or ones that didn’t pan out?
No. We’d still love to have Tatiana come back. If we could bring one of the original sister clones back, I think that would be fun and we’d love to do it. So maybe in a second season, the stars would align in terms of scheduling. That would be really great.
So, Clone Club, what did you think about the action-packed closer? Vote in our polls below, then fire away in the comments.
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